Action Research Plan

Goals and Objectives/outcomes of the research investigation

The goal and objective for my project is to raise student success. The purpose of my research is to obtain the cause for incomplete homework assignments. While in class, it does not seem like there is a problem getting students to want to learn and getting them involved in the learning process. My goal is to conduct a survey that will give me an understanding of the student’s perceptions of homework. After this survey is conducted I hope to use this data to develop homework assignments that are valid and reliable. I can also use the data to evaluate student’s understanding of the concepts and if more independent practice is needed.

Homework is crucial in many subjects but especially in Math. The students need to understand the concepts that are being taught in class. They need the independent practice at home to see if they can do the math on their own outside of the classroom setting. As teachers we cannot make the students do their work. We can however make it valid and enjoyable for the students so that they feel encouraged to do the assignments and want to make good grades. They want to feel they have a part in their work and their grades. We as teachers have to hear their opinions, and it could help everyone achieve better results and communication within the classroom.


Activities designed to achieve the objectives

The question that I have been researching in my study is “Why students do not complete and turn in their homework?” It is crucial that students get enough independent practice on the concepts, so that they get a clear understanding of how to work the problems out and relate them to their prior knowledge. I have decided to administer a questionnaire with my students during their warm-up time one. This survey will help me understand their perception of homework and why they were not completing the work assigned to them. From this questionnaire I hope to gather data on whether or not I am assigning valid and relevant homework assignments.

There is a mixture of methods in my questionnaire that I will be giving. Conducting a questionnaire during class, could give me an idea of why the students are not turning in the work. It could be the assignments are to long, or that they do not have the help at home so they give up and do not want to try. By taking this survey it will show how many of my students feel homework is important, and why they feel it is not necessary to do the assignments. If other factors are affecting it, then I would be able to notice that as well. Once they questionnaire has been completed I can try sample homework’s to see if it has a positive effect for the students from their responses that I received from the survey.

1. Does the number of problems on the homework affect you from completing it and turning it in? How many different types of problems does it take usually for you to understand the concept?

2. Does the frequency of homework assignments affect the turn-in rate? Are certain days better than others for homework?

3. Does the time during the period that I give to work on the homework assignment affect the turn-in rate?


4. Do you complete the homework at school before you leave, at home, or in a previous class the same day it is due?

5. Does anyone help you out on your homework?

6. Is there anything else that would persuade more to turn in competed homework assignments on time?

Resources research tools needed for data gathering

The resources that I would want to have are previous data on previous homeworks. I would want to test the first three questions myself before I gave the students the survey. The reason for this would be to see if their answers to the survey actually matched up with the data I gathered. More than likely they would want the least amount of problems and not want homework everyday. I would start off by giving them five problems the first day, ten the second, fifteen the third, and twenty problems the fourth day. Next for question two, in my grade book I could look back what days students were more consistent on turning in homework. I could also start assigning it on every other day verses everyday to see if it helped on the completion rate. The third question I could start by giving students five minutes to start their homework or fifteen minutes and see if it helped more of them turn it in.

One of the resources I would need is time. The reason I would want to test these strategies first is to see if my statistics lined up with the students answers. Next I would want to give them the survey. The will feel like they have more say in the classroom which will hopefully mean more of them will complete it. Another reason I would want to wait to do the survey is that their answers might match up with my results so I wouldn’t have to change much of what I was currently doing.
Another resource I would like to have is on the students demographics. I would like to know if economically disadvantaged students were less likely to turn in homework. Also I would want to know if they have someone at home to help them out on their assignment. African American students’ scores have been lower at my school. Are they completing their homework?

Timeline for completion or implementation of activities

The questionnaire will be completed during the around the nine week mark. I would like to complete it after the students have had time to adjust to being back in school and doing work again. This will also give me time to collect my data on them as previously mentioned. I would test the students myself as far as the number of problems I assigned, if a specific day mattered, if assigning homework every other day helped, and by giving them various class time to work on it. After I collected the survey, I would record the data. The tenth week would be halfway towards the end of the semester. I would adjust to what the students suggested for the next nine weeks and see if that increased the homework completion rate. I would then have twelve weeks eighteen weeks left to make adjustments and see what worked best for our students.


Persons Responsible for implementation of the action research plan:

The person responsible for assigning the homework and collecting data would be myself and other teachers. We would have to keep data on a regular basis to see what affects were occurring. I would also require students. Every year I would have a different set of students. I would want to know who are my special educational students and also my economically disadvantaged students. The economically disadvantage students will count two and possible three times on our TAKS scores. When given the survey I would need my students to answer as honestly as possible. I would hope that they would not say the fewest number of problems on the fewest days.

