The end of action research course, BUT not the end of the project!!

Now that I have completed the last assignment for the action research course and all I have left to do is submit it I wanted to share some of my reflections from this course. There are many more that I have not listed and I know many others feel the same. The number one thing I took from this course is that my teacher duties and soon my administrative duties should always include reflection and action research. I will continue to post along the way about my action research and hopefully will complete it on time, at the end of the school year. The following are my reflections for this Action Research Course. This action research course had provided me with more useful information, techniques and tools than just about any other course I have ever taken. As a teacher I have heard, and probably said more than once, “if only I could make a change here we could be more successful.” I now see how that is possible. As a teacher I can take all of the things I have learned here in in this course and develop action research plans involving other or alone that can make a difference on my campus and further. I found the lectures by employees of school districts very useful. It demonstrated for us how districts and personnel in areas around us are using action research to improve their districts, schools and lives of staff and students. I found the action research at Pasadena High School in Pasadena Texas to be the most heartwarming to me. I have said many times since I met my husband and learned that he was the only child in his family of five children to graduate while attending Pasadena High School, something needed to be implemented to help children in that area to be successful in school and life no matter where they come from. Discussion boards in this course have been very helpful in building a community of students and professionals that can lean on each other for support, encouragement and ideas. I have only taken one course here at Lamar University but both times I felt that students were dedicated to helping each other through the courses and learning. I have found much encouragement to continue my research from fellow students and for that I am extremely grateful because it is being met with resistance on my campus due to teachers already being overloaded and frustrated. Encouragement from peers is an invaluable resource that can make or break a person’s spirits and help them to work harder than ever to achieve great things. I have found that all the readings have been greatly beneficial to developing, implementing and evaluating my action research plan. At no time did I feel lost as to what to do or how to go about my tasks because I had explicit instructions and examples. The work was in no way done for me so I was able to make it my own and be guided through my readings to make it a well thought through, easily implemented plan that will continue to be evaluated long after this course has completed. One thing that I think is especially important in this course is the use of blogs. I think that blogs are an excellent way to share information. I have many friends that use them to share personal experiences, and there is even one attached to our class web pages but are not utilized to the fullest extent. In action research your plan and ultimately results can be very informative and beneficial to many educators. Without a proper way to share this information it does no one any good except for yourself and who you can personally talk to. The blog allows for us to follow our classmates from this course and their action research. Like one gentleman commented on my blog that he would like to alter it to fit his science classroom and that is what action research is all about. We are all here to make our campuses a better place and there is no way for us to all the action research necessary. Therefore if we share our findings and plans it allows for others to make similar adjustments and plans at their school or districts. Educational professionals should all share one common goal at least, at that is to help all students succeed to the fullest extent of their abilities, and sharing information that can help them to achieve that goal is essential.

Site Supervisor Visit!

I have shared my Action Research Plan with my site supervisor during a meeting after school one day this week. He and I have met many times to discuss this plan and also the training I helped to provide our teachers already. This meeting was just a review of what we had previously discussed and agreed upon, and looking at it in writing. I shared with him the suggestion of the collaboration addition to the plan and he also thought this was great idea since he is requiring all teachers to have stations up and running in their rooms after the holiday break. My site supervisor was able to come to my classroom and do a walk through during station time this week by chance. He was very pleased with what he saw. He noted that all students we on task and actively participating in math only activities. He also noted that conversations about math were the only ones taking place between students. I happened to be in a station with a child that was struggling with a concept and he enjoyed the dialogue of how to appropriately navigate the station, referring back to our classroom activity and lesson, as well as what he was going to do with it later. The site supervisor felt the child had a better understanding and displayed this by his ability to successfully work in the station once I moved on. This was all great news and hopefully will provide our students with the tools they need to succeed in math.

Action Research Plan

OUTCOMES	ACTIVITIES	RESOURCES/ RESEARCH TOOLS NEEDED	RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS ACTIVITIES	TIME LINE	Benchmarks/ ASSESSMENT	Revisions to SIP/PIP based on monitoring and assessments
Stations pulled straight from lessons taught-not commercially created, I can statements essential for students, implement over 6 weeks’ time, etc.	Research how math stations have been implemented in others classes. (Debbie Diller Training and book)	Book, time, time to attend training	Myself, instructional coach, assistant principal, kindergarten teacher, first grade teacher	October-November 2011	Create a presentation to train other teachers on campus	Math stations will be implemented in every math classroom
Found that many teachers already had a form of math stations going so they would just need some small changes and advancements, teachers said task seemed easy enough to accomplish, worries are time constraints	Train all math teachers from our campus (other campuses also chose to join our training)	Presentation, books for all participants to reference to later, examples of work stations, video of our students participating in work stations	Trainers-myself, kindergarten teacher, first grade teacher, and instructional coach	November	“make and take”/questions session after training
	Implement at least one station for every two students in each classroom	Materials, storage, time, extra assistance or guidance	All math teachers on campus	November-January 2011	Classroom observations, surveys
	Continuously update and circulate math stations based upon student need, lessons taught and review topics, student participation	Materials, time, extra assistance or guidance	All math teachers on campus, instructional coach	January-June	Classroom observations, discussions, test scores, surveys on six weeks basis
	Collaborate with other teachers at grade level (as well as instructional specialist as available) to discuss new station ideas and issues or questions	Teachers, time	Teachers, instructional specialist if available	December-June	Attending meetings to participate