Saanvi Y's Senior Project Blog
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Project Title: Seating arrangements and the impact a boy-girl seating chart has on the achievement and participation of middle school students. BASIS Advisor: Rakhi Kakkar Internship Location: BASIS Peoria Onsite Mentor: Jack Bates |
Project Abstract
There are a lot of factors that can influence a student’s future, from their financial situation to their personal relationships. Most of these are uncontrollable for teachers. However, there is one factor a teacher has control over: the physical location a student sits in. Seating charts can either positively or negatively shape a student’s behaviour and achievement in the classroom by changing their interactions in the classroom. Students can learn positive behaviours from others, and motivate each other to try, to ask and answer questions, and be insightful. Seating charts are especially relevant when discussing necessary life skills. Communication skills and risk-taking skills aren’t directly taught in the classroom. Instead, students pick them up over the years. Yet, certain demographics still struggle. Female students become excellent communicators but rarely take risks (ask/answer questions during class). Male students are excellent at taking risks, but fail to effectively communicate with others. Many researchers have tried single-sex classrooms, but it raises more issues than it does solve. Having boys and girls sit together and converse with each other may cause students to pick up life skills they are lacking from each other. By creating a gender integrated seating chart (boy-girl-boy-girl) and studying participation and success of students in the classroom, we can truly see if these life skills can be shared and create a stronger base for these students. Seating charts are a powerful tool in shaping the life of a student, and discovering ways to best aid them is the best way to prepare them for the future.
Concluding Post
I am writing my final blog the night before my presentation for the AP. I was so caught up with trying to fix my oral defense that I never saw how late it had gotten. This study is like my baby, and I feel like both I and my knowledge have grown. While trying at... Read More
Statistical Oopsie
Everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, not everyone makes them late in the game. I had already decided to use a one tail t test to measure statistical significance for my data. My data should have followed most of the rules for conducting a one tail t test. I had assumed normality, however. A couple nights ago,... Read More
Null hypothesis issues
Accepting the null hypothesis is probably one of the most painful things about this research. I have been able to reject three null hypotheses in relation to participation for the Argon class, which statistically shows that the gender integrated seating arrangement helps increase student participation in the classroom. However, when I finished grading their knowledge... Read More
Finishing participation data
I have finally managed to digitise my hundreds of data points. I have now begun actual analysis. For my data, I average the rates of participation during the NGIR period and the rates of participation during the GIR period to complete a one tail t test. I use the the mean from NGIR as the... Read More
Bias in my own work
After converting all of the control seating arrangement’s participation data for the Neon and Argon classes into actual numbers for graphing, I realized I had become a victim of bias. Before actually sitting down in the classroom for 4 weeks to observe the students and categorise their behaviour, I had read some papers that... Read More
Skills I’ve gained at Basis that helped me with my research
During observational periods, I realised that I picked up certain behavioural traits at Basis that made my data collection much easier. Every school implements a seating chart. It isn’t a unique concept, with different teachers using a different style of arrangement. Oftentimes I would find myself seated based by last name in one class, gender... Read More
Teachers in a classroom
I have been steadily digitizing my data. For 4 periods of measurement per student, with two data inputs (participative/unparticipative and behaviour type), each student has a total of 8 data inputs per day. For a class, that means a total of 240 variables, per day. In addition to this, the student takes a daily knowledge... Read More
How my research has impacted my future choices
We live in a modern world, and having ambitions as a woman is no longer seen as taboo. In fact, there are people all over the world fighting for women to have ambitions and gain success. Growing up I never thought that I couldn’t do anything because I was a girl. Actually, being told I... Read More
Slight Challenge
When I first planned my methodology, I never expected there to be any issue on measuring participation. I assumed there would be some vague behaviours, but I planned for that situation to be handled by simply writing down the behaviour and later consulting with the teacher. However, I still need to be able to assign... Read More
A 6th grade classroom is never quiet
I work in a classroom. I spend my time observing the 6th graders to measure their participation. I came in with some expectations of general classroom behaviour, but was wildly surprised with how kids actually behaved in the classroom. As an older sister to a 6th grader, I believed I already knew how 6th graders... Read More
Beginning my observations
I have done a total of 6 observation periods thus far, 3 for Argon and 3 for Neon. I have begun with my control seating arrangement first, NGIR, which is a non gender integrated randomised seating arrangement. What this means is that the students were randomly assigned a seat without taking their gender into account.... Read More
Where are you? Where am I? Where are we?
My name is Saanvi Yadav. I'm a senior at BASIS Peoria interested in setting up better foundations for students. Setting up stronger foundations for students in the classroom helps ensure that they can perform at their best levels and be productive members of society. I've personally experienced how minor interactions in the classroom can either... Read More