Week 3 Action Research Draft

My action research questions will be:

Is all of the time and resource that we are spending making a difference? Are our African American and economically disadvantage students showing gains? What else can we do to close the achievement gap for our African American students?      


Here is the draft of my plan.

Action Planning Template
Goal: Implement programs that are designed to close the achievement gap in our economically disadvantage and African American sub pop.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Committee meets weekly to discuss issues facing our students and analyze data to target students	Principal, DI, CCIS’s, and AAS’s	12-13 to 13-14 school year	Data on students that are not performing on STAAR and passing rates	Disseminated the STAAR data focusing on Math and Reading.
Create and implement programs that focus on helping our targeted students succeed	Principal, DI, CCIS’s, and AAS’s	12-13 to 13-14 school year	Budget for resources that are need to implement programs	Attendance of the students involved in the intervention program.
Disseminating and analyzing data at key points in the school year	Principal, DI, CCIS’s, AAS’s, and teachers	12-13 to 13-14 school year	Data on Benchmarks, CBA’s, report card grades	Reviewing data on our targeted students to see if they are showing improvement.
Students interviews	Patricia Ledkins	May 2013 and May 2014	Students that are participation in the intervention programs	Survey the students to see if they feel that the interventions helped them

 

Format based on Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)

Week 2 of Action Research

During Week to of the Action Research Course there were several moments that I found myself agreeing with what I was reading in the textbook, Leading with Passion and Knowledge.  The same topics that I was thinking about working with on my action research paper were in the text.  I also thought that video interviews were insightful and the scholars interviewed gave great advice. 

Here is a list of advice they gave that I found most interesting:

·         Keep your research practical, if must be relevant to you and your campus

·         Do not try to reinvent the wheel, use Google to research your topic

·         Make sure the people involved are on board and you respect their privacy

·         Students will befits more from research that is practical rather than theoretical 

How educational leaders might use blogs

Educational leaders might use blogs to communicate with the staff and/or community. It would be a great way to let your community see what your plans are for the school and receive feedback from them. They might also use blogs to communicate and share ideas between other leaders.  It is always a good idea to see what is happening in other schools and get ideas for your school.    

What I have learned about action research and how I might use it

Action research is a must in education.  Education is constantly changing and we as educators sometimes forget to change with the times.  It is a leader’s responsibility to make sure that the school is keeping up with the changing world.   Therefore, the leaders must continue to reflect on if their practices are being successful or is it time for a change.  When there is a need for change the leaders must collect relevant data and work on a plan to implement changes that will help the school be more successful. It is also very important to reevaluate the plan and how it is working.  There are often times that plans are put into place and not really working even if the data looks good.  As a leader, one must also be realistic that sometimes data is inaccurate because teachers will report false information. For example, at the beginning of this school year the assistant principals put into effect a new tardy policy, where the teachers call each time a students was tardy to their class up to three times then the teacher assigned the students a d-hall.  Well, the data shows that the tardies went down significantly, although I see students in the halls after the tardy bell all the time.  It is the teachers that do not want to call home all the time so they do not report the tardies.  The new policy did not correct or help the problem although according to the admin it did and it is great because the data shows it.  I believe to shoe that the tardy policy is working or not more action research needs to be done.  I would look at the tardies that are turned in and walk the hall and see how many students are in the hall after the bell.  I would also interview or survey the teachers.  An anonymous survey might be beneficial that way the teachers do not feel that they are going to be looked down on for being honest.   Action research keeps us moving forward and seeking to be better educators.  As our students change we must also change.