Action Research Plan

After meeting with my site supervisor, I will be going forward with the previously posted action research plan dealing with struggling students and assisting them academically in our first graduating class. I hope to improve our graduation and completion rates, especially since that will be a school and district focus for the next two years.

Research Action Plan Draft using Template

Goal: To identify the most effective and efficient ways to provide struggling students with the resources and opportunity to make the improvements necessary to graduate on time.
Action Steps
1.Identify those students in our first graduating class(2012) that have fallen behind and will need additional support and options to graduate.
2.Conduct surveys with those students and our teachers involved with all of the programs supporting those students to gather information of our current situation.
3.Document progress of current systems and programs in place and give new ideas for these students trial runs.
4.Identify which ways are the best to help our struggling students the most, and look to increase the implementation of these while eliminating or changing ineffective ones with the main goal in mind, which is graduation for all students.

Persons Responsible
1.Struggling students
2.Transition coordinator and teachers involved with programs helping students in jeopardy of not graduating
3.Administrators and all teachers
4.Research coordinator

Timeline
1.Main research and data collection will occur in the first semester 2010
2.Recommendations, improvements, and additional data collection spring 2011
3.Main changes made fall 2011
4.Final goal and conclusion will be spring of 2012 with graduation

Needed Resources
1.Current student data provided by transition coordinator
2.Surveys completed by both students and teachers involved
3.Continuous data throughout year monitoring individual student progresses and improvements
4.Support from administration and all teachers

Evaluation
1.Current data compared to progress data as year goes on as far as where students started with regards to graduating on time and where they are now
2.Reflection on survey results and changes made to include students and teachers input and draw conclusions based on student and teacher satisfaction
3.Separate each program used during research project and give individual results based on student participation and success
4.Calculate how many students graduated, how many attribute their success to our programs, and how many students didn’t reach the goal of graduation

Action Research Plan Draft

The goals and objectives of my action research plan are to successfully fulfill one of the main ideas that my principal set out to do when we opened our new campus two years ago. She mentioned it during my interview before the school was even built, and I immediately bought into her vision and wanted to be a part of it. That is, to have all students graduate high school and have the tools to be prepared to make the most of post high school opportunities. The outcome that I am trying to achieve is to take many of the current students that are behind or falling behind and give them the necessary resources to catch up and exceed their own expectations. This will include utilizing not only resources, but people and programs and building a school culture where not graduating is not acceptable.
We currently have programs in place to help struggling students, and I would like to research these programs and look to improve them, as well as introduce new, effective programs that could fill gaps in our process. Some of our current programs that I will research and survey include our credit recovery classes, our RAID lab, credit by exam, and summer school. These programs are standard in most schools, so my goal here would be to improve our efficiency in each program and better communicate these options to our struggling students and stakeholders. I would like to designate teachers to monitor and work with students who are falling behind that are in their advocate classes, which at our school is like homeroom. Many teachers do not do much with their advocate period, and I would look at ways to change that approach and make it worthwhile for teachers and students. Another key to my action research would be to find new ways to help our struggling students. I believe they need some options and flexibility, so I will look at before and after school options, as well as Saturdays to accommodate a greater percentage of our students who need help. This will also involve budgetary considerations, along with teachers willing to give up time outside of their normal hours. I would like to put better processes in place to communicate the potential of failing to parents earlier than at semester or in some cases, at the end of the school year. I believe some of this responsibility falls on the teachers.
Some of the resources and research tools that I will use include interviews of students, teachers, and administrators; surveys of our current systems and new possibilities, data from other successful schools and literature related to my topic of graduation rates and failing students. One of the key ingredients to the success of my action research project will be to interview and survey our struggling students and focus on ways that they believe can benefit them the most. Student buy-in and choice is huge, especially when dealing with the less motivated population of students. I will use surveys to find out what has worked in our first two years for teachers and students, and what can be changed and added to our school with regard to our struggling students. I will go in front of individual departments and also SBDM to get input from those avenues as well. Another resource I will utilize is schools in my area that already have positive programs in place for their failing students. I will meet with administrators from those schools and get important information that I can transfer to our school. One resource that I have that is not available to others looking into the same inquiry as me is time. I have two full school years until our first graduating class, and I look to take full advantage of the rare opportunity to get our first graduating class across the stage.
The timeline that I am looking at focusing on is two school years, which is the amount of time that our school has until our first graduating class in the spring of 2012. I will be documenting the progress of those struggling students from our oldest group of students this year and into their senior year as well. I am looking at researching this fall intensively, and introducing and implementing better programs along with new ones this spring and into next year as well. I will look to meet with our transition coordinator who currently handles struggling students about every six weeks to reflect on the data that I have collected and work towards positive change. Other people involved with the implementation will be administrators, department heads, and other teachers willing to participate in creating a culture that makes graduation a priority. I will have those teachers already involved with our programs that help struggling students highly engaged in my action research project. As previously mentioned, I will really focus on the students in my project, and getting their input which in turn will get their buy-in and commitment to improvement. Ultimately, I am the person responsible for conducting the facets of research, introducing the changes necessary for our students, and getting all players involved in the implementation.
First, I will need to identify the student population that is going to be directly involved with my action research project. Once I do that, getting familiar with those students and their schedules will allow me to set a process for checking progress. I would like to conduct surveys and interviews about every six weeks throughout the first semester to gather pertinent information with relation to my project. In order to check goals and objectives, I will look at where my students are currently and where we are going to get them, which is caught up and on track for graduation by the end of their senior year. I will monitor which students use which programs the most, and look to provide additional opportunities for those without available resources or not involved in their own plan. By the end of each semester this year, I will know how many students have improved their situation, and how many students have not improved or possibly gotten into a worse situation.
My assessment instrument will be based on how many students that were in jeopardy of not graduating are graduating or on pace to graduate. I will also assess the effectiveness of each program I research, based on how many students actually used the programs to improve. Those programs not doing well will be improved or eliminated, and new ones will be introduced and promoted. I will conduct student surveys to get input from those very important people we are trying to guide, because without their honest feedback and reflection, I can’t fully expect my action research project to reach its full potential.

