Action Research Week 5

New Learning:
The word “Action Research” was alien to me. I had never heard the word before even though I have been in the education field for so many years. I gained lot of insight into the real meaning of “Action Research”. For me it was like a “Pandora Box” which was opened to me to discover variety of treasures. I learnt that Action Research is a way of learning more from practice by questioning, listening, watching, acting, analyzing and reflecting. That to me was pretty interesting and intense.

Specific area to learn more and build knowledge

I would like to learn more about conducting “Action Research “by looking at some of the Action Research done by other people and gain more knowledge by learning the different components of the research which includes surveys, collection of data, reading resources etc. I will be learning as my research progresses. As far as the theoretical part is concerned, I understand well but when it comes to practicality, I need to see how it goes as far as making necessary adjustments and changes are required.

Applied Knowledge:
I plan to use it for solving big challenges or problems for the improvement of my school. I will use action research as a tool to untangle the web of demands and take charge as a leader. I will collect data to gain insights and to analyze with reading relevant literature, making changes based on new understandings. I look forward to apply that learning to my research and see how our students can benefit out of it and how we as educators can be equipped with necessary tools to impact success.

Examining the Work : Sustaining Improvement - Week 4

Strategies for Sustaining Improvement: 

This week focused on different strategies for sustaining improvement - Force Field Analysis, the Delphi method, Nominal group technique and the CARE model. I also had another meeting with my two site supervisors to see if I needed to make any changes to my Action Research Draft. According to them it looked fine and no changes were required at this point but that does not guarantee that there will be no change in the coming weeks or months in my Action Research as we move forward with this. I learnt a lot in this past few weeks and I will continue to learn as I move forward in my journey for learning.

Challenges in Implementing my Action Research - Week 4

Specific challenges that I foresee in implementing my Action Research and how do I plan to address those challenges:

Time factor: Time factor will be the biggest challenge whether it comes to meeting with the administration, teachers or mentors. The best way to overcome this challenge is to be flexible and keep at it even if it means to send few friendly reminders to keep up with the time-line.

Acceptability:The other factor that I see as a challenge is acceptability of my research by my peers and how much are they willing to learn, change and accept the new innovative ideas formulated by this research. So I need to convince every-one of the new strategies and stay focused on the outcome that can impact student success.

Lack of Support: Sometimes lack of support can really discourage a person in their journey of making new discoveries. So I will continue to build a rapport and work on earning the required support even if it seems challenging.

Cooperation: Lack of co-operation can be little stressful. Action research needs lot of people working together and co-operating with each other. It also requires agreeing on new ideas and new study. Lack of co-operation can cause little tension especially when you have time-line in place. The bottom line is to make it work.

Action Research Project Process Overview - Week 3

Action Research Draft
Describe the problem and area of focus.	Boys struggling at Elementary School in academics. The focus will be First grade. Data will be collected and analyzed to create a plan.
Define the factors involved in your area of focus	Factors involved in my area of focus: 1.     Student’s socio- economic status 2.    Student’s psychological background 3.    Student’s home life. 4.    Students behavior referrals. 5.    Benchmarks 6.    Attendance
Develop research questions.	Am I able to control all the factors involved in my area of focus to persuade student’s ability to change and be successful.
Describe the intervention/innovation to be implemented	The implementation of comprehensive, research based strategies which can help increase success rate among academically struggling boys.
Develop a timeline for implementation.	February, 2012 Analyze Data. Share results with staff members through PLC, newsletter, blogging and email.  Implement effective strategies and share reading materials.
Describe stakeholders.	Stakeholders include: Myself as well as the other First grade teachers, other staff members, parents, and Administrative personnel.
Develop a list of resources to implement the plan.	Involve all teachers when creating teaching strategies that promotes student achievement, reward system to promote positive student reinforcement, parental involvement, social skill lessons, professional development, reading resources.
Describe the data to be collected.	I will collect consistent data showing student improvement ( benchmarks, behavior referral, Attendance)
Develop a data collection plan.	Keep track of benchmark scores, behavior referrals, attendance, and parental involvement. It could be done through surveys.
Develop an analysis plan.	Data will be collected and analyzed and comparisons will be made throughout the research.
Carry out the plan and Report the results	Results of the plan will be reported to all stakeholders through the implementation of emails, grade level meetings, blogging etc.

Action Research - Week 3

The purpose of my Action Research plan is to find out the reasons why boys are struggling in elementary classrooms, by looking at important factors like socio-economic status, scores, attendance, behavior issues and other background information.

My Action Research will be focusing on the following:

1.  How can the struggling boys benefit from this research?

2.  How can the teacher change her instructional style to create interest? 

3.  How can we as educators respond to their needs in new and productive ways?

4.  What different strategies can be used to turn underachievers into successful learners?

5. How to reconnect boys to learning and believing in being a competent learner?

6. How differentiation in instruction can impact student learning?