Additional information
| Dimensions | 8.5 × 11 in |
|---|---|
| Cover | Paperback |
| Dimensions (W) | 8 1/2" |
| Dimensions (H) | 11" |
| Page Count | 58 |
| Publisher | Edge Enterprises, Inc. |
| Year Printed | 1998 |
| Requirements |
Quality Assignment Routine
Joyce A. RademacherDonald D. Deshler
Jean B. Schumaker
B. Keith Lenz
What about all those groans that can be heard after an assignment is given? What about those students who don’t turn in their assignments? A new approach to these issues, called the Quality Assignment Routine, involves students in planning their own assignments. Research has shown that when students are involved in deciding what they will do, their motivation to do it actually increases, as does the likelihood that the project will be completed and be of better quality.
This guidebook is full of all kinds of useful information. It shows teachers how to involve students in planning assignments that will both benefit and motivate them. In addition, it provides a set of steps that teachers can use for introducing assignments and another set of steps students can use to make sure they understand an assignment once it has been given. Further, it provides a simple process students can use to check the quality of all of their assignments before they hand them in for grading.
$10.50
Description
Research on the Quality Assignment Routine
Overview
The Quality Assignment Routine is used by teachers to plan course assignments, introduce those assignments to their students, and evaluate students’ performance on the assignments. The research on this routine was conducted in two phases. In Phase I, 10 middle-school teachers, 14 students with learning disabilities (LD), and 13 students without disabilities participated in focus groups that discussed and listed factors related to planning and introducing quality assignments. Next, a survey was developed based on the written responses collected during the focus-group meetings. This survey was completed by 71 teachers, 71 students with LD, and 102 students without disabilities. The students were enrolled in grades 6 through 8.
Twelve middle-school general education teachers participated in Phase II, where the routine developed in Phase I was implemented in classrooms. Six teachers were trained to implement the routine in inclusive general education social studies classes in which students with LD were enrolled. A multiple-baseline across-teachers design was used to depict the experimental teachers’ observed performance as they planned, introduced, and evaluated assignments. The remaining six teachers served as comparisons. A satisfaction questionnaire was administered to all the teachers and their students.
Results
In Phase I, the focus groups and the survey yielded 12 assignment characteristics and 9 teacher explanation factors deemed by students to be important for teachers to include as they plan and present assignments. Such assignments characteristics as the assignment has clear, well-organized directions, allows for interpersonal interactions, is personally relevant to students, provides opportunities for creative expression, and allows for student choices were identified. Teacher explanation factors such as stating the purpose of the assignment, explaining the criteria for quality work, naming available resources, and providing examples or models were also identified.
All of these assignment characteristics and teacher explanation factors were built into the Quality Assignment Routine that was taught to the teachers in Phase II. Before training, the six experimental teachers performed a mean of 45% of the planning behaviors, 36% of the presentation behaviors, and 11% of the evaluation behaviors identified in Phase I.
All of the teachers exhibited improvements in their performance immediately after training. They performed a mean of 99% of the planning behaviors, 97% of the presentation behaviors, and 93% of the evaluation behaviors after training. Similarly, at the beginning of the study, the comparison teachers performed a mean of 47% of the planning behaviors, 30% of the presentation behaviors, and 8% of the evaluation behaviors. The comparison teachers showed no gains at the end of the study by performing a mean of 41% of the planning behaviors, 27% of the presentation behaviors, and 3% of the evaluation behaviors.
Analyses of variance and multivariate analysis of variance were conducted to determine whether there were differences between the two groups of teachers’ behaviors. No differences were found between the teachers at the beginning of the study. After the experimental teachers had received training, significant differences were found between the groups with regard to the number of validated assignment characteristics contained in the assignments [F(1, 6) = 355.70, p = .000], the number of explanation factors included in the verbal presentation of the assignments [F(1, 9) = .342.20, p = .000], and the number of evaluation behaviors used by the teachers [F(1, 6) = 948.33, p = .000], in favor of the experimental group for each measure.
