Action Research Focus Statement: Functional Life Skills are part of life that many of us learn and take for granted. How often do you pay attention to the steps to do a load of laundry, or the equipment needed and the steps it takes to wash dishes correctly? When you are a student with special needs learning those everyday life skills can be a challenge. As a teacher how do I make that process easier? The Action Research process will guide the path I take using Web 2.0 tools to engage my students as we explore everyday functional life skills and academic curriculum. The challenge to teach functional life skills, and academic curriculum while fully engaging students will be addressed through this research project

Action Research Forecast Video

This short video gives  you a description of what my Action Research Project is about.

Target Audience: The cycle 1 target audience is the students of the Life Skills special education program at Freeport High, in Freeport, IL. The learners are students with a variety of mental and physical disabilities, presented as Autism, Fragile X Syndrome, Downs Syndrome, Cognitive Disabilities, Tourettes syndrome, and Learning Disabilities. IQ’s range from 45 to 70’s, with academic levels covering pre-primer to 4th grade. Learners are 14 through 21 years of age. The demographics of my class is as follows: 7 girls, 12 boys, 14 white, 4 African-Americans, 1 Bi-racial. 10 are from 2 parent homes, 7 are from single parent homes. Average median age is 17.7 years old. 2 students are 5th year returning students. 4 Seniors, 2 juniors, 3 sophomores,.

Implementation Process

1.The goal for my Action Research Project is to seek out new technologies to keep my students engaged as they learn the functional life skills needed to transition into life after high school and create new approaches to learning academic curriculum using Web 2.0 tools.

2. Functional life skills being taught are: doing a load of laundry, washing the dishes correctly, and making the perfect grilled cheese sandwich as a cooking skill. Academic Curriculum: Language arts through a lesson on descriptive adjectives, a social studies unit on the states, and a science lesson on reptiles.

3.They will use the Web 2.0 tools Word It Out, Popplet, Comic Life and Voice Threads to display the work they have done for each of those lessons

4. Students will be shown a Screenflow video about Google Docs leading the students to their first Google Docs  worksheet, on Popplet demonstrating how to make a Popplet, and on VoiceThreads demonstrating how to make a 30 second movie on their research

5.The students will be directed to the  Google Document Surveys. The survey will ask the students what they learned during the activity, how they felt about using the Web 2.0 tool, and how they felt about the overall lesson.

6.The students in my classroom function at a variety of levels, so choosing an assessment tool was not an easy task. I chose to write Google Doc surveys to allow students to reflect on the lessons learned.  The surveys are laid out in such a way that any of my students should be able to fill out the form with little assistance.

7. What are my expectations for this action research project? Curriculum for a Life Skills program at the high school level is very hard to find. We do not have the luxury of just opening a book and following a set curriculum. Many factors come into play, the IEP (Individualized Educational Plan), the variety of disabilities, the wide range of ability levels that are presented in the classroom setting and parents expectations. I hope to discover some Web 2.0 that will engage my students  using new technologies to teach them the everyday life skills they need to be more independent as they reach adulthood. Using video presentations in the classroom will also be another way to present material to  my students who are very visual learners. The second cycle of my Action Research Project will center on working with the Web 2.0 tools we learned about in cycle 1. Students will use the Web 2.0  tools in the academic areas of Language Arts, Science and  with functional life skills I have chosen to work on. Students will be asked how they felt about working with that tool in a Google Doc survey.

Assessment Tools

The assessment tools for the action plan were created in Google Docs, for ease of creation, and the user-friendly interface once they were created. I chose to make a reflective survey for my special needs students that would serve as a reflective tool and an assessment tool. The surveys are set up for students to reflect on what they learned in the lesson, express their likes and dislikes about the lesson. There is a wide level of cognitive abilities in my classroom, so these results will be interesting to see. Information gathered from a parent survey will give a clear picture about specific stages of a life skill that their student can perform at home.