Week 3 Assignment, Part 3
Draft Action Research Project Progress Report
a.
Title
– Increasing Parental Involvement will Increase Student Achievement on
State Tests and in Our Classrooms
b.
Needs
Assessment
The goal of my
action research project is to increase special education and socio-economically
disadvantaged students’ state assessment results and classroom performances by
increasing parental involvement on campus. For the past two consecutive years,
our campus has not met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in these demographic
areas. We have approximately 839 students on our campus with 107 of these
students being classified as special education. Student information and data
was collected from many sources, including previous TAKS and/or STAAR test
results, including TAKS Accommodated and Modified, information from our Student
Review Level (SLR), and DMAC.
c.
Objectives
and Vision of the action research project
In order to reach
the goal of my action research plan, I first had to organize an action research
team to share a common goal and discuss plans of further action. The objective of
the project is to find out if parents being more involved in their child’s
education will have an adverse effect on their test scores and class grades.
The measurable objectives will simply be the number of guardian and parent
participants, progress and report card grades during each marking period, and
comparison of 2012 and 2013 state assessment results. Parents will be invited
onto our campus and into our classrooms to actually have the opportunity to
work with their kids. Hopefully, by having parents and guardians showing
interest in their children at school, the students will apply themselves more
and will experience more success in life.
d.
Review
of the Literature and Action Research Strategy
After serving on our
Campus Improvement Team, I was shocked at the lack of parental support and
participation around our campus. In
today’s world, our kids need parent support at home and school. According to
Dorothy Rich, “In this complex world, it takes more than a good school to
educate children. And it takes more than a good home. It takes these two major
educational institutions working together” (Parent
Involvement in Education 2008). Students with a good support team of
parents and other family members tend to perform better academically in school.
These students tend to set realistic and achievable academic goals for
themselves. There are many ways parents and guardians can be involved in the
school system. Some of the types of parenting include: “parents as recipients
and supports, parents as educators and learners, parents as non-instructional
volunteers, parents as instructional volunteers, and parents as decision makers”
(Khan 60). One of the biggest issues in education today is a lack of parental
support for students, teachers, and administrators. According to the research
from The Center for Public Education, “effective parent involvement comes when
a true partnership exists between schools and families” (Back to school: How parents involvement affects student achievement 2011).
e.
Articulate
the Vision
After creating an Action
Research Parental Involvement Team, I introduced my action research plan to the
Campus Improvement Team, District Improvement Team, and our current staff by
presenting the groups with a power point presentation displaying our AEIS data
and current situation with AYP. I pointed out that our special education
population and socio-economic disadvantaged state assessment results and
failure analysis from the 2011-2012 school year were considerably lower than
the other populations. Communication and updates on progress of our plan were
updated on my blog.
f. Manage the organization
The Parental Involvement
Action Research Team that was established consisted of my site-mentor, special
education teachers, diagnosticians, paraprofessionals, and myself. We were all
trained on parental involvement in education during a staff development session
presented to our campus by our local education center. I took all the
responsibility of compiling a list of special education and at-risk students to
observe and monitor throughout the school year. The research team took the
responsibility of calling parents and guardians to set up observation and
participation visits on campus. I tracked individual
students’ report card grades from each marking period and state assessment
results for comparision. Ultimately, we want to make student learning a top
priority and goal for our plan.
g. Manage Operations
Consensus building among the research team was a challenge. Not every
participating member on the team was in agreeance that parent involvement was
the issue. My strategy was to show the team our needs assessment data on
parental involvement from our Campus Improvement Team. This allowed the group
to be able to see our current lack of parent participation on campus. The team
met bi-monthly to communicate progress and discuss any changes that need to
take place. We used the Force Field Task Analysis to weigh the positives and
negatives of this new plan.
h.
Respond
to Community Interest and Needs
Having missed AYP
for two consecutive years due to our low scores in socio-economic disadvantaged
and special education sub-populations, my action research plan is targeted to
reach these groups. By using parental involvement as an instructional strategy
and intervention, students’ can experience success in school. The completion of
this action research plan will benefit many people including: the school,
teachers, administrators, and community stakeholders.
References
Dervarics, Chuck and O’Brien, Eileen. (2011). Back to school:how parent involvement affects student achievement. Alexandria,
VA: The Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org.
Khan, Mir Baiz. (1996). Parental Involvement in Education: Possibilities
and limitations. The School Community Journal, 6(1), 57-68. Retrieved from http://www.adi.org/journal/ss96/KhanSpring1996.pdf.
Parent Involvement in Education. (2008, June). School Days. Retrieved from http://www.surfnetparents.com.
