Action Research Plan Update!

We are now approaching the half way point in our first nine weeks of school.  My action research plan is well underway at this point.  Teams are in the process of creating common assessments for math and analyzing data in order to provide effective intervention and challenge.  I have been collecting my data from the second grade team in relation to my action research plan.  Attached you will find links to our team norms, and 8-10 essential skills as the basis to our common assessments.  I have also provided a link to my updated action research plan.

Action Plan Update

Team Norms

Essential Outcomes

School/Community Relations Web Conference Reflection

Throughout this course I attended web conferences in order to collaborate with my fellow colleagues and clarify assignment and program concepts.  These web conferences were helpful and provided a lot of clarification regarding course requirements.  I was able to gain ideas from my peers and share blog posts.  It was extremely beneficial to here how other students were organizing course work and prioritizing assignments.  It was also very interesting to here the ideas regarding students parent involvement improvement plans as well gaining knowledge of plans similar to my own. 

Udpated Action Research Plan

Action Planning Template
Goal: To increase teacher knowledge of the SMART goal process and how to implement effective intervention based on common assessment data.  To increase student achievement on semester assessments by 10% in math by creating and implementing intervention through professional learning communities.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation	Reflection
Meet with Academic Leadership Team to discuss PLC components and prepare for staff development.  Complete an Affinity Diagram and what is crucial in creating a PLC vision. Video tape teacher’s role playing possible excuses for low test scores and teaching tool in upcoming staff development.  Upload videos to PowerPoint. Look at agenda for upcoming in-service.	Academic Leadership Team Principal AP Lindsay Starkjohann	August 6, 2012	Video Camera Campus Capacity Matrix Notes from PLC training.	Videos Affinity Diagram	Today the ALT met in two groups and discussed presentation methods for the 8-10 essential outcomes, and Creating Common Assessments.  Cathy facilitated created an affinity diagram on crucial items in creating a PLC vision.  She will present on this during in-service. Attached:  In-service agenda, capacity matrix, and PowerPoint presentation on vision.
Look at perceptual data from teacher surveys on our current intervention system.	Cathy White- Principal and Academic Leadership Team	August 2012	Surveys from end of last year. Assessment data of Tier 2 students from previous year to look at current state.	Exit Tickets Destination Postcards	Attached:  Survey results and findings.  Photos of survey results.
Staff Development for teachers on professional learning communities, writing team norms, creating common assessments, and making an action plan for intervention.  Teachers will meet as a PLC and come up with 8-10 essential skills for math from the curriculum documents to create common assessments.  I will help video sessions to use as evaluation tools.	Cathy White-Principal Academic Leadership Team	August 20-23 2012	PLC notebooks created at summer trainings, curriculum documents, common assessment templates, team norms.	Videos, Norms Posted in Coaches Room Essential Skill Documents Created Exit Tickets	Attached: 8-10 essential skills for 2nd grade, and team norms.
Follow up survey given to teachers to assess current intervention methods in the classroom.  Example:  “How often do you currently provide intervention to your RTI students?” Teachers will create common assessments for math based on the 8-10 essential skills created during in-service.  Common assessments will be given to students at end of 1st nine weeks.	Cathy White-Principal	August 2012 1st nine weeks	Surveys	Survey Data	Attached:  Follow up survey results, 2nd grade common assessments.
After common assessments have been given, teachers meet and analyze data.  Based on common assessment data teachers will make changes to instruction, participate in teacher observations and decide which students need targeted intervention.	Classroom Teachers Instructional Coaches	2nd Nine Weeks Period	Curriculum Documents, Common Assessments, RTI documentation forms.	Common Assessment Data	Attached:  Common Assessment data for 2nd grade math, and intervention action plan.
Teachers provide targeted intervention in classrooms to Tier 2 students during flex time.	Classroom teachers	2nd nine weeks-continuous	Common Assessments, RTI SMART goals.  Intervention tools.	Common Assessment Data
After intervention students are re-assessed after small group/targeted instruction.  From this assessment data RTI SMART goals are written and the cycle begins again.  Some skills may spiral back into future common assessments.	Classroom Teachers Instructional Coaches RTI Committee AP Principal	Continuous	Semester Assessments, RTI SMART goal forms, common assessments.	Semester Assessment Data	Attached: Follow up assessment data, data analysis comparision.

