Ch-ch-ch-changes

Time may change me- but I can't trace time- David Bowie

Ahh the memories- 

Anyway- I have already changed my plan up a bit as I started to organize it. At this point I have completed inviting staff members that wanted to participate in this project to a meeting. At the meeting I explained my intentions for the project and how I believe this is an area of need for our school according to the state testing and demographic data we receive. We then brainstormed various activities that we could do. That was the best part because we had some great ideas I hadn’t thought of before. I realized what a wealth of knowledge the staff has from the diverse backgrounds that they have taught in.

After the meeting I organized the activities into groupings. I then posted them on Sign Up Genius and had the members either sign up to run a subcommittee or to just participate in one of them. I didn’t want to pressure anyone to head a subcommittee so I will head the committees that no one wanted to. I also knew that we’ve got some great staff members that really like to take on the leadership role so I wanted that to be an opportunity for them to use their skills in that area also. Sign Up Genius is great and easy to use even for a technology deficient human like me.

I also received the list of students that we will pick from to work with on my project. I didn’t do that prior to the meeting because I wanted to see how many staff members wanted to participate first. The next portion of this will be looking at their testing scores and see who is in need the most of some assistance.

The highlighted areas are what has been done so far....woo hoo!

Action Planning Template
Goal: How can we help increase the standardized test scores for Math and Reading of our low socio-economic population of 4th and 5th grade students? When programs are implemented to increase their scores will those that had behavioral concerns also come out having better behavior too? Objectives/ Outcomes: Increase state standardized test scores for 15-20 students qualifying as low socio economic population of 4th and 5th grade students in Reading and Math. Decrease negative behaviors for these same students listed above that have behavioral concerns that result in office referrals or in/out of school suspension for the low socio economic population of 4th and 5th grade students.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Present the Action Research Plan to staff members that are interested in being involved in working with this group of students.	Mickie Long	August 23, 2013	·         Smart Board ·         Agenda Handouts ·         Power Point ·         Feedback survey	Feedback survey from the meeting
Compile list of low socio economic students that will be in program	Mickie Long Michelle Kolb (Guidance Counselor)	August 19, 2013-September 6, 2013	·         School demographic information	Data analysis
Compile list of their STAAR result for Math and Reading from previous year Compile a list of any office referrals or suspensions	Mickie Long Amy Carranza (Assistant Principal) Stacey Everson (Assistant Principal)	October 2, 2013	·         Student test results ·         Student office referral and suspension lists	Data analysis
Meet with committee members during week and discuss plans we will implement, who has what group of students, and other ideas they may have	Mickie Long, committee members	September 16, 2013- September 20, 2013	·         Smartboard ·         Handouts of ideas of activities to do	Analyze how productive the meeting was and what was accomplished
Send parent permission letter home of students involved explaining activities there child will be involved and who their mentor is	Mickie Long, committee members	October 15, 2013	·         Parent permission letter	Parent response
Meet with committee members and discuss progress, concerns, analyze, academic and behavioral data	Mickie Long, committee members	September 30, 2013 and then every other week through December 2013 Meet monthly from January 2014-June 2014	·         Behavior data ·         Academic data	Data analysis
Parent training classes	Mickie Long, District Personnel involved with parent training classes	October 2013- June 2014 Meet every other month topics such as: how to make your child more successful, how to help academically, how to help behaviorally, etc	·         District person ·         Smartboard ·         Handouts ·         Snacks ·         Free child care ·         Parent survey	Parent survey on class
Analyze results of research plan	Mickie  Long, committee members	June 2014	·         Powerpoint ·         Data	Data anlaysis
Present results to Adminsitrative Team and committee	Mickie Long	June 2014	·         Powerpoint ·         Data	Data analysis

 

The End of the Beginning.....of the Action Research Plan

The beginning of this course caused a bit of anxiety for me. I felt excited that I made it through my first online course but wasn’t quite confident in whether that was beginners luck or truly my ability. I came into this course not having a clue of what an Action Research Plan was. When I would read the early posts on Facebook I would become anxious thinking I didn’t have any idea of what they were talking about. Quickly I learned to block the stressors out and learned to walk through each assignment task by task. I realized this whole course was to teach about how to do an Action Research Plan. I wasn’t supposed to come in here with the knowledge of it. I was going to learn it. And I did!

I trained myself to watch the videos from Elvis Arterbury, Ph.D. and Steve Jenkins, Ed.D after I looked at the course overview. They conveyed calmness and a sense of being there to help me through this process. It was always a great way to start the by listening to their conversations and helpful hints. They were both very calming and encouraging which is exactly what this older horse needed.

I also felt the readings were very helpful. The first reading in Leading with Passion and Knowledge by Nancy Fichtman Dana was the most helpful to me. It explained the purpose of an action research plan, the benefits of conducting this inquiry, and the common problem in most people’s jobs of how you will actually find the time to conduct one. The assigned readings from her text brought us from coming up with an inquiry, deciding how you were going to keep track of the data, writing a plan of action, sharing

our progress with others along the journey, and coming up with concluding thoughts about the action research plan so it can be shared with others.  Overall I felt her book was very useful in walking me through this process.

Even though the assignments at times seemed a little daunting to me when I previewed them early in the week, I always felt that they were helpful in assisting me to the end goal or objective for this course- writing and action research plan. One of things I did realize from these assignments and this course was that I really need to preview the entire course to try to map out when I will need to contact other people as part of the assignment.

One of my weaknesses as a leader is that I dislike “bothering” people. This is something I need to get over. I have to rehearse in my head each time that my supervisor agreed to this and really has been nothing but more than helpful. In the back of my head though I keep thinking “Man, she has so much to do and I don’t want to bother her with my dribble.” For the next course I will be previewing right away so I can set up times to sit with my supervisor and discuss my assignments, action research plan, and/or internship plan.

So on I trench to the next course wondering what lies ahead for me on this journey and hoping for continued success.