Week 2 Reflection

After completing the week 2 assignment for this research class, I am taking away quite a bit of quality information. The nine passions that drive administrators in the Dana text and the inquiries that are associated with each are very interesting and accurate. They ask many of the same questions that I do as a future school leader. I find myself understanding the perspective of administrators more and more. This is my 11th class, but just about every assignment, including this week's, gives me a clearer idea of why educational leaders make certain decisions. The action research philosphy is an effective way to create personal change and also change school wide. It requires questions not only being answered, but action taken to make improvements as a result of the answer. It is not change just to change, but change based on solid data that is hopefully provided by teachers and students, the main stakeholders of the school. With participation and buy in from teachers and students, the potential for a school is unlimited.

Action research is a very productive tool for educational leaders. It can also be called an administrator inquiry, which refers to the process of engaging in a systematic study of one's own practice, and taking action for change based on what was learned as a result. The process includes posing questions, collecting solid data to gain insight into the question being asked, analyzing that data and making the appropriate changes to improve the process. Action research is just that; taking action after gaining enough knowledge to improve yourself and the decisions that you make. It is great for professional development and continuous improvement, and should be utilized by all educational leaders. Too many times in education, great ideas and changes are discussed but nothing significant happens. With an idea like action research, administrators make personal inquiries within their own schools, and therefore, changes are actually made. When recommendations or changes are offered by outside sources, teachers don't buy in because they had no input and don't believe that individuals without educational experience can produce results. If someone who has never played basketball offers me a suggestion, I have a hard time buying in because they don't have the personal experience with the sport. As a former collegiate player, I can discuss my personal experiences with my players which I believe greatly increases their buy in to my strategies and ideas. The same goes for education and just about any other profession.
Educational leaders can use blogs to communicate tons of information to all stakeholders involved in their school. With technology so privelent in our society, constant open lines of communication are extremely important. Blogs can be used to help gain support for ideas as well.

Week 5 Reflection

As I look back and reflect on this course, I have learned a lot in many areas of the integration of technology in education. Prior to this course, I didn’t have any exposure to the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, and had little exposure to STaR charts. Not only do I know about these important concepts, but I could explain them to my fellow educators and explain the importance of both. I was cautiously optimistic going into this course that I would get a lot out of it. I thought the articles were extremely relevant and the course was as beneficial as any that I have take to date through this program. I have already met with my principal and had a productive discussion about the future of technology at our school and gave her a few suggestions for improvement. I also had an opportunity to compare the StaR chart results from my school with the other high schools in my district in order to compare our current state of technology and was pleasantly surprised with our current status. I did see some areas that need improvement, and I hope to be a part of making those improvements happen.
A couple of things that I would have liked to done throughout the course was to find specific ways to incorporate some of the technology mentioned into my classroom and the other classrooms in my department. The main barrier to this was a lack of time, due to the fact that I am also a head basketball coach and it is the middle of the season really restricted my focus to just assignment completion without additional exploration. I would have liked to locate and observe teachers at my school utilizing technology, especially some of the tools mentioned in articles, but again, I really didn’t have any windows to make that happen. I hope to do some observing of cutting edge technology in the spring. I also plan on presenting my powerpoint about our school’s STaR chart to my principal and get some feedback.
The assignments were not didn’t have a high level of difficulty, but were very time consuming and I was forced to use large chunks of time to complete them. I wish I would have had better time management skills and broken up the assignments into easy, more manageable chunks throughout the week. The fact that the use of technology was integrated into the assignments, using a blog, creating a powerpoint, exposure to webcasts, all were important and worthwhile. In order to get comfortable and confident with technology, hands on activities and opportunities to try out applications are necessary.
I need to continue to pursue every opportunity available to improve my knowledge of technology and all of the applications for education. I feel like I have a solid foundation to build on but have tons of potential and room for growth. I would like to be a leader on my campus with technology use, and be able to learn new applications and share my information with the rest of our faculty. I believe 100% that we need to step up the importance and integration of technology in public education. It should be at the top of the list. We have an unbelieveable resource that is not being utilized to its fullest potential, and our goal needs to be to tap that resource and get more out of it. It is a continuous improvement idea.
I had a great experience starting and using my first blog. I hadn’t used one or been a frequent reader of one until this course. I had a negative conception of them, mainly due to the fact that I hadn’t been exposed to them previously. I think that blogs can be a great tool for educators, students, and all stakeholders in education. Communication is essential for teachers, and blogs are one of the most efficient ways to communicate with every person that needs information. With that great tool, great responsilbility also comes with it. There would be opportunities for misuse and abuse, and teachers would have to be extremely careful to make sure it is used exclusively for education. As the head of the health department at my school, I can see myself setting up a blog to reach all freshman students taking health. As a head basketball coach, I could have a basketball blog, including posts from players, important dates and updated changes that occur throughout the season.
As tough as it was balancing my time management during the busiest time of the year, I really feel like I got a great deal of pertinent information from this course. I am going to be a leader at my campus with the integration of technology at professional development and in the classroom. I will start it within my own department, and also try new things with my basketball program. I plan on meeting with administrators to discuss things that I learned in this class that I would like to try. I am also going to observe some of our technologically savvy teachers to get ideas from them and collaborate with them on how I can also utilize technology to improve student engagement and production. This course opened my eyes to great ideas and exposed me to state standards and charts for technology that I was not aware of, but are important to know and share with colleagues. As I reach the halfway point of my graduate school experience, I am very satisfied with the knowledge that I have gained and am excited about what the second half of courses has to offer.

