Agreed upon Action Research Plan

School Vision: To provide a solid foundation for successful, lifelong learning for all students through the cooperative efforts of school and community. Goals: 1. Increase percentage of students in 4th grade receiving commended performance on the TAKS Writing assessment to 40%. 2. Increase proficiency in English Language Arts/Writing TEKS among all students as measured by a primary (K-2nd grade) or intermediate (3rd -6th grade) rubric and works samples in writing portfolio. Action Steps Person(s) Responsible TIMELINE: Start/End Needed Resources Evaluation Teacher unit planning will identify specific objectives being taught related to data gathered on identified student needs. Teachers will plan for a six-week scope and sequence based on the identified needs of their students by objective. Teachers will collaborate with learning community on the implementation of writing initiatives. Campus reading specialist, Administrative intern Instructional specialist. Writing improvement committee Teachers Principal September 2010 Thru May 2011 Writer’s workshop training, professional development sessions, weekly planning meetings Six weeks writing scope and sequence turned in at the beginning of each grading period. Parents will participate in student’s writing process. Parents will complete the home connection of the writing portfolio helping students plan, generate ideas, and edit their writing. Teachers will use portfolio for two way communication using the writing rubric to show student progress. Teachers Parents Writing improvement committee. September 2010 Thru May 2011 Folders, posters, training, feedback from the learning community. Writing portfolio School-wide rubric Parent completion % of home connection Parents increase their understanding of writing curriculum and assessment and how to support their child with proficiency in ELA TEKS. Parent training on new school-wide rubric used to grade student work, six traits of writing and writing portfolios Principal, Administrative intern Instructional specialist Oct 26, 2010 Presenters for training, handouts for meeting, books for parents to check out. Parent attendance % Students will demonstrate grade appropriate proficiency with writing conventions. Students will use and spell high frequency words correctly at a rate of 90% Teachers September 2010 Thru May 2011 Writing curriculum Writing rubric: conventions Students will use vivid verbs and adjectives at least 50% of the time after editing the final draft. Teachers September 2010 Thru May 2011 Writing curriculum Writing rubric: Word choice Students are able to identify repetitive sentence beginnings, and rough transitions during peer editing 70% of the time. Students Teachers September 2010 Thru May 2011 Writing curriculum Peer review analysis Writing rubric: Sentence fluency Students are able to produce an opening that is engaging to the reader 90% of the time. Students are able to link all ideas to the main idea of the writing 90% of the time Teachers September 2010 Thru May 2011 Writing curriculum Writing rubric: Organization/ cohesiveness Students are able to produce writing that conveys enthusiasm and voice at grade appropriate levels as measured by peer-review analysis. Students Teachers September 2010 Thru May 2011 Writing curriculum Peer review analysis Writing rubric: Voice Students are able to use details to support and elaborate on their main idea, create the mood, and convey the intended message as measured by peer-review and teacher rating. Students Teachers September 2010 Thru May 2011 Writing curriculum Peer review analysis Writing rubric: Ideas Writing improvement committee will meet to conduct schoolwide writing contest that will be published through local media outlet Writing improvement committee Administrative intern Instructional specialist January 2011 Partnership with local media outlet Incetives/prizes Writing contest results Number of writing samples receiving a ‘3 or above’ will increase from 21% to 60% Principal Teachers November 2010 Thru March 2011 Writing curriculum Writing benchmarks and TAKS Develop Online Writing Lab (OWL) for students to use to independently develop their writing skills. Technology specialist Administrative Intern Instructional specialist November 2010 Thru June 2011 Computer lab Internet access Students’ use of technology lab to learn and write.

Please comment below. Your suggestions and observations could help greatly improve the results of our action research project.

Challenges to Action Research Project

My action research plan is progressing very well. On Friday, a group of teachers and I gathered to write our Campus Improvement Plan, plan staff development for the first week back from summer, and develop our theme and long range plan. Integral to the goals of our campus is the action research plan that I have described so far. Two main concerns emerge as we discuss implementing the plan. First, we must find committee members from among our parents and community that are willing to invest in the plan and oversee it to the end. I am having difficulty recruiting more than just teachers and staff to come alongside this plan. Also, time is a major challenge. I need someone who is willing to develop a portfolio design that will facilitate the home connection, two teachers that are willing to model writer's workshop, and someone who is willing to build relationships with local media outlets to support our writing contest. Both stem from a lack of buy-in on the part of the stakeholders, and there is no way for me to draw a group to go over data sooner than September 14th. I need something that I can do now that will convey a sense of urgency to stakeholders and increase parent and community involvement with the school.

