Action Research Report

My action research project is to increase parental involvement on our campus with our special education students, which will hopefully also increase their effort on their classroom work and improve state test scores. During the first week of school, a parental involvement action research team was established. This team consisted of nine members, including special education teachers, paraprofessionals, diagnosticians, and administration members. We have set meeting dates occurring every second and fourth Tuesday of each month. During our first team meeting, we all discussed, worked on, and agreed upon a common goal for the group. Our paraprofessionals and other staff members that could or will work directly with our parents/guardians were trained before and during staff development on some of the techniques to use when working with parents. During the second meeting, we identified a list of students for our program. We chose a varied of special education students, including mainstream, those in the inclusion setting, and resource setting. All through September, the team compiled a call list of names and phone numbers for these students. Parent information was gathered from the students, View Student Information (VSI), and Skyward. We are currently in the process of calling and inviting parents to come spend half or an entire day in the Content Mastery Center where they can actually work with their kids and see what happens day to day at school. We are hoping to find that getting parents involved in their child’s education, not just for extracurricular events, will have a positive impact on classroom work, grades, and state assessment results.

Web Conference Reflection

I think that the web conferences are great! However, I was unable to attend any of the conferences during the EDLD 5326 School Community Relations class.  I did find that being able to view and listen to the recordings of the conferences was very beneficial to me. I felt better knowing that all of my questions regarding the reflections, logs, and assignments  were also questions of my classmates. Another big help during this course for me was the “Facebook” page. I appreciate whoever runs and updates that page.

Action Research Plan

"Parental Involvement"

GOAL:  Increase parental involvement on campus with our special education students, which will also increase their effort on their classroom work and improve state test scores.

OUTCOMES	ACTIVITIES	RESOURCES/ RESEARCH TOOLS NEEDED	RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS ACTIVITIES	TIME LINE	Benchmarks/ ASSESSMENT	Revisions to SIP/PIP based on monitoring and assessments
Establish a Parental Involvement Action Research Team	Compile team consisting of site-mentor, Sp. Ed. teachers and paraprofessionals, diagnosticians, and myself (CM Teacher)	Comments and input about the team from the Administrators and site-supervisor	Self, site-supervisor, Administration Team	August 2012	Bi-monthly meetings	Team staff members subject to change based on Administration decisions and input
Research Team to share a common goal	Share the “Parental Involvement” goal with the research team; discuss ideas and plan of action for the 2012-2013 school year	Comments and input about the team from the Administrators and site-supervisor	Self, site-supervisor, Administration Team	August 2012	Review goal at start of each bi-monthly meeting	Ideas and activities subject to change based on decisions from Research Team
Train paraprofessionals and other staff working directly with parents/guardians	Staff Development class	Staff Development class on “Parental Involvement”	Self, site-supervisor;              J. Mitchell/L. Coble (“Parental Involvement” presenters)	August 2012	Consult with paraprofessionals and staff in bi-monthly meetings	Use additional resources and websites for training
Identify a list of students for the program.	Team will chose a wide variety of students, including students that are mainstream and in the inclusion and resource setting.	List of Special Education and At-Risk  students	Research Team	August 2012-September 2012	Meet with Counselors and diagnosticians to check list	none
Create a call list	Team composes list consisting of student names, parents/guardians, and phone numbers	View Student Information (VSI); Skyward (gradebook)	Self; Sp.Ed. paraprofessionals	August 2012-September 2012	Meet with Research Team to double check lists	none
Call parents	Call and invite parents up to campus; parents invited in 2-3 week group intervals	Call List created by Research Team	Self; Sp.Ed. paraprofessionals	September 2012-end of first semester	Meet with Research Team bi-monthly to make sure all parents have been contacted	See if any parents prefer to be contacted by email or text messages
Track students’ grades and classroom performance	Check  and monitor progress report and report card grades during each marking period	Coordination of Services, progress and  report card grades, CM Analysis Reports	Self	October 2012-January 2013	Meet with Research Team to discuss individual students’ attitudes and morale with school	Compare results with number of parent participants
Chart students classroom grades and 2012 state test results	Chart students grades and scores in a graph	Marking period grades; TAKS & STAAR results for 2012 & 2013	Research Team	January 2013-June 2013	Meet with Research Team to compare TAKS & STAAR results from 2012 to 2013; compare class scores from first of school year to the end	none
Find trends in the results of visited parents’ students vs. non-visited parents’ students	Discuss with the Research Team about the progress or regression students have shown from the plan during the 1st Semester	Charted classroom grades from each marking period and test results	Research Team	February 2013-June 2013	Meet with Research Team to discuss improvements or declines in grades and scores.	Find other possible solutions to help students that have not shown any improvements
Find out what the parents think	Interview participating parents about pros and cons of the program	Participate in annual ARD meetings to interview parents	Self, Diagnosticians, Sp. Ed. Teachers	March 2013-May 2013	Meet with Research Team to review and compare parents/guardians answers	Discuss how we can improve the cons of the program
Evaluate the program	Reflect on what worked; how can we change what didn’t work?	Collected data through the 2012-2013 school year	Research Team	June 2013	Discuss if the program was a success in being beneficial for student achievement	How can we improve?

Action Research Plan

Through an action research plan, educators have the opportunity to improve their schools in multiple ways. Some of these improvements could include: updating staff development while improving the morale and communication of the staff, creating a positive teaching environment between the teachers and their students, and increasing student achievement and self-confidence. Action research involves asking questions, analyzing, evaluating, reflecting, and collaborating with colleagues. For my action research plan, I want to increase our parental involvement on campus. I want to research and find out if parents were to get more involved, their students' self-confidence and grades in class as on state tests will improve from the previous years.

Educational Leaders Using Blogs

According to the Dana text, blogs are defined as “an easily created, easily updatable Website that allows an author (or authors) to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection” (Dana 2009). Since principals can have extremely busy days dealing with central office, students, parents, and the community, they may not be able to get around their campuses to check on their teachers, counselors, or diagnosticians. To stay in contact with their staff, principals could use blogs as journals for teachers to post teaching ideas or other campus activities. Novice teachers could post their worries or recent teaching struggles allowing veteran, experienced teachers to offer advice and provide support.

Using Action Research

According to Dana, action research “focuses on the concerns of practitioners (not outside researchers) and engages practitioners in the design, data collection, and interpretation of data around their question” (Dana 2009). With the constant changes in education, like curriculum, technological advances, and state standards, educators must be aware of the latest trends and current research findings. Through action research educators can take a more hands on approach in investigating their current issues. Teachers are “more likely to facilitate a change based on the knowledge they generate” (Dana 2009) versus just reading an article written by college professors who are not in classrooms on a regular basis. Educators use action research to improve the learning process and education of their students. Once a problem or issue is defined, data can be collected and analyzed to allow for positive changes to take place. These changes can then be shared with the entire staff or even the district leading to future staff development.  As stated in the Dana text, “a school system committed to improve student learning will provide principals professional development in which they participate as members of ongoing study groups analyzing instructional issues for their schools” (Dana 2009). Every school can benefit from action research in some way. I cannot wait to get back to school in August to begin working on my action research project involving parental involvement. I am hoping to start improving the quality of education we are providing for our kids.