Krause Week 4 Report
District Technology Facilitators
The role of these facilitators is to provide training and support for teachers and administrators throughout the district. They are organized by grade levels and work with the coordinating personnel. Facilitators lead campus technology training and also will work with individuals upon request. They also distribute mass emails with technology tips and information on commonly used applications.
Campus Technology Facilitators
The main role of this individual is to trouble shoot and problem solve for all faculty and staff on a specific campus. He also does all of the equipment set up, including classrooms, computer labs, networking, peripherals, and anything else dealing with technology. He also may lead some technology based training.
Administrators
The role of our administrators is to promote technology use in the classroom to enhance learning and model technology use during professional development, staff meetings, and provide the teachers with training opportunities to support increased technology use. Administrators are also responsible for the completion of such tools as STaR charts, and also breaking down technology data for our campus and creating ways to improve. The principal should also observe teachers using technology, and provide collaboration time and sharing ideas among teachers to increase the use of effective learning strategies that utilize technology.
Teachers
Teachers are responsible for integrating effective technology into their classrooms, and collaborating and sharing best practices with their colleagues. Teachers also should seek out professional development opportunities that focus on technology.
I learned that my school district and campus have made progress towards utilizing technology to enhance learning, but have not tapped the full potential of technology in many aspects. One of those areas that really need significant improvement is our professional development and training. I believe at this point, nearly 2010, every inservice needs to include technology. Even when we are discussing AEIS and AYP reports and setting goals and making plans, technology needs to be integrated into it. Moving professional development into computer labs or using laptops is the first step in the process. Instead of using poster board to create lists and visuals, we should be creating charts and data graphs on spreadsheets and powerpoints. I also believe that professional development is more effective when it is organized in subject specific groups. This is important when gathering and analyzing data because teachers want to work with student data that is relevant to them and what they teach. I like the idea of offering training online and opening it for a window of time and set the expectation that every teacher complete it in the time allotted. When we meet as a large group or as a department, discussion and integration of what was learned is the main goal of the meeting.

I think to improve decision making in the integration of technology would start with an improvement team or committee. An administrator, technology facilitator, and a handful of teachers, possibly department chairs, would make up the group. The main focus would be improving the weak areas of our campus STaR chart. This team would lead and model technology use at professional development sessions for the rest of the faculty, and be open to trying new and innovative things in the classroom. Appropriate funds would need to be allocated to ensure as many resources as possible were available.
In order to evaluate the integration of technology that occurs in my school, several actions will occur. First, extensive professional development and training must occur across the board. Reflection of what was learned is necessary to implement new strategies into the classroom. Documentation of the transfer of these strategies and ideas from trainings to the actual classroom is a part of the evaluation. If the professional development was beneficial, how do the teachers specifically use what they learned?
Another great evaluation tool is observations. Not only administrators observing teachers, but also teacher to teacher observations, focusing again on what technology is integrated into the learning. As we have learned in this course, our students are digital natives and need technological applications to stay interested and motivated. Coinciding with observations is collaboration. There can be sharing of ideas from department to department about the effective use of technology.
Using our individual and campus STaR charts is an important self evaluation tool. The chart identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the utilization of technology, and can give us focus and definitive goals for technology improvements. I would also create a more school specific assessment chart, including lesson plan documentation, technology applications and the frequency of technology use in the classroom, and roadblocks to using more technology.
We need to document the frequency of technology use in every department and classroom, and devise strategies to improve the percentage of teachers utilizing technology consistently in their classroom. I think teacher input on why they don’t use technology more often would open the discussion on what changes could eliminate those roadblocks.