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.