APPLIED PROJECT ASSIGNMENT
Purpose
• Collect data on a group of 5 students academic skill and/or target behavior
• Identify research based strategies used to help students grow in the target skill/ behavior
• Design and implement an educational strategy (interactive read aloud) to systematically address the target skill/behavior
• Collect data on the target skill/behavior as the intervention is being implemented
• Analyze and draw conclusions from the data collected
• Communicate findings using evidence of best practice from current research
1: Identify students and a target behavior
Identify 5 students on whom you will base this applied project. Identify an area of need/target skill/ behavior. This target skill/behavior can be an area where the students need extra help or an area for continued growth. You will need to define this skill/behavior in terms that are a) observable and b) measurable. Be very specific about the target behavior.
2: Write the Introduction Section
The introduction section of your paper sets the tone and purpose for the proposal. The section will be composed of several parts:
Introductory Paragraphs
You introduce your reader to what you are going to do in the applied project including a statement of the purpose of the project. This introduction should include brief introductory information about the project and should utilize references from peer reviewed articles. Additionally, the introduction to discuss how developmentally applied practice will relate to this project.
Context including Subject and Environment
Include two or three paragraphs on the Contextual Factors/School context. To do so, provide information about Waverly School, number of students, number of teachers, stability/turnover of staff and administration, ethnic makeup of the school, socio-economic status, proportion of second language learners if appropriate, AIMS scores if appropriate, parental involvement, etc. Also be sure to provide information about the students, their abilities, socio-economic status level, and performance in school if such data is available, etc. You can also include specific details about interests as well as academics. Try to provide enough detail in this section so the reader has a clear understanding of the context and the student(s) with whom you will be working. Specific details are necessary in this section.
Description of Target/Skill Behavior
Target skill/behavior in terms that are observable and measurable. Pick a very specific skill/behavior. Provide an overview of strengths and weakness for the student(s) in relation to the target skill/behavior (what they can and cannot do) as well as identify the specific observable and measurable target skill/behavior. Describe the context in which the target skill/ behavior occurs (setting, activity, etc.) and describe if any interventions (teaching strategies) have been previously tried to address this target skill/behavior, please describe those as well.
The introduction section of the paper will be approximately 5-8 paragraphs in length. Paragraphs must be utilized and must be tabbed to indent the start of each paragraph.
3: Collect Baseline Data
These data are collected BEFORE any intervention (teaching strategy) is implemented. So, once the target skill/behavior has been identified, begin to collect data on this specific skill/behavior. Measure in frequency or duration and chart in a graph as well as described. The data must include a minimum of five (5) data entries, preferably spanning consecutive days. The idea is to show a stable baseline.
4: Baseline Data Section of paper
reported in 2 ways: 1) in a line graph or bar graph and 2) in narrative form. The graph may be embedded within the paper, or included within the paper as an appendix at the end. In the second part of this section, a brief analysis of the data will be provided. This analysis should describe what the data mean and report any trends seen in the initial set of data. This section of the paper will be approximately 2 paragraphs in length. When putting the final draft of your project together, this section will begin the Results Section of the paper.
Step 5: Research Intervention Strategies
Peer Reviewed Articles already chosen. narrow the focus to five (5) research articles which directly utilize this intervention.
Step 6: Write the Literature Review section of the paper
The review of literature should be reported in the following way.
Introductory Paragraph
What aspects of the literature are you reviewing? This includes a statement related to content (academic area, social area), an overview of the types of studies located and age/grade levels included in the articles located.
Intervention
Present recently conducted research on the intervention (teaching strategy) in a synthesized way. Discuss how each article utilized the intervention, similarities and differences and report generalized findings of all interventions combined. It is important that you describe the information from the articles in as much detail as possible, but also do so with the information from the articles synthesizes. To do this, you can describe the similarities and differences amongst the ages of the student(s), skills the intervention (teaching strategy) address, implementation of procedures, settings, outcomes, limitations and future recommendations made by the authors. A peer reviewed research article will have this information included in each section. If the article you have found does not have this information, it probably is not the best choice to include as one of the five (5) articles used in the review of literature. You can still include this practitioner type of article; just make sure you have five (5) other, research based articles.
