My timings have remained the same so I am waiting until it has been a week since my last timing then I will carry out a retention test to see if I have remembered all of the information.
After the retention test I will continue to do a few timings a day but like Helen suggested I will do 30 second timings instead of 1 minute.
This week I carried on with ordinary timings for 2 days. I then took a 3 day break and in that 3 days I used the time I would have spent timing practicing my frequency. The tool skill intervention seems to have worked slightly as in the past 2 days I have been getting through 50-55 cards a minute in the last 2 days. I will carry on with this for the next few days, take a break and then do a retention test after a couple of days.
In my last blog I had conducted an intervention (tool skill drill). I had only been doing timings for 2 days at the time I wrote the last blog.
I have done 5 timings since my last blog (I have been bedridden with illness for a couple of days so I did not conduct timings on those days) and I have finally achieved zero learning opportunities on 3 days! The days where I did not get zero learning opportunities I only had one learning opportunity. This is very positive.
Now I would like to improve my fluency. My fluency aim is between 40 and 60 per minute. I am currently getting through about 50, whilst this is still in my aim, I would like it to get to the higher end of my aim and achieve 60 per minute.
Does anybody have any suggestions on how to achieve this?
After last weeks blog I carried on for a few more days with regular sets of timings. I then identified the errors I kept struggling with and then focused on drilling those for the next two days and doing one timing per day as normal. After this error drill I continued and I am only on day two of conducting these timings after the error drill. The intervention seemed to have worked so far as I have only got one learning opportunity on the last two sets of timings. I am hoping that by next week I will be able to say I have achieved zero learning opportunities on at least a few of the days! I will continue as normal until next week and then assess my progress from there.
Here are my charts from the previous week.
(click on the picture to enlarge)
The results from my retention test showed that my fluency was 36 (just shy of my aim) with 26 corrects and 10 learning opportunities.
This was a step down from my results a week prior to this. After this retention test I carried on doing my 3 timings a day and I did see an improvement. This can be seen as my learning picture is showing a jaws effect with the amount of corrects slowly improving and my errors decreasing. My errors dropped from 10 on the retention test to a lowest of 3 throughout the week.
My errors are hovering around 3 and 4, I have still not got 0 errors once yet and would like to achieve this soon. Could anyone advise a good way to do this, perhaps doing another ‘drill the errors’ intervention?
Due to major exam stress and revision etc. the daily timings and charting did not happen this week.
Here are the charts from last week to refresh your memory. I am going to carry out a retention test tomorrow and then carry on with my timings as usual for the rest of the week, unless anybody has other suggestions 🙂
As you can see from the pictures below, my errors have decreased a lot from when I started my learning project along with the amount of corrects increasing.
I conducted the error correction intervention like I mentioned in my last blog by going through all of the cards and then focusing on the learning opportunities. After a couple of days I also introduced another intervention as the corrects were going up but my fluency was staying the same (around 30 cards per minute). I introduced a tool skill drill intervention where I practiced using the cards, seeing how fast I could read them and flip them over. I feel this has helped as I am now going through around 40 cards per minute. After more practice and after I know the cards even more, I hope to get through 50/60 cards per minute as that is my fluency aim.
For the next week I am just going to carry on as usual, 3 one minute timings a day.
Pictures: SCC chart, Close up of my learning picture, timings chart.
In last weeks blog I stated that I was going to conduct an error correction intervention where I was going to go through all the SAFMED cards and keep going through the learning opportunities until I was familiar with all the cards. After receiving comments from the other members of my triad suggesting I waited until I had done a few more timings I decided to wait to conduct this intervention. I will do my intervention tomorrow and you will be able to see the results of that in next weeks blog. I am still going to conduct the same intervention I was going to last week as my fluency has still not yet reached 40-60 cards per minute. I am going through around 30 cards per minute. This is still a vast improvement on when I first started charting, but I would still like to reach 40 – 60 cards per minute.
Despite this, I am pleased that my corrects are going up aswell as my learning opportunities going down. After this intervention I hope that by the next post, or post after that, my learning opportunities will be at zero (or one or two) and between 40 and 60 corrects. If not, another intervention will have to take place in order for me to get there.
Below, you will find a picture of my chart and my timings chart. I have also included a close up of the SCC chart so you could get a clearer view of my learning picture.
I have only conducted three timings as of yet so there is not a lot to comment on. However, my learning is definitley progressing as the learning opportunities are decreasing and cards correct are increasing. My fluency rate is, however not improving greatly. I have been timing myself for three times a day for three days and my fluency rate ranges between 19 and 21 cards per minute. I would like to aim to go through at least double the amount per minute. I believe this will happen when I am more accustomed to the cards. This is because I will be more used to them so it should take me less time to read the cards and get through them quicker. In order to do this I will stage an intervention. This will involve going through all the cards one by one without timing, but still going through them at a relatively fast pace. I will put all the learning opportunities in one pile and corrects in another. After doing this I will keep going through the learning opportunities until eventually I have answered each card correct. This will enable me to become familiar with all the cards. After this I will carry on as usual, conducting three timings a day and charting the best score.
Below, you will find a picture of my chart so far, with the three days of timings.
For my learning project for the Evidence Based Behavioural Methods in Education Module I will be creating SAFMED (say all fast minute every day shuffled) cards. I will be creating the cards based on my other module choice of Addictive Behaviours to help me learn the content.
The SAFMEDs will consist of between 70 and 80 cards. Each day I will aim to complete three one minute timings. I will note how many cards I got correct and how many learning opportunities I had. I will then chart both the learning opportunities and the corrects on the Standard Celeration Chart (SCC) so i can view my progress. This will enable me to see if learning is progressing at a desired rate and if it is not then my teacher can intervene and suggest ways for my learning to improve.
The learning channel for this project is ‘SeeSay’. This means i will see the stimuli then i will say the response. If my answer matches the answer on the card then I will put it into a pile of ‘corrects’. If my answer does not match the answer on the card I will put it in a pile of learning opportunities.
My frequency aim for this learning project is to be able to get through 60 cards in one minute.
Evidence Based Behavioural Methods in Education 