Draft Action Research Report

Week 3 Assignment, Part 3

Draft Action Research Project Progress Report

In What Ways Can Band Parent Participation Be Improved

            The band directors need parent participation and expressed frustration at so few parents showing up to Band Booster meetings or assisting at any activities or events the bands held. Through interviews with the band directors and the Band Booster executive committee, it was determined that no one had ever asked the non-participating parents why they were not helping.

           

That is as far as my action research has gone. I had to throw out my original plan and start over. I have designed a parent survey and have 121 of them returned. I will be presenting my findings of that survey in the coming week and determining what action(s) will be done. I have a plan, but it is a work in progress and still being revised. I have no answers for the following areas at this time.

Objectives and Vision of the action research project. (ELCC 1.1)

Review of the Literature and Action Research Strategy –Articulate the Vision (ELCC 1.2)

Manage the organization (ELCC 3.1

Manage Operations (ELCC 3.2Respond to Community Interest and Needs (ELCC 4.2)

New update

I have volunteered to be an admin intern for our JH summer school. I am LOVING it! The summer school principal is one of the AP's at the school and he's had a couple of interns before and he went through this same type of program, so he's very familiar with the 18 month program.

I met with the "team" last Saturday and the principal informed me that he would be out on Tuesday, a staff development day, due to jury duty. He asked me if I could do the staff development for him! Which included a PowerPoint presentation! I hope I didn't look as "uh-oh!" as I felt, but I said "sure". He gave me the materials on Monday afternoon. I wish I had the book he was using as a reference when I was doing my AR project on school climate. I spent hours doing the student survey and they had almost the same thing in the back of the book! ARG!!! Oh well, it's a dead issue anyways.

Long story short. I felt pretty comfortable in front of the staff of 20 teachers. I kind of winged the PowerPoint as I wasn't going to just read the slides to them and the comment from the AP that was asked to help me if I needed it was "You did great! Just like you had read the book!" and said I just needed to speak louder. By that night, I was being introduced by the teachers to the students as "Asst. Principal".

So far my duties have included, getting students their schedules - which includes getting about half of them straightened out with the councilor, breakfast duty, lunch duty, and bus/car rider duty. I've been the go to person anytime the principal has had to step out (or been out doing interviews with the rest of the admin staff). And I've also had to deal with a student that just didn't want to cooperate with the teacher, observed the principal handle a couple of irate parents and cafeteria workers. I'm learning so much. I know I haven't experienced the whole job of AP yet, but I am confident I can do the job.

AR Update .. Or is it downdate?

Wow! I've taken a whole class and didn't blog! The class was school law and was very interesting. It was a very busy 5 weeks with work, school, and family all clamoring for attention.

I made it through with only one major issue. My action research has come to a complete halt. Earlier I posted about my issues with the kick-off and it just went down-hill from there. I am changing campuses next year and my new principal (and site-supervisor) is not interested in my student based AR, and I am okay with that.

So, what to do? I was sitting in a beginning band event with the director that had organized the event listening to her wonder why parent attendance was so low and it hit me ... how about an AR on why the band parents were not showing up to this event or the previous one! We did not know the reason ... was it a language barrier? One meeting had Spanish and English notices. Was it a time/date barrier? Was the notice of the events sent out in time? How was it sent home? Did it even get home? How can I find out? What can I do about whatever I find out?

Advantage? It was a smaller group to work with than the whole school. It was something the department wanted to improve but just didn't seem to know how.

Now, I have to very quickly re-do my plan and get it approved. Good thing the next class doesn't start for another week.

Anyone have any suggestions for me? Please don't be shy. I need help.

Much better!

Web Conf Reflections

Tonight's web conf was MUCH better. I was only booted once and I had to jump off to get my headset working once. Today a couple more people shared their community involvement ideas. I don't remember all the names .. I do remember TURN, but not what it stands for. All of the projects sound great. In fact, they make mine seem so under thought out that I would not share. I think mine has great potential, but it won't get to actually see light. At least not this year. However, since my idea was expanding the college week to include the world of work and making a fair to show students (and parents) skills (ex. interviewing skills, resume building, etc.), perhaps doing this at the high school would work too (that's the campus I am moving to next year). The high school does have a college night where they invite colleges to the school and that's more than what we do at the 6th grade campus. I still feel this is a bit late as I originally wanted to motivate the 6th grade students to do better so they plan sooner.