With regard to satisfaction, the experimental teachers’ satisfaction with factors related to their assignments, their presentation of assignments, and their students’ reaction to and performance on assignments substantially increased after they received training and had used the routine several times. They were very satisfied with most of the factors except for two, which related to student effort on checking the quality of their work. The mean satisfaction ratings of the comparison teachers at the end of the study were similar to or below the mean ratings of the experimental teachers during the baseline condition. The comparison teachers at the end of the study and the experimental teachers at the beginning of the study indicated that they were not satisfied with factors related to assignments. When the ratings of the experimental teachers and the comparison teachers were compared at the end of the study using a one-way analysis of variance, a significant difference was found [F(1, 10) = 16.60, p = .002], in favor of the ratings of the experimental teachers. A significant difference was also found in the experimental teachers’ satisfaction ratings before and after they had used the routine [F(1, 5) = 387.20, p = .000], in favor of the post-intervention ratings.
The students of experimental teachers were generally more satisfied with factors related to assignments than the students of comparison teachers. When the ratings of the student groups were compared, no differences were found between the ratings of the experimental students during baseline and the ratings of the comparison students at the end of the study. When the ratings of the experimental students and the comparison students were compared at the end of the study using a one-way analysis of variance, a significant difference was found [F(2, 84) = 2144.12, p = .000], in favor of the ratings of the experimental students. A significant difference was also found in the experimental students’ satisfaction ratings before and after their teachers had used the routine [F(1, 171) = 33.43, p = .000], in favor of the post-intervention period.
Conclusions
The focus-group results and the survey results gathered in Phase I showed that students with and without disabilities had substantial agreement on the characteristics of quality assignments and teacher explanation factors. Teachers and students agreed on most characteristics and factors except those related to student choice. Students rated the opportunity to make choices highly, and teachers did not.
The Phase II results demonstrated that teachers can learn to include validated characteristics in their assignments and to present and evaluate assignments according to a finite routine. The teachers who learned the routine were substantially and significantly more satisfied with their assignments than before they learned the routine. They were also significantly more satisfied with their assignments than the comparison teachers at the end of the study. The teachers’ use of the routine was associated with higher student satisfaction with assignments.
Reference
Rademacher, J. (1993). The development and validation of a classroom assignment routine for mainstream settings. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Lawrence: The University of Kansas.
About the Author
Joyce Rademacher, Ph.D
Affliations
- Professor of Special Education
- Texas Woman’s University
- Denton, TX
- Certified SIM Professional Development Specialist
- University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning
- Lawrence, KS
My Background and Interests
My interest in teaching began when I was in first grade. I loved “teaching school” during my elementary years and recruited younger children in the neighborhood to be my “students.” Thus, I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I enrolled at Texas Lutheran College in 1960: to become a teacher. I loved observing in the schools as part of my course requirements, and I was particularly interested in the students who struggled to learn. During my junior year, I transferred to the University of Houston to complete my degree because that institution began to offer an endorsement in special education. Since my graduation in 1964, I have gained knowledge and experience from a number of perspectives. Because I was a military wife, I experienced many moves. As a result, I had an opportunity to work in a variety of settings throughout the country. For example, I have taught students with mild mental retardation in self-contained classrooms and students with learning disabilities in a resource room. I have also worked as a special education consulting teacher and as an educational therapist in a hospital setting for adolescents with emotional/behavior disorders. In addition to my special education experiences, I was also a general education teacher for students in grades one, four, five, and six. Prior to completing my doctoral studies at the University of Kansas in 1993, I was an elementary school principal. I am currently a Professor of Special Education at Texas Woman’s University where I prepare teachers at the undergraduate and graduate levels to teach students with disabilities. I am also an active member of the Strategic Instruction Model Professional Development Network. My research interests focus on issues related to teacher preparation and on the research and development of instructional methods that can be used to teach students how to learn and be successful in inclusive settings.
