Getting excited!

I found myself in a very “interesting” predicament this month when I found myself propelled in time and went from the 3^rd class in the Lamar course schedule to the seventh!  This happened because I am a returning student so I had taken some classes before.  By now I was supposed to be well on my way to implementing my action research project but that certainly was not the case.

This class forced me to get my literature review done.  I got busy and found my research which took my project on a slight different direction than I had anticipated.  Since this class asked me to do a draft of my paper and has me looking at different components like how did I motivate others, get the community evolved in the project and manage my resources, it has made me think about things I had not even considered.  In some aspect I feel very lost like how I’m going to do the above mentioned?  Maybe things will get better once I actually get started which has been postponed until January.

At first I must admit, I was a little discouraged about this but it gives me more time to plan how I will coordinate the video recordings and have enough cameras to do that.  I’m hoping that having a husband who was in the film industry at one point will come in handy soon.  I knew investing in all that camera equipment would come in handy someday!  Plus, I will also have time to create the rubrics I will be using as part of my observation analysis part and will now have time to collaborate with the people involved to make changes to them before getting started. 

I also wanted to share this AMAZING link I found when I was researching.  To my colleagues that are doing their study about math (especially if it is for elementary and middle school grades) you can’t leave home without this one!  It is from the Institute of Education Sciences National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.  The link is as follows: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/.

Time to press on…

Awkward position

I am currently at my midway course, 5397, where I’m supposed to report on my project thus far.  Since I just took the research course last month, there isn’t much to report.  I’m feeling stressed and starting to feel overwhelmed.  I think I just need to keep my nose to the grindstone and keep finding my research on which to base my study but when will I know if I found enough sources?

I just keep reminding myself how to eat the elephant… time to take another bite.

In waiting

I am having trouble making time to sit down and find more research on which to build my study.  I found two great sources but some of the others are not quite what I expected.  I guess that is why I have to keep going and find my "saturation point."  This is the hardest part for me.  I would love to hear from any of you on tips on how to overcome this. 

Another issue is that one of the teachers I'm supposed to be observing is not back from leave yet.  She is supposed to come back sometime this month after never starting the year with her students.  Like my principal said, she will need to get back in the swing of things.  I completely understand and feel bad because I don't want to be another monkey on her back.  I asked my principal that we could wait and start in January if needed but I guess she sensed that I really didn't want that so she agreed to my next suggestion of beginning the observations through video recordings.  That way it won't be so intrusive.  We'll see what happens!  In the mean time I will be compiling my data to create guidelines or ideas of what the research says I should see.  I also have to develop questionnaires for the teachers who will be participating. 

Summary

Throughout this course, there have been many opportunities to increase my personal capacity.  The lecture that was most informative was in week two when Dr. Jenkins explained the four elements to an effective purpose for our research project.  The third element of making sure the project has purpose and is reasonable or feasible made the greatest impact.  This concept is so fundamental that its basic nature was almost overshadowed by the other elements of the project.  However, at the root of this element is the fact that we must think through my purpose so that I can envision any future obstacles that may hinder my project.

This course has been challenging and has aroused my curiosity of what can happen when we take the time to truly study what is happing on our campus.  Action research is purposeful and when done correctly, can empower your team to work as a collaborative unit that creates an environment that will lead to greater student success.  My hope is that my action research project helps students and teachers increase their personal capacities exponentially.

Supervisor Conference Summary

My principal and I were able to confirm some major factors like finalizing the sample group. When discussing the sample group, she was very open to my idea of following the tiers of interventions, or also known as following the teachers, rather than children who had been retained.  We both agreed that by doing so, we would get a larger view of what our school needed to improve our students’ mathematical concepts.  Together we chose the teachers for the sample group by collecting the previous year’s testing data for each teacher using her administrative access from our districts online data system.  We were able to see trends that identified two teachers who’s scores were high and low respectfully.  This problem solving process was especially helpful because it gave me insight as to how an administrator might choose teachers for a learning experience such as this action research project.

Crossroads

Before I begin, I just want to take a quick minute to thank all of you who have posted comments to my blog.  Each and every one of you has made me keep analyzing my project… THANKS SO MUCH! J

When I met with my supervisor last week we briefly discussed an overview of my plan and hit the highlights.  I asked her if she wanted me to follow the first grade retained students through the TI and TII intervention levels or if she wanted me to follow the instruction, i.e.: the teachers, giving the TI and TII interventions.  After a deep breath she said, I don’t know… I think I’m going to leave that up to you.  Then we proceeded to discuss the positive and negative aspects of both options. 

