Listening Skills and Problem Solving in the Lab

By Betsy Neelly

Targeted Population
Kalkaska Large rural community in Northern Michigan 55.5% of elementary students receive free or reduced lunches Library Once a week 20-25 lab/15-20 checkout 4th Grade (Miss Smiths class) 23 students 13 boys and 10 girls Ages 9-10

Problem
Problem/Frustrated
Students did not follow written or oral instructions during lab time. They immediately raised their hands for help after being given directions. Frustrated by my inability to help every student.

Inquiry
How could I get fourth grade students to solve their own problems before raising their hands for help in the lab? I wanted to see if teaching a listening skills lesson prior to lab instruction caused students to raise their hands more or less. And if so, why? One answer could have been less because they were solving their own problems or maybe more because they were ready for more advanced instruction.

Research
About 80% of the school day is spent listening. Inadequate listening skills interfere with students comprehension accuracy.

Improving Listening Skills Through the Use of Childrens Literature (Sandall, Schramm, Seibert)

Research
Some teachers feel uncomfortable teaching listening skills.
They might feel that since no one took the time to teach them how to listen, they in turn are poor listeners. Not enough time in the school day to plan listening lessons. There are not enough materials with which to teach those lessons.

Effective Listening: the Key to Classroom Attendance (Gilbert)

Case Study
One goal of education is to create a diverse and competent workforce thereby making the teaching of listening skills in our schools even more important. Students should be: Quiet Focused Visibly nodding along with what the teacher is saying

Improving Student Academic Success through the Promotion of Listening Skills (Owen, Pawlak and Pronobis)

My Thoughts on Listening
Students build on what they have learned in the lab and if they are not listeningthey cant move forward. How a student perceives that the teacher is listening to him/her can affect their motivation.

Methods/Qualitative
Smaller sample sizes and are often not representative of the population.

Open-ended questions

Much more detail on behavior, attitudes and motivation Less structured research instruments The analysis of the results is much more subjective

Pre Survey One

1.) 96% Yes
1. Do you enjoy learning new research skills on the computer during library class? 2. Is learning new things on the computer hard for you? 3. Does learning new things on the computer make you feel good? 4. Do you try to solve your own problems before raising your hand for help in the lab?
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% #1 #2 #3 #4

2.) 74% No

3.) 84% Feels Good

4.) 91% Solve Problems on Their Own

Pre Survey Two

What do you do to solve your problems before you raise your hand in the lab?

100% of Miss Smiths students felt that they did attempt to solve their computer problems on their own before they raised their hands for help in the lab! 71% go back and retry problem. 29 % ask a neighbor for help. 17% use RTQS. (Read the Question Silly)

Observation
53 (Baseline)

Listening Skills Lessons Try solving problem yourself Ask your neighbor for help

31
Tally

25

25

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4

My Thoughts
Big drop the first week in the amount of times students raised their hands. The numbers remained pretty steady thereafter. New question, Were the same few students raising their hands?

Students S & J (6)

Observation
Student F (7) Student H (8)

Student O (14)

V S P M J G D A 0 5 10 15

QUESTIONS

Post Survey
1. Has practicing listening skills helped you to raise your hands more or less in the lab?
Lis tening s kills helped them to raise their hands less in the lab.

32%
Didnt answer question directly

42% Raise their hands less

Lis tening s kills caused them to raise their hands more in the lab. Didn't answer the ques tion, but thought it was fun prac tic ing listening sk ills.

26% Raise their hands more

Conclusion
My interpretation of the data is that students did raise their hands less in the lab. Not necessarily because their listening skills improved. Students were given clear teacher expectations (they knew I expected them to listen more and raise their hands less) and the majority followed through to the best of their abilities.

Whats Next?
I would reformulate my question to the following:
Does teaching listening skills separately or embedding them into the library curriculum work best at helping students to solve their own problems and therefore raise their hands more or less in the lab?