Updated and Revised Action Research Plan

Click here to check out my new and updated action research plan!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5ShRWSplHHGRWdKWl9Fa1U3RW8

Action Planning Template
Goal: To increase teacher knowledge of the SMART goal process and how to implement effective intervention based on common assessment data.  To increase student achievement on semester assessments by 10% in math by creating and implementing intervention through professional learning communities.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Look at perceptual data from teacher surveys on our current intervention system.	Cathy White- Principal and Academic Leadership Team	August 2012	Surveys from end of last year. Assessment data of Tier 2 students from previous year to look at current state.	Exit Tickets Destination Postcards
Staff Development for teachers on professional learning communities, writing team norms, creating common assessments, and making an action plan for intervention.  Teachers will meet as a PLC and come up with 8-10 essential skills for math from the curriculum documents to create common assessments.  I will help video sessions to use as evaluation tools.	Cathy White-Principal Academic Leadership Team	August 20-23 2012	PLC notebooks created at summer trainings, curriculum documents, common assessment templates, team norms.	Videos, Norms Posted in Coaches Room Essential Skill Documents Created Exit Tickets
Follow up survey given to teachers to assess current intervention methods in the classroom.  Example:  “How often do you currently provide intervention to your RTI students?” Teachers will create common assessments for math based on the 8-10 essential skills created during in-service.  Common assessments will be given to students at end of 1st nine weeks.	Cathy White-Principal	August 2012	Surveys	Survey Data
After common assessments have been given teachers meet and analyze data.  Based on common assessment data teachers will make changes to instruction, participate in teacher observations and decide which students need targeted intervention.	Classroom Teachers Instructional Coaches	2nd Nine Weeks Period	Curriculum Documents, Common Assessments, RTI documentation forms.	Common Assessment Data
Teachers provide targeted intervention in classrooms to Tier 2 students during flex time.	Classroom teachers	2nd nine weeks-continuous	Common Assessments, RTI SMART goals.  Intervention tools.	Common Assessment Data
After intervention students are re-assessed after small group/targeted instruction.  From this assessment data RTI SMART goals are written and the cycle begins again.  Some skills may spiral back into future common assessments.	Classroom Teachers Instructional Coaches RTI Committee AP Principal	Continuous	Semester Assessments, RTI SMART goal forms, common assessments.	Semester Assessment Data

Week Two Reflection

After watching the videos of the leaders this week describe their experience with action research I was able to gain a lot of insight in beginning my action research project.  The various leaders described various action research plans they have been apart of or supervised and data was key in all of them.  Dr. Briseno talked about never approaching a problem or issue on campus without looking at the data first.  He meets with his teachers and looks at current quantitative data before determining the direction.  Then the qualitative data is assessed, from there an action plan is determined.  After reading the text this week, I became very knowledgeable in the nine areas that action research can take place.  It really showed me that there are always areas on a school can improve.  This takes me back to a quote from Dr. Chargois who says, "A great leader is a lifelong learner."  I truly believe that as leaders we need to always be looking for areas of improvement and instill continuous improvement in our students and staff!

Proposed Action Research Topic

After talking with my site supervisor we have decided to use campus survey data to determine an action research project.  After reflecting on the data intervention on our campus was an area of concern.  This year we are compiling a group of people on a task force to look and research this topic.  We will be using Professional Learning Communities to research the effectiveness of intervention on our campus.  We will use common assessments and collect data to determine the intervention plan and from there use RTI tools to provide the needed area of intervention.  After a few weeks of intervention common assessments will be used again to determine growth.  We will be focusing on our RTI tier 2 students where the teacher is providing most of the intervention, where tier 3 students will also receive support from our campus interventionist. I'm excited to see how the results and data from this project! 

Action Research in Education

Action Research can be used in the educational setting in a variety of ways.  Teachers can work together to effectively assess their current scores and come up with a plan for intervention by studying data and creating change.  Teachers and administrators face dilemmas in the school system everyday and are constantly focusing on student achievement.  This can be done through action research.  Enrichment can be assessed to see the effectiveness on scores, parental involvement, technology use, classroom environment etc.

Action Research Defined

I am very fortunate to work on a campus that utilizes action research yearly to improve the education of our students and the motivation of our staff.  I have learned that action research is a process that involves time and effort.  Beginning with posing a question you wish to research and conducting a literature review to gain some background knowledge and insight to your topic.  Creating a plan of action and working through various groups collecting data.  Once data is collected is important to work with the important stakeholders and campus staff to analyze the data and begin to make a plan to facilitate change.  Action research can benefit student achievement, teacher motivation and style, parental and community involvement and basic educational processes.  When conducting action research one needs to make sure to follow each phase and collaborate effectively with those involved.  Our campus is being trained and going to be working as a professional learning community to help to improve student achievement.  We are working towards collaborating and learning from one another to assist in our individual teaching.  On our campus this year we will form a task force to conduct action research in improving intervention on our campus.  Through the use of PLC's we will work with staff to research our current intervention situation and collect data.