Posted: July 23rd, 2015

Peer review

Professional Practice Problem (Identified Problem)
Limitations experienced by a student with multiple disabilities in information and sensory processing (Argyropoulos & Thymakis, 2014), magnified in the school programming and environment, impacting the students typing skills and performance levels.
Theories/principles (Planning)
An intervention with a student was needed. The 12-year-old child had multiple disabilities, including visual impairment. The interventions direction and goal was to increase typing fluency and subsequent improvement in writing, communication, and independence skills. A multi-disciplinary team was assembled to plan, observe, implement, and reflect upon an intervention. From a review of the article, social and guided learning was utilized, with eventual assistive technology. Also, the team tapped into a strengths-based approach, optimizing the students dominant hand and body side, coupled with the childs preferences and interests with poems and fairy tales.
Translation (Act/Do)
The teacher, guided by the experts in the multi-disciplinary team, guided, practiced, reinforced, and provided feedback immediately with the student during two cycles of the action research intervention. With a guided learning approach, the teacher was able to give prompts, cues, explanations, encouragement, and co-participate with the student. The teacher translated the plan in workable instruction and coaching. The teacher considered the environment, the student with good social skills, modeling behaviors (such as the hand-over-hand and then the hand-under-hand guidance with the keyboard), cognitive contribution (students memory of the keys on the keyboards), and conditions to promote self-efficacy Now I know the keys/cause my fingers are there, in the right place! As simple as that! (Argyropoulos & Thymakis, 2014, p. 3).
Application (Observe)
Two cycles of action research occurred, as the team planned, acted, observed, and reflected. The first cycle attempted intervention efforts with verbal reading by the teacher in the keyboarding activity by the student, immediate feedback regarding accuracy on a standard keyboard, introduction of arrow key functions, and hand-over-hand guidance. During the second cycle of Action Research with assistive technology and modification in the guided learning, the student obtained improvements.
Evaluation (Reflection)
When analyzing for improvement with the students typing fluency in cycle one, no major improvement occurred. The team adjusted in the cycle two with their intervention, approach, and technology, with a revision of the learning plan. During the second cycle, the student obtained speed and accuracy in her typing fluency, coupled with self-confidence and gains ultimately in writing, communication, and independent skills.
Advancement of Practice
This Action Research intervention was disseminated in a professional journal. In the environmental setting and contexts, this intervention would likely be reflected and documented in the students Individualized Education Plan/Program (IEP).
References
Argyropoulos, V. & Thymakis, P. (2014, March/April). Multiple disabilities and visual impairment: An action research project. Journal of Visual Impairment &
Blindness, 108,163.

In my career preparation practice, I am interested in the Action Research cycles with our internship course. We currently have students complete a log of daily activities and hours, write a twenty page paper of their experience for their final, and create a career portfolio including pictures of their internship experience. I am interested in introducing activities and facilitating tacit knowledge during the course of the students experiential learning experience.
Plan: Implement weekly blogs in the internship course (DeWitt, 2010).
Act: Students would reflect daily and write a weekly blog about an experience, (in an area of leadership, management, communication, social responsibility, technology usage, ethics, accountability, engagement, performance, collaboration, customer relations, value enhancement or another possible business topic).
Observe: by creating blogs, opportunities would likely transpire regarding self-observations during this learning experience, and also other observations, as the blogs would be shared through Blackboard or another platform with others students taking the internship course during the semester.
Reflection: This approach would likely enhance peer-to-peer learning, coupled with strengthened reflection of their experiences and hopeful tacit, practical knowledge gained through doing and sharing, within a work and collegial context.
Two cycles would occur with Action Research: from the initial orientation of the internship experience to the mid-term, and then again from the mid-term to the final. The first cycle of blogs would involve self-observation, supervisory observation, and instructor feedback; the second blog cycle from mid-term to the final would add the peer observational shared experience. The first cycle would be more structured with the possible topic choices; the second cycle would be student-peer driven in the blog content. After a pilot, we can then analyze the data and documents collected and then decide how to proceed for another attempt the following semester with Action Research, lessons learned, tacit knowledge, and the Internship experience.

Reference
DeWitt, A.O. (2010, November). Song of the open road: Business students blog about tacit knowledge in their internships. American Journal of Business
Education, 3, 131-136.