There is a lack of explicit teaching of active listening skills inside the typical classroom. We are increasing the difficulty of content knowledge expected and increasing the expectations of young children without giving them the tools to help them be successful. One of the four C's is communication but we neglect to give much attention to one of the primary components of good communication and that is the ability to actively listen to message being told to us. Active listening skills will be my dependent variable in this study. We instruct students on how to go through the motions of listening like eye contact, nodding our head to show understanding, and not speaking over the person. We have taught them how to show respect, but not how to listen to comprehend. Half of each child's school day is spent listening to the teacher and to their peers (Wolvin & Coakley as cited in Anderson & Brent, 1994) and they often do it ineffectively (Jalongo, 1996). This same type of study has been performed on older students, but little data has been collected on students in first grade.
My plan is to do a pre-test and post-test model to see what the effect size is for these strategies I plan implement. This is the independent variable in the study. The strategies are explicit active listening instruction, game playing, and art projects. Ability to repeat a verbal message and ability to follow multi-step instruction will be the results indicators. We will be playing a game called telephone to practice actively listening to a message, retaining it into short term memory, and then accurately passing that message on to the next person in the circle. A digital portfolio called Seesaw will be used to collect hard student data with a very simple four quadrant graphic organizer that they can draw a simple picture on. The students will be following oral directions that I give to them. They will earn a point each time they accurately follow one of the instructions I deliver.
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AuthorI am a first grade teacher who is passionate about her students and learning new things! Archives
January 2019
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