Artifacts & Analysis

In order to dive deep into my thesis inquiry, I will be collecting and analyzing classroom artifacts that give insight into how my students respond to a variety of differentiated strategies. Specifically, I will be looking for evidence, or lack thereof, of increased intellectual autonomy.

Artifact Collection Plan

My artifact collection will be split into five phases, including three main phases, a pre-phase, and a post-phase. During the three main phases, I will collect data on the impact of differentiation on student autonomy. For each main phase, lasting two weeks, I will use a variety of autonomy supports to attempt to transition all my math students to autonomous learning, application, and creation.

In the first main phase, I will utilize class-wide strategies, such as those already recommended by existing bodies of research, without regard to differentiation. In the second main phase, I will add group-level differentiation, or “teacher-level differentiation” as worded by Betts (2004). During this phase, my artifact analysis will focus on the ways in which the added differentiation seems to impact my students’ ability to transition to autonomous learning, application, and creation. In the third main phase, I will instead use individual-level differentiation, or “learner-level differentiation”, and gather another round of data.

To prepare for my main artifact collection process, I will have a pre-phase where I gather data on the differentiated needs of my students. This will involve raw data collection as well as student interviews, so that I have as broad a sense of my students’ needs as I can get. Finally, the post-phase signifies the end of my research, during which I will collect students’ final thoughts on their journey toward autonomy, and whether or not they perceived differentiated supports to be helpful with that transition.

Please use the drop-down menu from this section at the top of the page in order to view my collected artifacts and associated analyses. I encourage you to explore them in order, so as to have a better understanding of the progression of my evolving inquiry.