Process for monitoring the achievement of goals and objectives

The easiest way to keep statistics or data on my research plan would be to have a section in the grade book. This is where all your grades are kept. I would write down which days I assigned homework, how many problems were assigned, and how much class time was given. I would need to keep it the same for a week process. If I made changes my results would be skewed and could be based on another factor. I would start out with fifteen problems, then five, then twenty, then ten. I would then see what worked out best for the students. I would be able to tell how many problems did the majority of the students turn in. I would also be able to tell if fewer students turned in homework on a specific day. Next, I would find start by giving students 5 minutes of class time to work on their homework and then fifteen minutes of time. I would do each one for a week. After that I would assign homeworks on every other day to see if this worked out well. I would need to keep the number of questions a constant and have to record this in the grade book.
I would then at the nine week mark give the students the survey. I would tell them the results and the consequences if they didn’t follow what they suggested. I would give them nine weeks to work on this. I would judge to see if more students were turning in the assignment. That would be the end of the first semester and beginning the second. The second semester of eighteen weeks would allow me to adjust to what worked best for the students.

Assessment instrument(s) to evaluate the effectiveness of the action research study

First, I would need to accurately document my data from the students’ homework. The best way to do this would be the grade book and document the changes I have made. I would need to assess if students completed more home when they were given 5 minutes or fifteen minutes of class time to work on it. I would also need to assess if the number of problems I assigned affected their completion rate. I would need to do some research to see what types of students were not turning in their homework.

Then I would give the survey. The survey should be brief and easy for the students to understand. Second, the questions should be as clear as possible for the reader. Third, only one issue should be reflected at a time. Fourth, the questions should not avoid leading the students to the desired answer. You do not want to make any questions sound bias towards the teacher, because you will not be getting valid results. Data collection is critical to the value of any research, and thus must be done carefully and thoughtfully. For our survey to be reliable it should be able to measure the variable in the same way every time it is given. As long as my questionnaire measures what it is intended to measure then there will be validity in my results.

Once the survey has been conducted and all the results have been observed, I will know that the research will not be complete, but will have given some possible data to allow me to possibly make changes. It might take a couple of days to analyze what the students’ thoughts were on homework and for me to come up with ways to implement valid and reliable homework assignments. Once all my questions had been answered, my classes begin to turn in their homework’s, and are motivated to continue staying on top of things then my purpose of “why student’s do not want to complete the homework assignments?” has been accomplished.

My goal is to present the data analysis of my finding I receive from all my classes related to why students are not turning in their homework. We all have those students that seem to slack off or not try, and with this survey you might be able to analyze why your students are performing similarly in your own classroom. I will take my findings and create more structured homework so that the students could better demonstrate their understanding of the concepts without adding more problems than needed. I will make more valid and reliable homeworks so that the students can feel success in completed work to show that they really understand the concepts in my class. I hope that the research that I do will make a significant turn around in my classroom.

Week 2 Reflection

I have met with my principal this week. I proposed three topics of action research. The first topic is homework. After teaching two years now, I still have trouble getting students to turn in their homework completed and on time. I have tried many approaches to giving homework, but there are still a lot of students that choose not to complete it. Students do not want to take the initiative to do the work on their own. Homework is crucial for their overall grades and for them to do well on the tests throughout the year. I would like to figure out what it takes to get the students to want to complete the work and turn it in on time.
When I met with my principal he liked this topic the most. He believed this was the most important for student success. We need to find a way for students to do homework. The principal suggested various ways or incentives to get students to complete their homework. In class students are taught as a group. When they are tested they have to work on the material individually. Homework allows them to accomplish this. He suggested not giving as much homework or maybe each subject assigns it on a different night. We also discussed giving more class time to complete homework where the students can ask the teacher for help. This is the topic we agreed upon for my action research project.

Action Research

Action research is a powerful tool for teacher professional development. Action research or administrator inquiry refers to the process of a principal engaging in systematic, intentional study of his own administrative practice and taking action for change based on what he learns as a result of the inquiry. Inquiry professionals seek out change and reflect on their practice by posing questions, collecting data and analyzing data, research, making changes based on the data, and sharing findings with others.
Action research is continuous improvement from within the school. Principals identify the problem, brainstorm ideas for a solution, implementation, and clarifying the situation. It is up to the principal to fix the problems of the school, not just report them to someone and then look for help. Many principals have issues with discipline. Students get in trouble and are sent to ISS. However, when students aren’t in the classroom they aren’t learning. This can cause a problem with TAKS scores. I would use action research to try to see if we could have ISS on the weekend or after school hours. It would be something we could try out and see how it works.
There are always areas to improve. Principals must continuously work to try to make improvements on campus. Action research allows you to try something out. You can start a plan and then you can make adjustments. Each school is different so what works for one school might not work for others. Action research allows individualization of schools so principals can make changes.
Educational leaders can use blogs to inform stakeholders what is going on around campus. It can name specific events so that the community and parents can attend. Blogs can also state what is happening around campus as far as academics and discipline issues. Principals can list improvements being made around campus.