I liked this class a lot. It opened my eyes to many issues that I had not thought about. One major one that comes to mind is the week one reading of the research on Hispanic parent involvement. I actually shared this with some fellow band directors to get them to think that perhaps it wasn't apathy that was keeping their Hispanic parents away, but culture. After this class, I'm wishing I had picked the parent involvement idea I had for my action research. But, I'm not ready to throw in the towel on my original plan just yet. I am going to make a huge effort to push for more parent involvement from now on though. I'm sure I will be blogging again for my next class - school law. So, until next week ... Take Care!

Am I the only one?

Web conference tonight was more connection issue than anything else. Am I the only one having issues staying connected once I'm in there? I think it reset itself about 10 times and twice I had to refresh the page. About all I heard/read was some ideas for community involvement that others are doing. I heard of the school within a school one with ninth graders and getting them to be more independent. I also heard some about dual language schools/classes. I think that's cool considering I spent almost 3 years in Japan (DOD schools) and know what a whole society doing multi-language schools can do. I will have to read the log to see what else I missed.

Next time I will have both computers loaded and ready so if one crashes I can try the other. Just to see if it's my computer or ISP since they have different ISP's. Well, off to do more homework .. and nine week grades .. cook dinner .. bathe the 3 yr old .. and ... well, I'm sure there's some other stuff I'm supposed to get done tonight as well! LOL Take care everyone!

Eh? What was that??

Tonight's web conference had a lot of technical issues. Between it randomly dropping connection and rebooting itself (nice that it did that actually), and the audio being out more than on, I didn't get a lot out of tonight's session.

There was more chat about the ILD, which I learned about last webconf. I had already emailed Dr. J about taking the class in June at Lamar. I also followed a posted link to the course calendar with dates. It's kind of daunting to think that by the end of this calendar year, I will have taken 6 more courses. I'm trying not to really think about that and how much time my new position at work is going to be in the Fall. Somehow, I will prevail. I don't want to scare myself by thinking about it, or I might panic ... and Dr. J doesn't want us to panic, so I just won't think about it! :-D

Web Conf Reflections

Seems I didn't do one last time. OOPS! I misunderstood the directions, or probably just didn't pay attention close enough. The last couple of web conferences were a little messed up with different links being posted and I joined the actual site late. I spent the first five minutes just reading the chat so I could catch up. It has gotten better as the correct links were posted today.

Since my last class introduced me to the whole concept of "web conference", I feel more comfortable in joining them now. I actually like them since we're not in a traditional setting where we can all see each other at every class. I also like the fact that I can get my questions answered in real time.

In tonight's web conference, Dr. Jenkins discussed when the midterm study guide would be posted and that he's instructed IA's to open the midterm early for those that need to take it early. Since I'm behind on this week's assignment due to my AR kicking off (see below), I asked for an extension so I'll be one of those taking the midterm on-time or last. Spring Break for me will be catching up and getting ahead again. I need to be ahead because my band has UIL contest on April 2, our last day of class. As Dr. Jenkins mentioned, "distress" tends to turn to disease and I've had enough of that! {I had my gallbladder removed in January} So, back to my homework!

What a rocky start!

I kicked off the student survey part of my AR project today. I wasn't sure it was going to happen. My parent permission slips didn't get approved on time because my principal was in the hospital (he's ok now, he had a silent heart attack). So, they were approved a week late, got them translated into Spanish by two GREAT ladies in the office (one a former student) on Tuesday, printed and in the teacher's hands on Wednesday.

I learned from week 1 assignment in School Community Relations that some Hispanic people seem uncaring or aloof about their child's education when they really are illiterate. My school has an automated phone calling system that can send out a short message in, not only English and Spanish, but also text! So I asked my principal for permission to use this system (note: I need to add this to my plan). The office was expecting a lot of calls and I came in early Thursday morning to field those calls. There was only one. Success?

