Dassa, Lori

The purpose of the project was to see if giving
students a structured physical activity break after a
lesson and before the intended summative assessment
would increase their scores academically and/
or decrease their test anxiety. The idea was acquired
from spending over 1,000 hours in elementary school
classrooms ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade.
It was observed that after a 30-minute math lesson,
the students were expected to take an assessment
based on the content of the lesson. It seemed as
if students were having a difficult time focusing on
the test and were getting wiggly in their seats. The
students seemed nervous to take a test directly after
instruction and some of the scores were not as high
as intended. This was the basis behind conducting
this research. There had to be a solution to this problem
and the researcher was determined to find one.

As the country’s population grows ever more diverse,
there is a growing need of cultural awareness in
our elementary public schools. Young children are
coming together from all over the world with diverse
families and experiences and co-existing with each
other in America’s elementary schools. In order to
minimize a negative view towards diversity, this study
implements a multicultural approach that can create
positive cultural interactions in the urban elementary
classroom. Multiculturalism is, in short, the view that
various cultures in society merit equal respect and
genuine interest. In order to incorporate multiculturalism
into the curriculum, I utilized selective multicultural
children’s literature that corresponded with
the current reading standards and objectives. With
a focus on literacy, reading and writing, the students
participated in several activities that helped them
explore the similarities and differences between
characters from diverse cultures.

The objective of my study is to determine if explicitly
teaching content-specific vocabulary can increase
reading comprehension in low expectancy students. I
have created a pre/post assessment cycle design that
tests reading comprehension and familiarity with vocabulary
specific to the unit being taught. Participants
include 26 fourth graders at Park Lakes Elementary.
A pretest will be given, 5 lessons taught, and then a
posttest. Pretest and posttest scores will be analyzed,
to track learning gains and the validity of explicitly
teaching vocabulary to increase comprehension. All
26 students are expected to earn a higher score on
the posttest, compared to the pretest. After result analyzation,
I will report concluding results. My intent is to evaluate this technique with the hope that it will be
an effective teaching strategy that will improve low
expectancy student scores on the ELA area of the
Florida Standardized Assessments.

The objective of my research was to determine if
whole brain teaching strategies could help increase
students’ academic scores in an urban elementary
classroom. To test this hypothesis, I created a pre/
post assessment cycle design focusing on whole
brain chants and gestures taught during a science
unit on the states of matter. Participants included
20 first grade ELL students at Park Lakes Elementary school. Students took a pretest, were involved in
5 whole brain based lessons and posttest. The lessons
included whole brain strategies like “mirror me”,
“teach, okay”, and other interactive activities. At the
conclusion of the lesson, a posttest was issued. All 20
students earned a passing score as compared to the
low scores on the pretest. Therefore, I concluded that
using whole brain teaching strategies throughout lessons
increase students’ academic scores. My intent
is to continue this technique with future lessons to
improve students’ Florida Standardized assessment.

My objective is to determine if rhythm and rap can
help increase language development in an urban
elementary classroom. To determine this outcome
I created a pre/post assessment cycle design using
vocabulary relevant to the water cycle. Participants
included 18 first graders at Park Lakes Elementary.
These students took a pretest, were involved in 5
rhythm and rap based lessons, and a posttest. The
lessons included videos, vocabulary reviews, and
finally the development of a song to help reinforce
the vocabulary terms and their meanings. A pop
culture song from Justin Bieber was used to make
connections to their everyday lives. All 18 students
passed the posttest as compared to the pretest results.
Therefore, I concluded that the rhythm and rap
approach to teaching vocabulary was successful. I
intend to use this technique with future vocabulary
lessons to predict future improvement in the ELA area
of the Florida Standardized Assessments.

My research question was to determine if using academic
games and friendly competitions during instruction
would increase the knowledge of 5th grade
students in science content. To test this hypothesis, I
created a pre/post assessment cycle design focusing
on the human body standard. Participants included
20 5th graders at Park Lakes Elementary. These students
took a pre test, were involved in 4 competition
based lessons and a posttest. The lessons included
competitions such as Speed Bag Drills, Kahoot, and
other team based games. At the conclusion of the lessons,
a posttest was issued. All 20 students earned
a passing score as compared to the low scores on
the pretest. Therefore, I was able to conclude that
academic games and friendly competitions during
instruction increased science content knowledge. I
intend to use this technique with future science units
to demonstrate improvement on the science portion
of the Florida Standardized Assessments.