Purpose and Significance

My action research topic is "In what ways will early intervention have an affect on students' success on district benchmarks and state assessments." I will only be looking at math in grades 3-5. This year we hired several interventionists in the second semester to get under performing students STAAR ready. I started looking at the student data and realized that some students did show improvement on the district assessment after only two weeks of targeted intervention. I was thrown back. What if we had started closing gaps at the beginning of the year? I will follow a group of students that were tutored this year to next year. I will also look at their STAAR results from this year and right at the beginning about the second or third week of school, interventions will begin. I can not reach them all. So I was thinking to have two-three groups a grade level. Another topic I might be considering is looking at our behavior management on campus. I am not to sure how I would take data. I am still in the research process for this topic.

I think the teachers will benefit from this because I will be targeting the student expect ions and objectives that the students are low in. If the students did not master a readiness TEK on the STAAR that ultimately says the student is not prepared for the current grade. How will the teacher have time to close the gap and scaffold the student to the new learning. If we intervene early the student has more of chance. Building the foundational knowledge will help with the retention of the new ways the students have to apply the new student expectations. This year will be a transition year for grades 3-5 because there will be new TEKS, so now more than ever we have to make sure that students have a good knowledge base. The new TEKS are more specific. I feel they are asking a lot more from the students. The students will also benefit from this action research plan. They will be given the tools to succeed in the new grade.

Furthermore, RTI is a huge deal at our campus. We have LOTS of students on RTI. If we intervene early we could reduce the numbers of students on RTI. Looking at the RTI plans I noticed that a lot of students were having problems with number sense. Fifth graders with number sense problems? This is not a good thing. If we intervene early the number of students with number sense issues could decrease. I am hoping that they were be funding next year to start out the year with more interventionists to help with this research I am doing. I want to reach more students.

Reflection

Listening to Dr. Chargois opened my eyes to the importance of research on the campus and classroom level. One of the most powerful statements that are sticking with me is “The old adage of saying if I only touched one kid I’ve done….no sir that doesn’t work under today’s accountability”. I think it was an honest statement. It is alright to acknowledge you made a child feel better about them self, but it is always important that student progresses academically. Until the laws change about testing, this is a fact of education, student achievement is critical. His advice about being a lifelong learner being a key to students’ success is also very true.

“Never stop learning. If your green your growing, if you’re brown your dying”.

The concept of changing quantifying qualitative data is also a concept that made me think. Teachers have to produce results and have to use data to impact their instruction. Instructional strategies and methods have to be looked at and monitored to promote student achievement.  No longer should teachers be only knowledgeable in pedagogy and content, but also have to understand the benefits of performing research within their own classroom to produce results. Being action research oriented is important for teachers to accomplish results. Dr. Chargois also went on to say he would recommend for teachers to go back to school and learn about the research model.

 

Thoughts on his view about accountability?

Action Research

I have been in education for 9 years and I am shocked that this is the first time I am hearing about this type of research. I have experienced it, but indirectly. Now that I know what it is and I can pin point times that we have done activities that resemble an action research plan. I have learned that before even beginning the action research process it is important to reflect. In doing this the teachers brainstorm issues of the campuses. Then define the issue to study and make sure it is measureable and manageable. It is good to start small and remember everything cannot be changed at once. The next steps are reviewing professional literature, take action, and use and share results (Ringler, 2007). Doing this process makes the teachers an active participant in the improvement of the school. There is more chance of change if the teachers have buy in to the school's goals. They get a sense of ownership. It requires evaluating current practices and seeing how we can promote student achievement.

For my action research plan I am going to look at early interventions/ remediation. This year we started interventions for STAAR in the second semester. It is very stressful to try to get the kids prepared for the state assessment. I was wondering if I looked at the end of this year’s third graders’ results and used those to provide remediation right at the beginning of their fourth grade school year would we see more growth. So where they did not quite meet standard on readiness TEKS we provide support so that they could learn the new content without struggling. We find that this is also an issue for the second to third grade transition. So I would focus on 3^rd-5^th for my action research plan. I also want to look at objectives and scaffolding for the new TEKS in those grades. I still need to see if there is research on this.

Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The principal as Action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. (pg.1-15)

Ringler, M.C.(2007). Action research: An Effective Instructional Leadership Skill for Future Public School Leaders. AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, 4 (1), 27-37.

Blogging Benefits

Blogging is a way of sharing your experiences and thoughts informally with a large audience. For this course I know it will be a great tool for collaborating with other students while we developing and implementing our action research projects.  It is a great way of reflecting about our research, sharing resources we find helpful, and offering suggestions.  I know this is a cliché, but I truly believe “Two heads are better than one."

At our school teachers use blog to pose questions to students. It is great seeing how engaged the students get with the assignment. They are able to see how others answer and it helps them with forming their own thoughts. I like that the students are involved in educational discussions.

Welcome!!

I created this blog for my EDLD 5301 Research class. I am exciting about seeing all the comments and suggestions my followers have on my journey. I will be posting my progression of my action research project. Thanks for following!!