Reflection

The outcomes that I had envisioned for this course was to learn the state technology standards, and to learn new ways of incorporating the right type of technology into the classroom and my lessons. I did achieve my outcomes plus way more. Learning the key components of the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology, identifying the standards that guide the use and integration of technology on a campus, and to identify the sills and tools needed to navigate the new information landscape of 21st century schools are only a few of the learning outcomes this class want us to understand. These discussed what each standard was like and different ways to provide guidance to students when doing these standards. The outcomes talk about our society moving to a more technology driven community so it is important that we keep up to date with the new advancements. It really taught me how to incorporate in more in my classroom and school.

A lot of these outcomes that are talked about in this course are still relevant to the work that I do in my school. I need to know how to navigate through certain programs because I am not computer friendly. At schools I have been in before we only went to the computer lab once a semester or less, so this past year I tried going once a six weeks. Slowly but surely the technology is being added in to our lessons and classrooms across the campuses. It was nice to learn about the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology since I did not know how to do a lot of the skills myself according to the survey we did earlier in this class.

I believe the outcome that I did not achieve was to be provided with more resources for integrating the technology standards into my classroom. Right now a lot of the websites and tools on the internet are blocked because of the district restrictions, so it is hard to pull good websites and activities for the students to use. I also did not get to try out any of the examples provided, on a Macintosh computer. Those are the computers we work with at school and they work a lot different from a PC. It would have been nice to have one to go on to wikispace, etc and see if the district allows us to access those sites. It would have been nice to be given some technology examples that represent the outcomes along with the definitions to make sure we a clear understanding of how we should be teaching the concepts.


In my opinion, I was successful in carrying out the course assignments. I was not the first one to set up my blog in my group but the following weeks I was one of the first ones to post. Week three and four of this course were a little confusing at first but once all of my group discussed the different ways to start a powerpoint and other items on the blog it became more comfortable. The only thing that discouraged me from the week 3 and 4 assignments was that we had to try and do some organization and discuss with our group.

In this course I learned that technology is not something that can set you back as a teacher, but it is merely a resource that students and adults can use as a resource to the world. There are many different forms of technology, from cameras and dvds to computers and video games. I learned that technology does not have to be frightening as long as you go into learning it with an open mind and plan to take out what you get from it and teach it to your students. I know now that I can be a leader to some of my colleagues and show them ways to integrate technology into the classroom and show them how it can be time consuming but well reward able. When the new school year begins in a couple of weeks, I am going to plan my lessons more constructively and incorporate at least one big technology project each semester. If I have the chance I will also shows ideas that I have learned through the course of this class.

Learning about blogs and being able to use them in today’s world is very important. This would be a great tool to use in English classes. Students could write a paper. Other students could write their own paper reflecting or commenting on how they feel. This would be a great way to teach students persuasive arguments in their Speech classes also. People have jobs writing blogs on clothes, entertainment, and sports. Also if you have a question you can post it online, and someone will reply.

There are many concerns with blogs in education. When you blog it’s available to anyone online. Anyone can reply. Currently teachers are the only ones that look at students work. Students will have to mature, and not make fun of someone else’s work. Also blogging will be more difficult for students that don’t have a computer at home. Training about blogging and proper use will need to be done in each class.

Blogging could be used to communicate with school stakeholders. Administrators can use blogging to reach the community and keep them updated with the school’s events or past events. This will allow parents to stay involved and know what is going on on campus. Administrators can also keep teachers up to date with meetings and other updates they need to know about. Students can read blogs and know what games or events are happening on campus.

Technology Professional Development Plan

A team needs to be developed so that you will have people from various backgrounds. You need to go to the administration and see who they suggest to be on the Integration of Technology team. The team needs to consist of administrators, department heads, librarians, and other teachers. The next step would be to gather data from student assessments such as: PEIMS, TAKS, Benchmarks, CoGAT, and AEIS data. The team needs to evaluate school’s scores and see what needs to be improved the most. Then those outcomes can be compared to other schools that have different technology on their campus and see if it is benefiting them. The team needs to evaluate and determine what training needs to take place. Training needs to be developed to help meet the needs of the teachers. Programs need to be developed to help teachers get the material across to the students. The main goal to focus on is the students, and improving their knowledge. Reassessment will occur on the next exam the students have to take. Adjustments will be made accordingly where it is needed.

