The problem is: How do I get students to follow the Touch Typing
method voluntarily and improve their Touch Typing skills? From
developing a Graphic Reconstruction of my problem, I discovered
that there are eight different categories and several factors
and relationships which affect student typing.
| Support | Scheduling | Equipment | Student | Distractions | Teacher | Procedures | Other |
|
Child Parent Teacher Guidance Principal |
Class Size Elective Multilingual Late Entry |
Breakdown Ergonomics Chair Height Talbe Height |
Readiness Maturity Memory Physical Health Mental Health Nutrition Meds |
Allergies Dysfunctional Home ADD ADHD ODD SDD SRD Meds
|
Monitoring Curriculum Experience of Teacher Clarity of Instruction Ergonomic Distractors Curriculum Equipment |
Correct Fingers on Correct Keys No Looking Drill & Practice Teacher Monitoring Student Monitoring Correct Assignment |
Absences Physical Handicaps Personality Disorders Improper Meds Illness Sleep |
The factors that seem to merit the most investigation to
solve my problem are maturity, character, self-discipline, memory,
nutrition and readiness. Students who score high in these attributes
should also do well in complying with the three basic rules for
Touch Typing success: 1. Use the correct fingers on the correct
keys. 2. Do not look at your hands. 3. Drill and practice.
The difficulty is deciding which of these factors are the most
important and which ones can be observed and researched with school
and parental permission. It is my opinion that memory and nutrition
are very important in solving my problem and both could be monitored
easily with a test group.
I have three classes of Keyboarding II. I propose that I use the
three Keyboarding II classes to conduct an experiment in nutrition
and memory. A group of these students would also be asked to restrict
the use of sugar, soda, candy, or sugar based cereal during that
three-week period. A timed writing of the student's words per
minute would be taken at the beginning of the project. At the
end of the project, another timed writing would be taken of all
students and a measurement of percentage of improvement would
be calculated. The idea would be to determine if the students
who addressed the issues of memory and nutrition, and reframed
from the use of sugar retained and learned more than the base
group. The evidence would be in the percent of increase in the
final timed writing tests.
I feel that I can get permission from my principal and the parents
to test this project with the restriction of sugar alone. The
idea that sugar erases memory is not a new idea. My students live
on sugar and, unfortunately, are not provided with nutritious
healthy lunches at school either. Often student return from lunch
hyped up and distracted mentally. I believe that it is the sugar
they eat at lunch and at home that causes these distractions and
loss of memory which is needed for Touch Typing.
