Action Research Plan

Inquiry
By analyzing incoming 9^th grader’s 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade math scores,  8^th grade attendance, and 8^th grade teacher’s individual evaluation of their students, how can we identify low performers or at risk students in math of our incoming freshmen class?  What strategies can we take to get these students to meet the state standard or higher on their 9^th grade math EOC/STARR exam to help our campus be an exemplary school?

Action Research Plan

ACTIVITIES	RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS ACTIVITIES	TIME LINE	Needed Resources/ Action Plan	Evaluation
Gather attendance records	Parker Liles (Algebra I Teacher who will be on the staff teaching these students for the 2013-2014 school year) and attendance clerk at the middle school	By the end of July 11th,  2013	Attendance Records of all 8th grade students for the 2012-2013 school year	Determine students who fall below the 90% attendance mark required by the state.  These students will be considered at risk in attendance and will help determine placement.
Gather performance data	Parker Liles and the counselors at the high school	By the end of July 11th,  2013	Math EOC/STARR data for all incoming 9th graders for the 2012-2013 school year	Students who are below  the level II standard will be considered as low performers
Communicate with special education department	Parker Liles and head of special education in the middles school	By the end of the current school year	Identify students who’s IEP calls for accommodations to be successful	Inquiry statement: Identify students who’s IEP requires them to be in a setting that requires an inclusion teacher.
Communicate with 8th grade math teachers	Parker Liles and the counselors at the high school	By the end of the current school year	Gain feedback from 8th grade teachers on the students they believe need extra assistance to be successful	Inquiry question: Are there student’s who have scored well and aren’t experiencing attendance issues but still need to be in a program that allows them more time and/or extra assistance to be successful.
Analyze Data	Parker Liles and counselors at high school	By the end of August 1st, 2013	Find target students for the 2012-2013 school year who had low attendance, low scores, or poor evaluations from their 8th grade teacher	Inquiry question: How many students fall into this subgroup which will determine class size and how many classes we will need to create for these students?
Determine strategies to help these students be successful in the 2013-2014 school year	Parker Liles, counselors at high school, campus principal, and principal responsible for scheduling	By the end of August 1st, 2013	Research this topic online as well with area schools that I have contacts at.  Meet with campus principal and discuss possible plans that can be put in place to help student these students identified to be successful	Inquiry questions: Can we double block these students in math in a 7 period day? Is there a full time inclusion teacher that can be assigned to these classes to assist the lead teacher?
Implementation of Plan	Parker Liles and stakeholders mentioned above	2013-2014 School Year	To Be Determined	To Be Determined
Assessment of Action Research Plan	Parker Liles and stakeholders mentioned above	June 2014	To Be Determined	To Be Determined

Action Research - Leaders vs Managers

Leadership

What steps can I take to become a leader of people and not simply a manager? What readings are available in this area?  What individuals do I know that I have a high respect for and what characteristics do they have that make them effective leaders?

I believe this is one area in which I have spent much personal inquiry in throughout my career. One statement I have read that has always stuck out to me is “Leaders have followers and managers have subordinates.”  In order to lead it is essential to be an expert in one’s field, but also include others in the decision making process as well.  It is critical for staff leaders to create an environment that makes their followers feel like they belong.  This helps to give them self-worth.  I think it is also very important to reflect on leaders that one has known in the past and reflect on the characteristics that made them want to follow this person. Building leadership skills is a life-long process in which one must use past experiences and personal inquiry to continue to become a better and better leader.

Management

Through my principal internship, how will I learn the processes needed to become a good manager of a school?

As stated above, leaders are experts in their field.  Part of this is the day to day management of a campus that takes place.  I personally view management falling underneath the umbrella of being a great leader. Great leaders will see the needed changes on a campus and will inquire ways to make them better.  Sometimes this means bringing others into the process that may know more about how to solve the issue.  This is another important trait of a great leader, knowing when to collaborate with others and allowing them to take on leadership roles of their own (empowerment).  In managing a great campus one must know how to delegate responsibility and involve other stakeholders in the decision making process.

How educational leaders can use blogs.

Blogs can be extremely useful in implementing action research.  Everyone involved in education knows the unpredicatibilty that comes with the school day and often finding times to meet can be very difficult.  Many times meetings that were scheduled get postponed or not everyone involved is able to attend.  What blogs allow an action research community to do is read, quote, and link each other at anytime during the day and allow everyone on the blog to view each others post and immediately respond if they have a comment.

Action Research Defined

I believe action research can and needs to happen at every level in the education process.  I think it is important that teachers (departments), principals, and superintendents/administrative district personal are all practicing action research to some degree.

      At the department level, department heads and the teacher’s within that department should be doing “practitioner inquiry” or “classroom research” that specifically involves their curriculum.  Questions such as, “What are some different methods that this problem can be solved.”, or “How can we change our delivery method to make our lesson more meaningful or clarifying for the students.”, are examples of action research at the classroom level.  The benefits of this “bottom level” action research may be the most important.  This research is what directly effects the students from day to day and is the “spark” that “lights the fire” in student success.  This calloboration amongst faculty in their departments in devising new strategies for student success is critical.

     At the campus level, action research takes place among campus leadership teams.  On our campus this is known as the “Building Leadership Team”.  This leadership team, consists of not only all three administrators on our campus but also selected faculty as well.  This leadership team addresses many different issues within the campus.  One topic that most definitely is action research oriented is our Campus Improvement Plan.  This topic was addressed as follows:

 Campus Improvement Plan (CIP):  Discuss in your departments—What are some areas that we want to highlight?  Engagement, transition and collaboration are main goals that we want to address.  Some areas to highlight are counselors’ meetings with all students, extra-curricular activity, electives, freshman orientation, Activity Fair.

Goal 1:  Some suggestions are Honor Roll, school web sites and other web presence, calendars, proactive student tutorials, proactive STAAR tutorials,  (promote academic success)

Goal 2:  work with district in monitoring attendance (encourage school attendance)

Goal 3:  Integrity, Eyas, Student of the Month (student recognition)

Goal 5:  special needs

Three broad areas that should be mentioned are including traditional and less traditional teaching methods, concept of collaboration and the seamless transition from middle school to high school.

This is a direct example of an action research plan at the campus level and is designed to “improve student learning by developing and refining the skills of teaching.”

     At the district level, an example of action research is an “inquiry-oriented learning community”.  In the Dana text, this is defined as “six to twelve professionals who meet on a regular basis to learn from practice through structured dialogue and who engage in continuous cycles through the process of action research.”  This type of action research I believe is most important in the 4^th phase of the action research model, using and sharing results.  When personnel meet at the district level, sharing results of campus initiated action research helps personnel on other campuses possibily incorporate this at their campuses.  I also believe it to be important that these committess/communities are made up of personnel that fill leadership rolls at different capacities within a school district (i.e. campus principals, athletic directors, lead counselors, district technology specialist etc. . .)

     All of these examples fall under the umbrella of instructional leadership which “involves implementing appropriate and effective curriculum, in a school, in collaboration with all stakeholders in the school.”  Student success is the back bone of all action research in education.

     From personal experience, I have been doing quite a bit of action research (although I wasn’t defining it this way until now) at the department level.  I hope within the next year (as part of my internship plan) that I get much more involved with action research at the campus level.