The Story Behind the Quality Assignment Routine
My idea for the Quality Assignment Routine originated during the time I was a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in 1990. I distinctly remember attending a Council for Learning Disabilities conference in Austin, Texas, that year. The keynote speaker was Dr. Edward Deci. Dr. Deci spoke about his research on self-determination. He described the many classrooms he had visited in which he had observed students actively engaged in classroom learning activities that did not fit the typical “worksheet” format. He stated that student interest in learning in those classrooms appeared to be high; they were having fun and were acting excited about learning compared to students in the classrooms in which students were completing multiple worksheets to demonstrate their mastery of knowledge and skills. I had observed the same phenomenon over the years.
Later, I consulted with my doctoral advisors (Jean Schumaker and Don Deshler) and explained to them that I was interested in conducting research with both students and teachers to identify what they believed to be the characteristics of assignments students enjoyed completing while meeting important learning goals. In addition, I wanted to explore the necessary instructional procedures for teaching students how to be successful in assignment completion. They approved my plan.
To identify teacher and student perceptions on the characteristics for planning and presenting high-quality assignments, I conducted focus-group discussions and survey research with middle-school teachers and academically diverse classes of students. Their ideas, coupled with what I gleaned from the literature on student motivation and assignment completion, resulted in the planning and presentation phase of the Assignment Completion Routine. Also, because effective assignment completion habits are life skills, the REACT Strategy and the PACE 1, 2… Assignment Checking Routine were developed and included in the Quality Assignment Routine. The lessons related to these strategies teach students how to listen to and record important assignment information and then how to check their work for quality before turning it in to the teacher.
My Thoughts about the Quality Assignment Routine
I have observed teachers using the Quality Assignment Routine in upper elementary, middle-school, high-school, and university classrooms. I have seen teachers become very creative in their use of the routine as they plan motivating and meaningful assignments. While practice worksheets still have a place in their assignment completion practices, teachers see the value of planning fewer and better assignments that engage students in personally relevant and meaningful ways. My student teachers have used the routine to plan and present technology- infused assignments with their students. Research on the success of this project was published and has been presented at national conferences. During my work in a Professional Development School in Dallas, I observed a sixth-grade teacher consistently engaging Assignment Expert Teams of diverse learners in planning and presenting assignments to the class. She reported improved grades and increased assignment completion rates over a grading period as a result of the students’ involvement. This research has also been published and presented at national conferences. Finally, the routine is very successful in university classrooms. Professors who use the routine are able to model effective assignment completion procedures for their students. Several of my colleagues and I consistently require a Personal Choice Assignment each semester. Our students select a course competency and complete the Quality Assignment Planning Sheet to develop their assignment based on that competency. Once their assignment is approved by the instructor, students complete the assignment, evaluate it for quality, and present it to the class. Research on the effectiveness of Personal Choice Assignments with university students has also been documented and published.
Teacher and Student Feedback on this Product
Teachers and students report their satisfaction with the routine. In particular, they like the way the routine helps students record the assignment and evaluate it for quality before they hand it in to be graded. One sixth-grade teacher who used the routine reported that one of her students who was promoted to seventh grade returned a year later to tell her how he still used PACE 1, 2… to check his finished work.
Teachers also report on the motivating impact of offering students a variety of choices in the planning and presentation of high-quality assignments. When students have a choice of when and how to complete parts of the assignment, it gives them a sense of control and a way to express their learning in a more creative way. Likewise, professors who have incorporated the routine into their courses report that their students frequently state how much more they learn when they are allowed to create personally relevant assignments based on critical course content.
My Contact Information
Joyce Rademacher, Ph.D
Professor of Special Education
Department of Teacher Education
Texas Woman’s University
P.O. Box 425769
Denton, TX 76204-5769
Email: jrademacher@twu.edu
Work Phone: 940-898-2272