Real Action Research

I enjoyed reading chapter two of Leading with Passion and Knowledge by Nancy Dana. I was surprised that two of the real life examples in research matched identically to the questions that I had formed myself while reflecting on our needs as a campus. The first was a question about curriculum leadership and facilitating a learning community around the writing curriculum. My action research project was an extension of a school-community partnership committee I had proposed during my School Community Relations class. Our teachers were going to be researching best practices in teaching writing, and implementing a student portfolio with a built in-home connection to improve two-way communication. It is exciting that others have researched this and I have the added benefit of their findings before conducting my inquiry this fall. Another question that I posed last week before getting to read the chapter was the success of supports for new teachers especially ones who had gone through alternative certification. One of the individual teacher passions was for new and mid-career teachers and the supports that are most successful. I had not thought of mid-career mentoring and development but it definitely needs to be addressed. I am excited to look into what other administrators have discovered about the topic that I can use on my own campus.

On a side note, I really liked the Passion 6 exercise on page 55, designing a principal coat of arms. I think it is a creative and intentional way to form a vision of personal leadership.


Source:

Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Teach for America

After reading an op-ed piece in the NY Times today, I considered another field that is ripe for action research. The effectiveness of alternative teacher certification programs in training highly-qualified teachers. It would be a professional learning community made up of new teacher mentors and administrators at various campuses throughout a school district or even educational service center. The goal would be to look at teacher retention rates of alternatively certified teachers compared to new teachers with a degree in education. The focus would be on what challenges the two groups face through the first two years, and how well their expectations of the profession were met. The study would look at four metrics in a new teacher survey to be administered at the beginning, middle and end of each of the first two years. Those metrics would be efficacy, access to professional development, job satisfaction, and sense of support from colleagues and administrators. The results of the study would help frame new teacher mentor programs and facilitate the best practices to improve teacher retention among alternately certified teachers. Included below is my comment to the above article written for the NY Times.

The author's opinion is that Teach for America is doing the nation a disservice by producing short-term teachers that exploit the experience and pedigree of the program, but had no interest in making a career out of teaching.

--I definitely see your point, and I do believe it takes several years to master all of the duties that are required of today's teachers. However, you are making an over-generalization about T.F.A. and possibly all alternative certification programs. I am starting my 6th year of teaching and am finishing my master's in educational administration, but I came from the business world via the Texas Teaching Fellows alt. cert. program. I didn't see teaching as my long term goal, but education has become a passion of mine because of great mentors, a supportive school district, and access to the best professional development. I think that the burden of retaining the best candidates in the poorest schools is on the administrators of those schools and the school district. Entering into any kind of social service is only going to appeal to those who have altruistic leanings to begin with. Whether you see yourself as a lifelong public servant or just want something more out of your job than a paycheck, the choice to stay in education is going to be made over issues of buy-in to the campus and district vision and feelings of efficacy. Teach for America, and programs like it, grew out of necessity, namely a dramatic shortage of highly-qualified teachers in math, science, and special education that were willing to teach in underprivileged schools. These will always be difficult positions to fill because the qualifications for such a job are the same as careers that pay twice and three times as much. With shrinking school budgets, and the increasing diversity we see in our nation's schools, there is a need to train more teachers inexpensively for the increasing rigor and demand to prepare our students for 21st century jobs.

Learning about action research

The emerging style of research in education is dubbed "action research" or "practitioner inquiry." One benefit of this style of research is that the practitioners, whether teachers or administrators, are forming the questions and gathering the data and drawing conclusions. This is superior to the former models which only engaged practitioners as a character in the study rather that a guiding force. The old styles were process-product and qualitative or interpretive. The first, which focuses on control in a linear process, depends on an outside researcher for the question. The other style, which also depends on an outside researcher, attempts to explain some phenomenon within the field of education. When the findings of these types of studies are published, implementation of the suggestions and conclusions of the research is difficult or never occurs. When teachers or administrators are engaged as researchers, their own questions and challenges are studied, and the data pertains directly to their students and campus. While a superior method of research for many reasons, the main concern of practitioners is that it is time intensive and requires a lot of planning and data analysis. The benefits of conducting this research should nevertheless draw educators to engage in action research to solve problems at the campus level.

Educators share common problems across the nation and even the world. The benefit of action research can be multiplied exponentially by encouraging practitioners to publish their findings systematically online in a searchable, accessible format like blogs, wikis, or research websites. As with any scientific process, sharing research findings in a peer-reviewed setting increases the reach of the results and helps practitioners form more effective questions by allowing them to do a literature review about the topic they wish to investigate.