Action research update!

My action research project has been going great so far. Just to remind everyone what it is all about, I will give you a brief summary. I have been implementing it since the beginning of the school year and have been providing only hands on science lessons for all my classes. I then compare my student testing data to that of the other 2 science teacher’s data in the school district. All of our students take the same assessments that C-Scope has created. To date my classes have the best testing data of all three science teachers. My students usually perform fifteen to twenty percent better on the assessments than the other students as well. The last part of my action research project is to collect data from the STAAR science exams. I am unsure who long it will take to get the results and data back from the state this year. However I think my students are well prepared for the exam and should perform in line with their prior performance. One of the only problems I have encountered in my action research project is that when students are absent it is too difficult to make up the lab. This year has been an extremely difficult one with so many of my students being absent due to illnesses. To remedy this problem I started recording the labs every day, so that any student who is absent could watch it and catch up. Other than that small glitch I plan on completing my action research project in June at the end of the school year.

Presentation for Community Partnership Program EDLD 5326

http://prezi.com/mkcrnxqxcljp/present/?auth_key=m3q9axm&follow=xcifuchrvi9m&kw=present-mkcrnxqxcljp&rc=ref-34952131

Final Reflections

This course has provided me with many tools and insights, to be a better action research inquirer and an educational leader. Before taking this class I truly had no understanding of action research or that it was even something that could be implemented in schools. The lectures, reading, searches, assignments, discussion board, and blogs all facilitated my understanding and development of my action research plan.  The lectures and readings provided me with a better understanding of action research. The Dana and Harris textbooks explained the steps of an action research plan and gave me tools to develop my own plan. The Harris textbook really served as a guide for beginners to action research. I will continue to use these tools like the CARE Model throughout my action research project as I continue to make revisions to it, and in the future to develop new projects. The CARE model is a great tool for analyzing any concerns about the project. This was probably the most useful tool I learned in the reading, because it can be hard for stakeholders to express their thoughts and concerns in an unthreatening manner. The Dana text also provided me with tools to develop my action research plan, which I will utilize during my implementation and review of my data. The assignments and activities were very beneficial in developing my action research project. They were structured to build on each other, until my plan was complete. Designed and developing my own action research project is something I will need experience in if I am to be a good leader who looks out for my campus and students. This project allows me freedom to research something I am interested in and will benefit from, which I don’t think I would obtain if I was merely given a topic to research. The discussion boards served as a sounding board for my thoughts and ideas along with my blog. I was very excited any time someone gave me feedback, because it really helped me evaluate my work from different perspectives. I do wish more people could be more critical, because I think that would be more beneficial to each student. While viewing other students’ discussion responses and blog postings gave me a sense of how I was doing compared to them. Some of the students’ plans were not focused or specific enough, while others were spot on and gave me more ideas to revise my own action research plan. The blogs also served as a community of support and help during this class. Having that support system during this class and through my action research plan will be greatly needed, because no other class will revisit or allow us time to work on our research until it is due. My blog followers were very willing to help me when I had issues understanding something and in return I was also able to help them with their plans.

