5326 Reflection

I believe right now things are progressing as they should.  I am ahead on where I thought I would be in my field based activities.  I have had many meetings with my supervising principal and she has helped me tremendously.  I have started meeting with people via email on my action research plan.  I have also contacted the administration building and spoke with the ELA specialist to gain more insight for my action research plan.  I have discussed my action research plan with two of the English teachers on the 9th grade team and they are going to give me all the data they receive on testing so I can have that to help my own research.  I am also collaborating with them on the different lessons that are working and lessons that need to be changed.  I have not had any face to face meetings as I am currently out on maternity leave and I am about to roll that leave over to the sick child leave to care for my precious preemie. 

This summer I was going to get to sit on the Master Schedule planning time and see all the ins and outs of planning for the year with our head principal.  Our principal actually ended up getting promoted to the district area superintendent position so we had to wait on the district to hire a new principal.  By the time the new principal came on board I was already on medical bed rest due to some pregnancy complications.  I am not as far with hours as I would like to be but our new principal is going to help me with getting assignments when I return to work. 

Week Five Reflections!

As I reflect on the past 5 weeks and think about what I enjoyed learning the most, my answer I came up with might suprise most of you.   I actually have always wanted to start a blog and follow blogs but I was not sure what to do or how to go about it.  I am so thankful this class taught us the steps to take to create a blog.  I would like to use my blog this coming year or create a new one for my classes I teach as a place where they can gather resources from me.  I would also really like to start one for my family and keep our relatives in other states abreast of what is going on with us besides the occasional vague facebook post. 

I would like to learn more, obviously, about my action research plan.  I am working on how we can change ELA curriculum to better prepare our 9th and 10th grade students for ELA STAAR.  I have meetings set up with the supervising principal for our English department, the English Instructional Coach for our school, and the district English Mentor for high school level.  I am really excited to hear there ideas and see what all we can come up with.  Currently, my conference period is different than the 9th and 10th grade English teachers but I have requested my period be changed so I can sit in with them on their PLC meetings.  Through the discussion boards I found a classmate with basically the same action research plan so I am really excited to colloborate with her and bounce ideas off of each other. 

Week Four Update

This week I met briefly with my site supervisor.  At our high school we have lost our building principal and our associate principal in just two weeks time.  The rest of the administrative team is working diligently with the school board trying to get our school ready to open for the start of the school year.  They just hired two new assistant principals, one of the current assistant principals was promoted to associate principal, and they are interviewing for school principal.  She was extremely busy with all of the changes going on so she said we would meet at the beginning of next week to discuss progress and any necessary changes.  I have been lucky that we have been able to meet every week thus far so I feel very much ahead of the game with my research action plan. 

Week Three...Research Action Plan

My site supervisor was very excited about my project topic and only had one real concern. She thought my question needed to focus on one of the groups at a time for my research to be successful. I think this is great advice and decided to address them both but as separate inquiries. Making this change is important to maintain focus and improve the quality of the research. Another concern she had was trying to work on four grade levels at once. We decided to keep it as is for now but if it becomes too difficult; we will focus on 9th and 10th grade only.

After narrowing my focus to  students, we reviewed each activity and she suggested I make the following changes: 

Involve the resource teachers more in the process because they are the experts.

Include instructional paraprofessionals who provide english in-class support in the process.

Invite the teachers to participate in reading the literature as a book study and it to my internship plan.

I agree her suggestions will improve my research and applied them to my project.  When I complete this project, we will meet again and make a plan to address the ELL students on our campus and the teaching strategies.

                                  Stephanie Poss’ Action Plan

Goal: To ensure that english language arts instruction meets the educational needs of all students and their abilities increasing STAAR test results. 

Action Steps(s): Person(s) Responsible: Timeline: Start/End Needed Resources Evaluation

1. Meet with the english team and discuss concerns with the current science curriculum.

S. Poss

English Teachers grades 9-10

September 2013

2013 STAAR test results/EOC results

Benchmark Test Data

Student IEPs

2.Collect and analyze data to identify gaps in instruction using assessment data, classroom observations, teacher interviews and/or surveys, and student interviews and/or surveys.

S. Poss

English Teachers grades 9-10

Targeted students groups from grades 9-10

Action Research Week Two Update

One area I am interested in researching for my project is improving the math and science instruction for students who are performing multiple grade levels below their current grade. I feel that action research would identify strategies and give teachers the tools to provide science instruction on the student’s ability level and will help them be successful. What actions can we take to ensure that our resource students receive math and science instruction on their ability level and that will help them be successful?

Another area I would like to research is the effectiveness of homework and how it impacts student progress. Teachers, students, and parents have all had issues with the current homework program used at my campus. What changes can be made to homework that will improve student achievement?

The last area I would like to research, and honestly the one I think my supervisor and I will pick is how we can best change the ELA curriculum and teaching methods to improve the scores for 9th and 10th grade students on the STAAR test.  Right now our school is struggling with the ELA performance scores. 

When I met with my principal, she was very excited about all of the potential action research topics. While she was very interested in learning about and improving the homework program on our campus, she was concerned that I would have to rely on others to gather data. She also thought this project would not fit into my time frame. Next we discussed researching the math and science intervention/tutoring programs. She thought it would be beneficial to look in to improving the programs, but was unsure if the reliable data could be collected because of the time of year. We settled on finding ways to improve the ELA STAAR scores for 9th and 10th grade.  We will look at changes to the curriculum and testing strategies to get the students better prepared to excel on the test. 

The purpose of my action research study is to find ways to provide all students with training and instruction to excel on the ELA portion of the STAAR test. I would like to give teachers on my campus that are responsible for these students some guidance and tools for ensuring their instruction is meeting the needs of all students. I think this research will not only improve student achievement on ELA, it will also help empower teachers to make decisions about instruction for their students. 

Action Research and How it can be Helpful in the School Setting

Time or lack there of is the biggest problem facing educational administration these days.  Administrators daily receive more responsibilities and never receive more hours in the day to get all of their engagements satisfied.  Action research is bringing about change in the school climate via the administrator usually with social justice issues as the focus.  Administrators can have a huge and lasting impact on the school climate as they address problems or weak areas in their particular school.  The problem is with the heavy load administrators are asked to carry they do not have the time to research these problems and solutions.  Often administrators are in their offices, locked away from the rest of the school, and the rest of the district.  Professional learning communities would greatly combat this problem of isolation among principals.
How wonderful would it be if school districts focused as much time and energy on making PLC's a priority for principals just as they do for classroom teachers.  Principals could bounce ideas off of other principals and they could learn from other campus.  Even if principals had to use emerging technology to satisfy this need for collaboration I think it would be beneficial.  If they cant schedule in weekly trips to leave and meet other administrators they could always use Skype or Facetime applications to have a live web conference with other principals.

Another example of how technology might be used for action research is through the use of updated blogs.  Principals could create blogs and write quick updates about their dealings and experiences with situations on their campuses.  They could talk about what strategies worked and did not work and they could also enlist help from other principals on issues they are still trying to manage.  They could then collaborate with principals all over the district, state, even nation!