I think she took a deep breath because she, like I, know that it is a delicate situation when you go and observe other teachers.  Some are open to it and others not so much.  Like I mentioned in my course posts, I will need to build trust and will be taking the advice of my colleagues to share my plans so that there is transparency in what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.  Key to all of this is to have an attitude of analyzing not judging; like a detective trying to solve a case.  The detective puts the pieces together but the attorney tries to place the blame so the jury does the judging. This will be hard for me and I hope to help myself by always attempting to stay neutral.  I hope to observe and record then compare and contrast what I’ve observed to research standards then presenting those differences to all involved.  This will still be a very delicate task so that I don’t come off negatively or in an elitist tone.     

I researched as much data as I could in the time allowed on our retained students as my supervisor wanted me to do before making my decision however the more I looked, and with each passing night, I just feel that following the students who’ve been retained would be to narrow of a focus.  I feel that the school would benefit more from looking at how teachers implement their interventions not just how certain students respond to those interventions.  Further, these students that have been retained might not need an intervention this year… one can hope!

We are meeting first thing tomorrow and will go through the plan in detail.  I am so excited!  I am going to ask her if I can follow the teachers since I think this will give us a greater understanding of the effectiveness of our interventions.  I think looking at just the retained population after we’ve studied the interventions will be a good secondary action study.  I can’t wait to hear what you all think.

My Plan

Action Planning Template
Goal: To improve our Tier I and II math interventions so that each student obtains greater success in state approved assessments and other diagnostic assessments.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Establish a base-line of data by reviewing testing conducted at the beginning of this year.	PST Team	Start: August 2011 End: September, 2011	Data off of AWARE district system: Benchmark testing, Report card grades	Benchmark testing, report cards for each nine weeks.
Compare the data mentioned above to the data from the last benchmark from the previous year.	PST Team	Start: September, 2011 End: September, 2011	Data off of AWARE district system: Benchmark testing, Report card grades	Benchmark testing, report cards for each nine weeks`
Collect literature on effective TI and TII math interventions  highlighting the following: What effective interventions look like, strategies used, teacher to student ratio, and use of manipulatives.	Cynthia Starkey	Start: September, 2011 End: ?	Sources on effective RTI implementation, Sources on effective math strategies, Sources on group size/makeup	Notes: Did I reach the saturation level in my research or at least have a clear understanding of what the following should look like: effective TI and TII interventions, strategies used, teacher-to-student ratio, use of manipulatives
Establish the sample group for both TI and TII settings.	Principal: Mrs. Weiss	Start: September, 2011 End:April/May 2011	Two classrooms (TI settings) Two pull-out groups (TII settings).  I would prefer to follow students from their TI and TII settings for possible trends.	Notes: lay out parameters for study group which might include: studying the students at the bottom 20% of TI and 100% of students in TII
Observe students in both Tier I and II settings	Cynthia Starkey	Start: September/October 2011 End: April/May 2011	Video/Audio Recording (optional), sample group	Notes: What are the trends?
Interview teachers and students individually at least once a semester	Cynthia Starkey	Start: November/December End: March/April	Video/Audio Recording, portions or all of the sample group, All teachers involved in the study	Notes and video/audio recordings
Survey teachers and students at the beginning and end of study	Cynthia Starkey	Start: September/October End: April/May	Copy of survey for teacher and one for student	Survey summary in notes, report or graph form.
Implement strategies at the TI and/or TII level	Kim Elliott (District Lead Math Teacher), TI teacher (A and B), TII teacher (C, and D), Cynthia Starkey	Start: November End: April/May	Manipulative, teacher lesson plans	Weekly assessments, Tier I and II documentation sheets.
Reflection and Report Summary	Cynthia Starkey	Start: September (reflection) March(report summary) End: April/May	Notes, data, video/audio tapes, lesson plans, student math journal, interviews	Composite report and course evaluation.

Format based on Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)

Feedback

Wow! I am more energized about this project due to the wonderful web conference we had tonight.  Thank you Dr. Abshire for making this process less intimidating and thank you to all my classmates who helped clear up some things for me.  I really appreciate you! 

Question: Reading or Math?

As I was reading this week it dawned on me that my first revision to my question needs to be done.  The reason why is because I need to specify what type of Tier I and II interventions I will be looking at... reading or math?  As per our campus needs assessment, math is an area that our campus could benefit from the use an action research study.  However, as a reading specialist, I don't know if my time or my supervisor will allow me to study something outside of my current job title since there has been a significant reduction in staff to address the reading needs of the students on our campus.  I hope to ask her about this and show her an outline of my plan later this week.

Significance

Various people at my campus could benefit from my action research project and the following is a list of those people and how they will benefit from the study:

1.      At risk students: Students who are struggling and are in a Tier I and/or II intervention setting will benefit directly because there will be a careful analysis of the instruction they are receiving and there will be frequent documentation to monitor their progress.