Summary
Based on the information presented, write 1 paragraph that summarizes the findings, introduces the intervention (teaching strategy) as it will be used in your project and describe briefly how strategy could be implemented in a developmentally appropriate way. This is meant to be a transition paragraph between the review of literature and method section of the paper. This entire review of literature section will be approximately 3 pages in length and anchored in evidence-based findings.
Step 7: Write the Method Section
Provides details about the students, materials, procedures, etc. you will use in your applied project. Be specific as you write the various parts of the Method section. This should include enough detail that anyone could read the proposal and implement it in the same way.
Use the following headings to write your method section.
Participants
In this part, provide information about the students, their abilities, SES level, and performance in school if such data are available, etc. You have previously provided some of this information in the introduction section, so this is just a brief review. Highlight areas related to current level of functioning and baseline data.
Materials
In this section, describe any materials you will need to implement this intervention (teaching strategy) as well as procedures for utilizing materials as needed. Describe who will be using the materials, and if you are using teacher created materials, describe how they are constructed. If you are utilizing premade materials (e.g. a reading series) describe the materials in detail.
Intervention
In this section, describe in great detail the intervention you will use in your action research project including the intervention, components of the intervention and if you are focusing on one part of an intervention package, how often the intervention was implemented. This section will be approximately 2 paragraphs (or more).
Procedures
In this section, describe in great detail the procedures you will use to implement the intervention. This will include how the teaching strategy will be implemented Provide sufficient detail a colleague who is unfamiliar with your project could implement it in her classroom if she chose to do so. Think of this as similar to the type of information that would be included in a lesson plan. If you are creating materials, include samples of the materials in an appendix. Be sure to discuss when the strategy will be implemented, where the strategy will be implemented, the duration of time for each intervention session as well as step by step student and teacher procedures. This section is typically at least 1-2 pages in length
Data Collection
Describe the data collection procedure in detail. You must include quantitative (something with a number) data that are collected in the same way as your baseline data. Additionally, you will want to collect qualitative data. This qualitative data can be daily notes from your perspective as well as anecdotal observations on students you collect while doing the project (field notes, journals, observational data collection, etc). Be certain to include step by step procedures for how to collect data.
Step 8: Implement the Intervention
Implement the intervention with your student group in the classroom following your Methods Section. An organizational plan for implementing your intervention, collecting data, and recording qualitative data helps at this point of your project. You should plan to implement your intervention over the course of five weeks and /or collect sufficient data points to show ample change from the baseline data points. You must include quantitative (numeric) data collection that is collected in the same way as your baseline data. Additionally, you will collect qualitative data while implementing the intervention. This qualitative data can be daily notes from your perspective as well as anecdotal observations on students you collect while doing the project (field notes, journals, observational data collection, etc.)
Step 9: Write the Results Section
There are two parts to the results of this paper. The first part is a report of the result data collected. Data will be reported in 2 ways:
1. In a line or bar graph which is a continuation of the graph utilized to report baseline data and
2. In narrative form. The graph may be embedded within the paper, or included within the paper as an appendix at the end. The narrative report is simply a report of the data in sentence form.
In the second part of this section, a brief analysis of the results will be provided. This analysis should describe what the data mean and report any trends seen in the total set of data. At this point, the intervention data should be compared to baseline data and any changes or trends should be highlighted. This section of the paper will be approximately 2-3 paragraphs in length. Baseline data will be reported in the Results section of the final applied project.
Step 10: Write the Discussion Section
Overview of the findings and the summary of the paper. In this section you describe how outcomes of intervention are clearly tied back to results from previous literature and any implications results have for the classroom context. Additional overall implications of intervention should also be discussed. Within this section, you should recommend next steps and acknowledge any limitations that are presented. Finally, a conclusion section (1-2 paragraphs) should provide a reflection of the process that demonstrates understanding of intervention process as well as developmentally appropriate practice. This section will be 2-3 pages in length.
