Another challenge Professor SS experienced in implementing
4MAT was her initial concern about whether students
would be able to appropriately learn and practice the
skills needed to conduct successful action research projects
in their classrooms. As she developed and implemented class
activities and witnessed how students were aptly conceptualizing
their knowledge and skills, it became apparent that
students were, in fact, able to generalize their Connect experiences
to their own action research projects. One example
occurred when her students were learning the stance of
a successful action researcher through reading and analyzing
several vignettes representing different opinions about
the value of research. As they worked through the varying
perspectives, they were able to accurately demonstrate their
comprehension of these stances through making connections
to their own literature reviews and syntheses. Experiencing a
variety of Connect activities around specific concepts related
to planning action research projects appeared to increase students’
depth of understanding and skill implementation.