Memo #2- Setting

Memo #2- Setting

To visit Evolutions High School, you end up driving to Mount Pleasant High School. It is a strange situation, being a school located inside a larger and well-known school. From the moment you arrive as a visitor, student, staff member, or administrator, you recognize that the building and “school” is Mount Pleasant’s, Evolutions High School is borrowing the space.

Evolutions High School is a young school, new school. The only thing that visually differentiates Evolutions from Mount Pleasant are newly printed inspirational banners hanging on the walls, freshly yellow painted doors, and graffiti that says, “Evolutions High School”. Other than that, the hallways and classrooms mimic those of Mount Pleasant’s. As you explore Evolutions High School, it is clear, that the school’s identity is still being established.

The students that make up the school are diverse regarding race, language, age, and academic performance. The group of students chosen for this study have a 48% to 52% male to female ratio with an age range of 15 to 17 years old. Most of the students are general education students; however, 3 students have IEPs. As for race, 63% identify as Hispanic, 26% identify as Black, 5% identify as Asian, and 5% identify as white. When considering native language, 42% of the students identify Spanish as their native language, while 57% identify English as their native language. Only 1 student is considered an English Language Learner and is provided support. Finally, 27% of the class is on-track, while 73% of the class is off track.

From analyzing the data, most of the students identify as Hispanic, but the class is almost split between the native languages of English and Spanish. This information suggests that class is relatively bilingual. Additionally, the data suggests that there is a large disconnect academically, more than half the class is off-track while a quarter is on-track. This disparity in academics may be due to Evolutions High School taking on a new self-directed curriculum called Summit Learning. Even though this cohort is diverse academically and culturally, they are not diverse in the way they collaborate and compete with one another. This cohort has worked hard in establishing a welcoming community where everyone belongs.

To protect the identity of the students two options are considered. The first is, using an alias for each student and make up a name. The second, to provide each student a random number instead of a name. The names or numbers provided should be randomly assigned using a number/ name random generator as well. 

When working with participants, an efficient way to cancel out confounding variables is to randomly assign participants to an experimental group and a control group using a random assignment generator. This way human variability and biases are statistically canceled out. Random assignment can help regulate biases, however, an additional option along with random assignment is to pick the correct data to collect. The data chosen needs to be clearly defined and in a form that is not affected by relationships and biases.

When engaging in teacher research, descriptive observation can be used to uncover insight into the classroom and bring awareness to the deep-rooted problems in that classroom. Descriptive observation also provides an opportunity to strategies, plan, and implement potential solutions. Once plans and strategies are implemented, focused observation will be used to collect data around the research question. Both types of observation are incredibly important and necessary when choosing to conduct research.