2.      Teachers: The study will help highlight areas of instruction that are strong for example, lesson delivery and will also illustrate areas of improvement like objective development.  I also hope that through this study, we can help scaffold objectives and goals better so that we maximize the student’s potential to narrow their achievement gap for good.

3.      Paraprofessionals: Since paraprofessionals are responsible for lesson delivery during the intervention, they will benefit by learning the areas of strength and areas of improvement mentioned above.  However, because paraprofessionals lack the level of training of certified teachers, learning the why behind the intervention’s goals (that are set by the classroom teacher not the paraprofessional) and the how will be key in helping our paraprofessionals better their delivery of the intervention they are providing.  I hope that my action research helps shed light in to effective goal setting and lesson delivery.

4.      The Problem Solving Team: This project could help us finally focus on what we have been wanting to do for quite some time now… analyze the effectiveness of our RTI process at our Tier I and II levels.  By doing so, we can gain insight that will potentially lead to better decision-making by our team.

5.      Principal: Our principal is feeling much pressure on her right now since she is new to this role. This action research can help her by analyzing the effectiveness of the decisions of her PST and the instruction given at Tier I and II interventions.  By doing so, there is a great potential for increasing student achievement which will be reflected in our school’s data.

Action Research Topic

I have been wondering about the effectiveness of the interventions we give our students at the Tier I and II levels.  Are they really working?  Why are some students perpetual RTIers?  Doesn't that mean we are not narrowing their achievement gap?  If so, why?  What are we doing right for those that never come back to the Tier II intervention but more importantly, how can we replicate this for other students so they don't need to move to a Tier II intervention again? 

That is why my action research project will focus on the effectiveness of our tier I and II interventions at my campus.  I'm still not quite sure how to present the final leading question.  I'm hoping that my meeting this week with my Problem Solving Team (PST) will help narrow it down.  In the mean time here are a few questions I've come up with:

1. What is the effectiveness of our Tier I and II interventions and how can that effectiveness be measured?

2. How can we measure the effectiveness of our Tier I and II interventions?

3. Are our interventions at the Tier I and II levels effective and what is the evidence that proves or disproves their impact?

I'd love to hear which you think is best or your suggestion on a better leading question. :)

Getting Started

What I’ve learned about action research:

Administrative inquiry or action research is a systematic investigation by the principal with the intent to study his/her won administrative practice and takes action for change based on his/her findings of such inquiry.  By utilizing this powerful vehicle for learning and school improvement, administrators, “gain deeper insights into their practice as administrators and their leadership role in school improvement efforts” (Fichman, 2009).  The key to this inquiry is its systematic nature and constant reflection and adaptation to theories, plans or ideas about the topic.

Although very similar, action research differs slightly from practitioner inquiry because it refers to, “research intended to bring about change of some kind usually with a social justice focus” (Fichman, 2009).  However, practitioner research’s goal is to, “examine a practitioner’s practice to improve it or better understand what works” (Fichman, 2009).

I’ve also learned that the field of education is ripe with opportunities for action research.  One of these is found in monthly administrative team meetings where campus leaders move away from the traditional formats which consist of long announcements and move toward dedicating the entire meeting, or a portion of it, to collaboration amongst principals who engage in active research (Fichman, 2009). 

Another area where action research could be applied is at the campus leadership team.  Leadership teams should be collaborative in nature so that all members share the responsibility of the decision-making.  As part of this collaboration, “one vital component for the success of the team is its ability to engender learning” (Fichman, 2009).  When teams learn, so does the organization and for educators, that means the potential for increasing student achievement.

Professional learning communities is yet another area where action research makes a great impact in the education field.  Nancy D. Fichman (2009) defines it as, “small groups of faculty who meet regularly to study more effective learning and teaching practices, with their time together often structured by the use of protocols to ensure focused, deliberate conversation and dialogue by teachers about student work and student learning.” The nature of the PLC is one of inquiry an often cultivates a community of inquirers.  The responsibility is shared by the staff and/or stakeholders on this committee which collaboratively designs the goals of the study so implementing them is usually effortless.  Goals are specific to the needs of the campus so interventions and teaching plans are tailored to provide the greatest support possible for the children in the study group. In doing so, the opportunity to yield positive student achievement results increase which helps to motivate the PLC to repeat the process of the action study by applying it to a new area of concern.  

The greatest benefit to action research is that it requires that you practice reflecting on your teaching and thought process that influences your actions. Action research takes time so it forces you work systematically through a well-defined problem.  The four phases illustrated in Action Research an Effective Instructional Leadership Skill for Future Public School Leaders by

How blogging can help me with my action research:

Educational leaders can use blogs as a tool to reflect on their own thought process.  I, like many others, have not become accustomed to thinking that my thinking matters.  However, journaling through a blog can help me gain insight into my own thinking and administrative practices.