Professional Development- This is for the entire staff to become knowledgeable of different ways to integrate technology. Principals should require a minimum of 6 hours of technology staff development every year. Technology is increasing in schools across Texas and standards need to be assessed. Teachers need to follow the continuous change that is occurring every year and learn how to integrate technology through different subject areas.

Items to address:

1) Staff will look over data from all sources to see what ways technology can be integrated into the classroom to connect learning through core subjects and elective courses.

2) Staff Development days need to be utilized to focus on the needs in the Campus Improvement Plan. There are many free programs that can be great resources to different subject areas and it is the technology staff’s job to get those out to the teachers so that they are utilized.

3) Every staff member should look at how they can relate their subject matter to another subject within the school. How they coorelate with one another or can be used within the same technology resource. For example, when English teachers are going over the Holocaust Unit they can get Math and Business teachers involved in the lessons as well. This shows students that the concepts that are being taught are of importance in everything in life.

4) Every employee should have at least 6 hours of professional development in some kind of technology related course and should have the opportunity to meet with other colleagues to express new technology techniques that they have learned.

5) A great resource for teachers to use throughout the school is a Wiki. The wikispace works as a meeting spot for an online learning community. It lets the community members discuss issues and post new ideas to each other. In the wikispace you can set up many different pages where your online community can edit and navigate through with you. It is a good idea to have something like a wikispace because it lets you get your thoughts together within a group and you can do it at your own time and not have to actually meet all at the same time. It allows people to post their opinions and they may have helpful ideas to what made it successful for their classes.

*How to set up a Wiki and communicate
Go to: http://www.wikispaces.com. This allows teachers to work together and be able to communicate technology ideas for the classroom

6) Another great resource is a Moodle. A Moodle is a way for departments or grade levels to assess student knowledge through technology. Teachers can post quizzes, tests, and resources for students to access. My district has adopted the Moodle this year and teachers are already utilizing it for tests and technology assignments. It works like a normal webpage, so that students can access it at home and can do online assignments as outside of school work. The Moodle is offered free for any employee in Mesquite ISD and can be accessed from the Mesquite ISD website, www.mesquiteisd.org.

Technology Action Plan

Action Plan:

The STaR showed that our greatest weakness was Teaching & Learning and Educator Preparation & Development. I would have to agree with this being my school’s weakness. We do not have enough training before the year begins on the technology components and standards that we are expected to teach. It is difficult for us to use the technology if we don’t have the knowledge to do so. I would plan to train teachers in various technology applications so they can use these throughout the year.

Our purpose: To improve to our use of integrating technology into all curriculums at Mesquite High School.

Objective: To develop a curriculum where students can learn to problem solve using technology and be able to connect different subject areas through real life concepts.

Grade level: 9-12

Facilitator's name: Chris Anderson

Community members: All core departments with corresponding elective teachers assigned to departments to be able to discuss findings.

Action Plan: What all administrators, teachers, and students need to address over periods of time.

1) Develop goals for technology- This can be done at the beginning of the year during staff development days. These goals should relate to what the campus goals are for the year and should be stated in the Campus Improvement Plan.
*Each staff member will state a goal and post on the bulletin board during staff development and will give a brief description of the technology goal they hope to achieve.

2) Attention getter- Show student participation and lower discipline problems when students are engaged in lessons where technology is being used to problem solve. Watch short video through Youtube to give teachers an understanding of how technology impacts the classroom.

3) Gather ideas from staff members- To give a few examples of technology lessons that could be included in the integration. Members will give a brief description of their activity that could be included in the new integrated curriculum.

4) Gather ideas from students- Students are usually up to date on the latest technologies that are being offered and if schools really want to assess student’s knowledge and become comfortable with technology. Students can address what ways technology increases their learning and how they actually comprehend certain concepts and retain the information learned through technology.

5) Use data- There are many resources within the district that show school data and where areas of need are. It is important to use data to create focus areas within subjects and find ways they can be integrated. What technology could help these subject areas achieve higher success ratings for the student’s.

6) Evaluation/Reflection- Staff members need to meet monthly to discuss what new technology they have integrated into their classrooms and if they found success using any certain tools.
A good activity to use with the staff is to hand out 4 note cards to each staff member at the end of each semester or six weeks and have them write down on one card what they learned, on another what they think will be successful, what they still need want to know, and on the last card how could they use is this in their classroom.

Texas S Ta R Chart

My STaR Chart for Mesquite High School

Texas S Ta R Chart

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