Description of the Situation:

People: 10th grade United States History students

Location: Zeeland East High School

Time Frame: 6th Hour (only section of United States History), Winter, 2018

Technology Used/Available: Students at ZPS are “one to one” with iPads. Classroom
projector, classroom sound system, internet, YouTube, Google Slides

Non-Tech Resources: I provided students with guided notes for each of the “Bell-Work”
unit warm ups. At the end of the units, the students took a mini-quiz on paper which I also
designed.

Summary of the Problem:

Problem: I have noticed that my 6th hour class comes into class a bite wild and
unfocused. It normally takes them a few extra minutes to get settled into their seats and listening
to me (teacher) for instructions regarding the class schedule.

Why this Problem is a Problem: This problem tends to hurt the lesson plan timing. Which
either leads to them having more homework, because of less class time to work, or the teacher
not getting to all the objectives planned for that day.

Some Possible Reasons for the Problem:

1) They are a sophomore class, so they are a bit younger.

2) They seem to be friends with each other outside of class.
3) It is the last hour of the day and they are tired.
4) The teacher does not do the right thing to get their attention at the start of class.
Summary of Related Literature (3):

Fred Jones, Tools for Teaching: Rules for Bell Work

This article that Fred Jones writes lays out some guidelines for using bell-works in
classrooms. His target is mainly with elementary, but his guidelines can apply to upper levels. He
says that bell-works are a great tool to review material from the day before. Another thing that he
says is that bell-works should be simple and sweet. There should not be much explaining (after
first introducing it) and students should be able to complete it in a few minutes. Bell-works are a

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good starter to class. They help get the students mind thinking about the topics that will be
covered for the day.

The Busy Teacher, How to Teach Using Songs:

In this blog, Tara Arntsen explains some positives and things to be aware about when
teaching with songs. She specializes in teaching ESL but her blog can relate to other school
subjects too. She says that teaching with songs is a good way to help grow learning. Songs help
trigger the brains learning stimulation. They get stuck in your head, and even if you do not want
them there, you end up singing a song all day long. You can go from not understanding the song
at all, to learning it fully just by repeating it repeatedly. Teaching with songs also gives the
students a break from the teacher and allows them to hear information in a new way. Students are
always listening to music now, so why not bring it into the classroom. Therefore, I wanted to use
songs as one form of my bell-work activities. I still can remember songs from when I was a
student that are forever stuck in my head...

The Innovative Instructor Blog, Teaching with Images:

When I was thinking about the different bell-works I could use in my classroom, I
thought images were a great idea. This article, by Macie Hall helps back up my idea and has
given me more information to use and try in the classroom. She claims that in today's world,
students use visuals more and more. With smartphones, and popular apps such as snapchat and
Instagram, students are using skills to break down and understand images more and more.
Therefore, why not put it into a bell-work attention getter. Hall states that images are a great tool
for all course, as lots of students are visual learners. It can give them a starting block to use when
further learning the material. They can put a picture to the information, helping building
connections. An important thing she says is that the teacher should be careful when picking
images. Have the teacher put themselves in the shores of the student when looking at the images.
What would the student get out of this image? Does it relate to the topic? What questions does it
bring up beyond the image? If a teacher looks at an image and think like a student, they will be
more prepared to answer questions and pick useful images.

Research Plan:

I planned to use “Bell-works” as an attention getter to begin the class period. I planned to
give the students guided notes for the bell-works. I planned to then quiz them at the end of the

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unit (about 2 weeks) with the bell-work material. Their notes and quizzes would provide me with
the research data.

Action that I Took:

Bell-work one, The 1920’s: (Audio only- songs)

1. The first day, I introduced the students to the Bell-work. We had never done a bell-work
in the class before, so I felt it was important to introduce to them the idea.
2. I provided the students with the whole unit’s bell-work guided notes.
3. I played the song of the day, normally going with the topic that we were going to talk
about later in class. Normally I played the song twice.
4. I gave them about two minutes to answer the questions about the song on their own.
5. After, I allowed them one minute to discuss with the students around them, regarding the
song.
6. Finally, we had a class discussion and I answered any questions that the students had.
This helped lead us into the topic of the day.
7. Normally, this whole process took seven to ten minutes.
8. At the end of the unit (two weeks), we took a mini-quiz. The students knew from day one
that there would be a quiz at the end of the Bell-work.
Bell-work two, The Great Depression: (Images only)

1. Bell-work two followed right after the completion of the 1920’s unit test.
2. I provided the students with the whole unit’s bell-work guided notes.
3. I left the image up on the projected screen for about 3 minutes.
4. Steps five - eight were the same from the last bell-work.
Findings from Research:

I found that the students started coming into class more focused. It was a about three days
before they caught on that this bell-work thing was going to stick around. Once they realize this,
beginning class became no problem. The students came in and chatted with others, but once that
bell rang, they were in their seats ready to work. One very important thing that I learned was that
I needed to be ready to start right at the bell too. One day, towards the end of bell-work one, I
was a little slow in starting the audio. The students let me know that if I expect them to be ready
to go at the start of class, that I too needed to be ready to go at the start of class.

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 As far as the notes taking portion went. I noticed that about 75% of the students really
took time to take good notes. They asked each other questions if they had them and were willing
to participate in class discussion about the bell-work material. If they missed a day, they asked
one another about yesterday’s song/image and filled in the missing questions.

Some students on the other hand (about 25%) really had no interest in taking notes. Even
though they knew a mini-quiz was coming at the end of the unit, they would not work on the
notes. They however were polite and quiet during the bell-work and would discuss with
classmates about the material. I guess it was just their way of learning?

As far as the mini-quizzes go and comparing the two afterwards. I found that the 1920’s
audio quizzes scored higher (78%) than that of the Great Depression quiz (73%). Along with the
quizzes, I collected their notes for both units. I did not put a grade to the notes, I just wanted to
see what they had. For the 1920’s, 93% participated in the note taking process. Only 82% took
notes during the Great Depression.

Some conclusions from the two bell-works were:

The audio bell-work scored higher on the quiz than the image bell-work.

Those who took notes, did better on the quizzes.

More students took notes on the audio bell-works than that of the images.

Possible Reasons for my Results:

Students liked the audio bell-work better.

Students liked the 1920s topic better than that of the Great Depression

Students got tired of doing a bell-work, so they gave up on the GD.

Suggestions for Further Research:

I would look to organize a class long bell-work, changing the source for each unit. If this
is installed at the start of a class, students will be used to the work and know what to expect for
the first five to ten minutes of class each day. More research is needed to be done by myself to
truly find the best ways for my students and my class. However, I like the start that I have so far.

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 Reference Page

Arntsen, T. (2016, January 28). How to Teach Using Songs. Retrieved from

https://busyteacher.org/3855-how-to-teach-using-songs.html

Hall, M. (2013, April 19). Teaching with Images. Retrieved March, from

https://ii.library.jhu.edu/2013/04/19/teaching-with-images/

Jones, F. (2018). Rules for Bell Work. Retrieved from http://www.fredjones.com/bell-work