Updated Action Research Plan

Bonnie Thomas’ Action Research Plan
Goal: Research the impact that teaching solely through hands on learning activities and labs has on 5th grade science students' 6 week test and STAAR scores.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Collect student data from the two other 5th grade science teachers in my district.	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	12/10/2012-12/22/2013	5th grade student data from the AWARE software program for my students and the students from Lacy Elementary and Harper Elementary.	Compare my 5th grade science students to the other 5th grade science students at the 2 other elementary schools in my district. Compare socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender and LEP students just to see how similar my students are to the control groups.
Continue to teach my 5th grade science students only through hands on activities, labs, and skits/acting.	Bonnie Thomas	09/20/2012-06/06/2013	C-scope lessons, Stemscopes lessons, lab materials, internet resources for additional hands on lessons to replace any non-hands on activities in my curriculum.	Evaluate and analyze weekly lessons and turn “worksheet” lessons into hands on labs.
Collect lesson plans from the other two 5th grade science teachers	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	09/20/2012-06/06/2013	Lesson Plans Excel spreadsheet	Track and compile in an Excel spreadsheet the percentage of hands on lab teaching the other teachers complete.
Collect all 6 of the 6 week tests scores for all the 5th grade students in my district	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	09/20/2012-06/06/2013	Aware student test reports Excel spreadsheet	Compile results of all 6 weeks test scores onto an Excel spreadsheet for all the 5th grade students.
Collect all 5th grade science STAAR results for my district	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	04/23/2012-06/06/2013	STAAR results from AWARE software Excel spreadsheet	Compile results of all STAAR test scores onto an Excel spreadsheet for all the 5th grade students.
Create comparison graphs and charts	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	09/20/2012-06/06/2013	Excel spreadsheet	Take all 6 weeks test data from the Excel spreadsheet and compare my students’ performance to the other 5th grade students’ performance, using charts and graphs.
Create comparison graphs and charts for each subgroup: Socioeconomic status, ethnicity groups, gender and Lep students.	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	09/20/2012-06/06/2013	Excel spreadsheet	Take all 6 weeks test data from the Excel spreadsheet and compare my students in subgroups performance to the other 5th grade science students in each subgroup at the 2 other elementary schools in my district. The subgroups I will be comparing are socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender and LEP students. This will also help me identify which teaching method is most beneficial for each sub group as well as a whole group.
Create comparison graphs and charts for each subgroup: Socioeconomic status, ethnicity groups, gender and Lep students.	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	04/23/2012-06/06/2013	Excel spreadsheet	Take all STAAR test data from the Excel spreadsheet and compare my students in subgroups performance to the other 5th grade science students in each subgroup at the 2 other elementary schools in my district. The subgroups I will be comparing are socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender and LEP students. This will also help me identify which teaching method is most beneficial for each sub group as well as a whole group.
Removal of students who have left the district	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher	05/01/2012-06/10/2013	All spreadsheets I have created	Go through all my data and check it to remove any students who were not in my district from the first day of school 2012, to the last day of 6 week testing 2013. Removing these students will help me make sure that all my data is valid.
Review of 6 weeks tests scores	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher Jodie Weddle Site supervisor	09/21/2012-06/06/2013	Student data from AWARE software and data the superintendents have complied.	Analyze and review the results of each 6 weeks test scores.
Review STAAR testing results	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher Jodie Weddle Site supervisor	05/01/2013-06/06/2013	Student data from AWARE software and data the superintendents have complied.	Analyze and review the results the STAAR testing scores.
Review all of my data and graphs with the other 5th grade science teachers	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher Wilma Williams Amber McIntyre	06/01/2013-06/06/2013	All data and Excel spreadsheets that I have created so far.	Analyze the results with them and a teaching plan for next year based on the results.
Review all of my data, graphs and final presentation with my site supervisor	Bonnie Thomas 5th grade science teacher Jodie Weddle Site Supervisor	06/01/2013-06/06/2013	All data and Excel spreadsheets that I have created so far and present to her my final report.	Analyze the results with her and how we should proceed with my research to help impact the school’s science scores.

EDLD 5301 Week 2 - Lessons Learned from Week Two

Conducting this weeks assignments, watching the videos and the assigned readings has better prepared me to start my action research plan. I believe after meeting with my site supervisor that I have narrowed my action research down to hands on learning versus lectures and worksheets in a science classroom. I believe this will be the best fit for me, as I will be fully participating in it everyday in my classroom. I think this is an important research area for my campus, because many of our teachers are always complaining that our students need practice, and how are they ever going to do well on tests if they can't practice first.  This data should prove or disprove their beliefs that students need "practice".  Which goes along nicely with what Dr. Timothy Chargois commented about from his video, about how we as teachers need to continue to learn and “if you’re green you’re growing”. I think more teachers need to be open to the new ideas and ways to teach our students and finally let go of our old practices.

Ways educators could use blogs:

Educators could use blogs to share ideas with other educators that are in other areas or districts. They could also use the blogs to connect with their staff, keep records or as a timeline of their action research. 

Week 1 Action Research

What I have learned about action research so far in week 1:

Action research is the process of actually conducting or “testing” solutions to problems at your campus or in your classroom. These things have to be measured in some sense to see if your action plan is working or not. I have likened action research to that of a science project, seeing as I am a Science Teacher! You first must start with one variable, which is something you want to test. In the case of action research it will need to be a way to solve a problem like low science test scores. The reason you can only have one variable is simply scientific, trying to do two things at once to increase your science scores would leave you not knowing which solution actually improved your scores.  This would then make your research invalid, because you would have no conclusive solution to you problem.  For that reason alone you must test one thing (variable) at a time.  Once you have a solution you want to put in place and test, then you must be able to measure it in some way. This could be student growth on 6 weeks tests, STAAR results, reading growth or any other form that would provide you with measurable data.  This data should drive your action research and serve as an indicator of success or failure of your project.                 

My plan for using action research:

My sole purpose in using action research will be to improve either my science students testing scores, vocabulary, or math skills. I have not thought of how I am going to do this just yet, but I have been searching through others blogs to get ideas.