Week 5

Something I am really excited about getting started on and implementing is the alternative Saturday School option at my campus. In the Dana text the author highlighted principal Lynnette Langford and her alterations to her Saturday School program. My action research project is aimed at improving parental involvement and the alteration to our Saturday School program could possibly aid that goal.

Currently, our students who are assigned SS must serve from 8am until 12pm. Most times, from my assessments, the students that serve in SS do not have active parents, therefore the alternative option for our students could help in creating more involvement and awareness. The alternative option would allow the students to be accompanied by a parent or guardian to SS. If the parent or guardian attends with the student the time to serve would change from 4 hours to just 2 hours (8am-10am).

Ms. Langford claimed in her publication that after this option was implemented the student attendance for SS went from 43 student down to just 7 students. Ultimately, my aim with this new option is to get more parents involved (especially for those students who are "At-Risk", and who are chronic behavior problems), and to decrease student behavior problems - each which through my findings are correlated to student performance.

Week 4: AR Plan Progress and Changes

I was pleased to read about strategies that support and sustain action research. I have actually participated in each of these in the past. It was funny to read about Force Field Analysis, the Delphi Method, and the Nominal Group Technique then realize that I had done each of these!

My action research plan has not been altered too much to this point. The basic changes are in trying to formulate the tools with which I will use to measure parental involvement (the creation of survey, a letter home to parents to try to update contact information and create an email list of every student's parent or guardian, and the gathering of student data like behavior reports and TAKS test results).

I really hope that this research can be a successful tool for all teachers to use and alter for themselves to improve parental involvement at their respective schools.

Week 3: Action Research Topic and Plan

   

1.     Examining the work: Setting the Foundation – The need to increase parental involvement and student motivation, which ultimately will increase student performance and involvement in extra and co-curricular activities.

2.    Analyzing data – Examine student quantitative data to analyze areas of strength and weakness through report cards, core GPA, and TAKS test results. 

3.    Developing deeper understanding – Use qualitative data such as student, teacher, and parent surveys, behavior reports, and interviews

4.    Engaging in Self-Reflection – What can the school do to involve more members of the community and parents in the education process? What can the school do to encourage more parental involvement and access to school functions? What staff developments may be needed to inform and train teachers on the possible findings and solutions from the research?

5.    Exploring Programmatic Patterns – Is low motivation and performance a result of low parental involvement or could it also be caused by poor instructional strategies and/or irrelevant curriculum? Is parental involvement a cultural aspect, geographic aspect, generational aspect?

6.    Determining direction – I have discussed concerns unique to my campus, teachers, and students with my site supervisor. I initially had a fragmented version of a research idea and my site supervisor helped me to sharpen and articulate a vision that combined multiple concerns. I will work closely with my site supervisor and other teachers and administrators as necessary to gather and analyze data.

7.    Taking action for school improvement – This plan was developed by following the steps outlined in the Tool 7.1 Action Planning Template (Harris, et al) in order to guide me through the process for successful action research.

8.    Sustaining improvement – My action research project will help to improve my understanding of factors outside of the school campus that have an impact on the campus itself, and through the process of sharing information I will help to inform other educators of the findings and applicable solutions. The research will be an ongoing process since cultural and individual students traits constantly change, and can be used and applied by other educators on different campuses. Results, findings, and solutions will be posted to my Blog and open to others to continuously improve the research process and add new and changing dynamics.

Goal: To examine and understand cultural and community factors that affect student motivation and performance in order to change negative aspects and improve positive aspects.

Action Steps	Person Responsible	Start/End	Needed Resources/Tools	Evaluation
1.    Examine quantitative measures	Intern	March 2012 / August 2012	2008-2009 AEIS 2009-2010 AEIS 2010-2011 AEIS Core GPA records	Will identify individual students and student groups in order to begin to draw a correlation with survey results
2.    Examine Behavior and attendance reports	Site supervisor (Ast. Principal)	March 2012 / August 2012	School behavior report and attendance records	Quantitative data will be used to examine whether behavior and attendance has a correlation with parental involvement and student performance.
3.    Conduct student survey	Students	March 2012 / May 2012	Student sampling	Will be used to draw a correlation (if one exists) between qualitative data, parental involvement, and student involvement in school activities.
4.    Examine correlation between quantitative data (TAKS scores, core subject grades) and qualitative data (parental involvement, behavior reports, attendance records).	Intern, Site Supervisor	March 2012 / December 2012	AEIS data results Behavior reports Attendance records Survey results	Process of identifying similarities between quantitative data and qualitative data in order to show a correlation if one exists.
5.    Analyze data	Intern, Site Supervisor	March 2012 / May 2013	AEIS data results Behavior reports Attendance records Survey results	Examine the individual student’s and student groups’ results for each report. Once results are examined for each report avenues for correlations between quantitative results and qualitative results can be seen, if any exist.

Week 2: What I Have Learned About Action Research

After reading numerous articles and listening to several education scholars interviews and lectures I am realizing that some of the best solutions to an individual campus' unique concerns or problems has already been implemented elsewhere.

Dr. Kirk Lewis, Superintendent of Pasadena ISD, in Houston, TX said that his district is very “data rich” but that his district takes data that other districts may have compiled and they tear it apart to find a way to apply the data to their district in order to find an applicable solution to their unique set of concerns.

A concern that our campus has is two-fold; low parental involvement and low student motivation. I say they are two-fold because I believe that they are closely tied to one another and my actions research project created this week will aim at finding a correlation between the two and thus finding a solution to improve each.

A solution that has been used on another campus, by Principal Lynette Langford, was the implementation of Saturday School as a consequence for students in lieu of attending In-School-Suspension or Out-of-School-Suspension. Rather than just having the students show up for 4 hours on a Saturday, stare at a wall or a book from 8am to 12pm, Langford offered the option for parents to attend with their child and as a result only would have to stay for two hours. Langford said of her application of this intervention

“In the beginning we only had few students attend, but when parents realized their grades were suffering, the numbers increased and the numbers nearly doubled when the parents started attending.”

From: Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher by Nancy Fitchman Dana

Solutions are out there and have been tried, have failed, and have had success. Educators just need to look in the right places, ask the right questions, use information that can be applied in their unique school.

What I Have Learned About Action Research

Over the past week I have read several texts defining, describing the process of, and explaining the benefits of action research. Essentially action research, or administrative inquiry as it can also be referred to as, is a careful and methodical process for one to reflect upon their given practice by using diverse and valuable data to chart a course for needed action, change, and improvement.

Action research is a process that allows teachers to identify a range of classroom or education problems, develop a plan for action through research, data analysis, and personal reflection, then use that information to implement the necessary plan of action. Finally, the educator shares the outcome of the implemented plan, reflects on its success and/or failures and makes necessary revisions.

Most educators engage in this process without realizing it. Teachers inherently want to improve the educational process and the delivery of instruction and engage in self-reflection, analysis of data, and share information among their peers for this goal. Action research simply tries to refine this process and articulate the steps for successful research and problem solving to improve the educational process.

Action research is a great tool for educators to continually improve themselves, their students’ performance, and ultimately their schools. For educators action research is a do-it-yourself process to problem solving.