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)