Phew! I Think I Can, I Think I Can

Today I turned in my Masters' Thesis and I was so relieved after I hit the send button on my email. This last 11 months have been incredibly rewarding but also extremely exhausting. I'll be glad for the tiny break that I'll have between graduation and applying for positions in the schools.

For my thesis I studied the influence of specifically taught study skills on vocabulary acquisition. I had to conduct my own research, analyze the data, and then write a paper to boot. However, it was such an awesome experience to be able to conduct research in the classroom outside of standardized testing and benchmarks.

I used a mnemonic strategy and a semantic mapping strategy. Low and behold, my students did way better on their vocab quizzes when they had used the mnemonic strategy (LINCs) to study. The also loved the LINCs strategy. If you've never heard of it you should look it up.

Here's a picture of what one of my students did for the word tenant

They really had a lot of fun and after my research they asked if they could do the LINCs tables in lieu of their regular vocabulary homework.

Ahhh sweet success.