Week 3 and still kickin

I just admitted in my homework for my research course that I was more daunted by the prospect of my research being viewed by Academia then I was by my weekly/daily work being graded by the professor that teach the course. Was that a good idea? Is taunting the professors a good plan? Think that'll hurt my grade?

Anyway, I'm having a hard time getting with my site supervisor this week as we've both been gone to conferences so I'm hoping he goes along with my plan because if not I'm going to have to scrap it and do 3 weeks worth of work next week and summer band camp starts Monday! 8-5 everyday with the band and then trying to do all my research planning at night.

Luckily, I feel like all the planning work I've done this week will really prepare me to move forward in the coming weeks. I'm planning on doing a lot of work this Saturday and Sunday so I don't have as much to do during the week because I know I'll be a zombie by 5 everyday. Wish my luck and good luck to all of you fellow researchers!

Action Research Planning...

For more information on my action research on TAKS Math remedial courses see posts below. This is my action research plan:

Action Research on TAKS Math Remedial Courses:

Goals and objectives:

The goal of this action research is determine if forcing students to take remedial Math courses aimed at passing TAKS in addition to their regular Math courses helps students achieve greater success on TAKS. The hopeful outcome is to engage in conversation about the efficacy of these courses. If they work, why doesn’t everyone take them before taking any TAKS test? If they do not work, how can we make changes that will provide the help students need to succeed?

Activities:

• Interview pertinent parties (i.e. administrators, teachers, students, parents, etc) about remedial courses both the parties being studied and those that are not being studied.
• Review data pertaining to past success/failure.
• Meet with targeted classes to assuage any fears and explain the goals.
• Determine how to assess progress of students and then assess. This may be done by giving students a pre-test and post-test to check for knowledge gained and also by looking at TAKS results, but since TAKS is an uncontrollable variable it may be prudent to work with Math teachers to devise our own assessment tool.
• Publish findings on the blog.

Resources:

• TAKS data provided by our campus administration.
• Knowledge gleaned from interviews of professionals in the field.
• Professors at Lamar University and other available institutions.
• Guidance from various related texts to be outlined in the final product.

Draft timeline for completion:

Since the project involves TAKS testing and retesting a probable timeline for completion would be July 2011. Much of the work on the project can be done in the Fall 2010 of course but completion wouldn’t necessarily be available until all re-takes were exhausted which may even fall into the 2011-2012 school year.

Persons responsible for implementation:

The researcher will be responsible for planning and executing most of the work. The principal will determine the who, what, when, and where to his discretion. Teachers may assist, if applicable, in handing out and grading materials.

Process for monitoring:

At this point, the hope is that monitoring can be done by getting honest feedback from interviewees and analyzing various data. Data may be taken from quizzes given in the remedial courses to more formal assessments like benchmark tests and TAKS testing.

Assessment of the Action Research:

It seems right now that the research will be complete when we have comparable values. When we can look at the scores of student X on the 2009 TAKS Math versus the scores of student X on the 2010 TAKS Math and determine what, if any, improvement there will be. Hopefully the process will allow us to ascertain the efficacy of the remedial courses.

Adventures in Epiphanies

After completing week 2's assignment in my current course (ominously entitled "Research"), I hate to admit it, but I feel a sense of accomplishment. I breezed through the assignment not because it was easy, but because I enjoyed it. I wasn't sure when I started my journey toward becoming a principal that it was what I wanted to do, but this lesson kind of solidified for me that maybe this is what I should be doing after all. I'm sure not ready to "give up" being in the classroom yet, but when I am, I feel more like the principal's office should be my next step than ever before. I'm even thinking central office is not out of the question, which I had definitely thought before.

Action Research Week 2: The Adventure Continues

Well, this week I had to try to focus my thoughts on some specific action research. Since we've been encouraged to look for things that we're passionate about I chose to look at how TAKS Math remedial courses impact students at our campus. I latched on to this when my assistant principal mentioned it because I've been wondering about it for years. As a band director, I've had to fight to keep students in band because of these courses and I've heard from students that these courses don't help. As a rule, I don't trust what a teenager tells me without some form of evidence to support it so I really wanted to look into this issue, but since posting about it with my fellow students, I'm nervous. I feel a greater sense of how widespread this issue is. So many campuses just blindly turn students into these classes and do they have any data to support that it helps? I now feel the pressure to get this done right and to have good, usable data. I only hope I'm up to the challenge.

Educational Leaders and Blogs

Blogs are the way the world communicates. I still read traditional forms of media, but almost always in the electronic format and even then I'm reading a form of blogging.

Educational leaders should use blogging as a tool for expression and communication. As I read the faculty bulletin each week, I often have feedback I'd like to suggest or questions I'd like to ask. If the faculty bulletin were set up as a blog (password protected so that only the staff could view it) in addition to the traditional printed form, this would facilitate two-way communication amongst the staff. As principals and other educational leaders see an issue they need to discuss with stakeholders they could post a blog and begin the conversation. I recently read a blog on how to handle the newest Superman movie. It was riveting and I spent hours reading the discussion (not all of it very intellectual mind you) between readers and blogger. Seeing this example showed me that blogging is a powerful tool in sharing and discussing our ideas. We often don't have time to get together as a faculty because we don't share the same after or before after school schedules thanks to our families, our co-curricular responsibilities, and/or our hobbies, but if we discuss the issues in blog from then we can all look and respond at our most convenient time.

It's not your father's research...

To be honest, when I read that the next course in my master’s degree program was research I was grieved in my spirit. I started my master's degree over ten years ago before I decided it would be better to get some experience teaching first. The first course back then was a research course. Only one word could describe my view of research after that course: boring. Try and imagine Ben Stein saying that last word and you'll have the intended inflection. With all due respect to my professor and to researchers in general, I found research to be frustrating and not much help. It seemed to me that traditional research was always about someone else' school and some else' problems and if it offered any solutions at all they were solutions best suited to those schools and those problems. The one reviewing the research was still left with the daunting task of making application to his/her own situation. I was relieved to find that action research works differently by involving the practitioner as the researcher. Action research does not seek to do away with traditional research, but rather to provide principals, teachers, or any other practitioner who with a issue to resolve with a new way of seeking solutions to the problems that plague them.