I thought I had everything in place. Glitches were bound to show up and boy did they!
     - Friday (the day of the survey) was a half day. Traditionally we hold in 4th period. No one is using the computer lab during 4th period and I would have about 3 hours. Well. The schedule was changed at the end of the day on Wednesday to run our morning schedule! Now, not only would I not have the lab, but I would have classes to teach. Arg!
     - Some teachers did not pass out the permission slips on Wednesday. They didn't pass them out on Thursday either. In fact, some where passing them out when I came by to pick up the students and their permission slips to take them to the lab. (my principal's comment was "welcome to my world")
     - The plan was to put the link on this blog so that it would be easy to load each computer. Except, the computers wouldn't load this page. errrr
     - Plan B - my assistant is a computer techie on the side. He loaded the link from the survey site on his zip drive and loaded as many computer he could before heading off to another campus to teach a class (I owe him at least a lunch). Except, see below.
     - Between the slow processors on the lab computers (can you say it's long overdue for an update?), and the firewall on the school server, things went a LOT slower than planned. A 5 minute survey, if they read slow, was taking 15 to 20 minutes. Although, I do suspect a few dragging their feet because they didn't want to go back to class. For some, it just locked up as it was loading their next page. I didn't even get half of the classrooms done.

Major learning today:
1. "ctrl H" - brings up the history so I could reload the survey site quicker
2. The F5 key refreshes the screen and starts the survey all over again
3. The survey website is awesome as it tracked completed surveys as well as the incomplete ones. I can just take out the messed up ones that happened from resetting the webpages.
4. There's a reason technology needs to be updated more often.

I need to find more time to survey the other students that didn't have a chance to take the survey today. I need to go farther into the lists for my focus group because at this time, very few of the names I have, have turned in a permission slip. Some brainstorming with the school secretary has her looking into someone to run the lab for me on our next half day (two weeks) since I am out at a contest that day. Any student that is one of my students can take the survey during my class. I have no idea when I can do the focus groups and they are the critical point in putting the action into my research.

I have this week's reading to do for my class this time. My brain is gone for the night, so I will get to it in the morning. I hope everyone else is doing well on their AR.

First resistance to AR project

This really hit me by surprise. So much so, it's taken me over 24 hours to process it. Now, the thoughts are getting in the way of me getting my assignment done in the next class, so I thought I'd put them here (at least get it out of my head until I'm done with this week's assignment).

I was chatting with a staff member at my school asking for her help on a student incentive for my classes and I mentioned I was trying very hard to get things in place for the survey that is coming up for my AR. She asked what I was doing and when I told her, her comment was something like "that sounds like a bunch of malarky". I asked her to explain and she asked me if I just thought this up because I had to for my class, or if it was for real. This was a bad week for my school. A record number of fights and students being assigned to our alternative campus for other reasons. When I told her that maybe having the students give some input into the school would give them some ownership, and improve behavior (because we need to do something!), she was more agreeable.

I don't know if I won her over yet, but at least I feel like I won the skirmish. This week is going to be a "tie a knot in the end of the rope and HANG ON!" kind of week. And I'll try real hard to keep a smile on my face while doing it! :-)

New Items on blog layout

I learned how to put links on my blog in a spot in my layout! I'm so excited! LOL

I am also learning how to put the link to my survey for my action research on my blog as well! I knew there had to be a way to survey the students without them having an email address. Look for more updates soon!

It's just the beginning!

This course has been an exciting eye opener into a whole new world of not only administration, but in teaching as well. I have always been the one that likes setting the example, and becoming an administrator that shows they are continuing to learn is very appealing. As I look back over the last five weeks, I have learned so much, and yet I still have questions.

The lectures were like looking at a box of a cake mix. It was the overview of what we were going to do. The picture the professors painted sometimes felt like I was looking at some weird, new cake flavor that I wasn't sure I was really going to enjoy. The readings were like the cake mix itself. It seemed like it was just one ingredient, but it really was full of many other flavors. I enjoyed that the readings were not like dry flour, something I just had to get through. I read them and reread them discovering a new flavor every time.

I have used the internet a long time so using electronic searches was not something new for me. However, one of the interviews mentioned a site I had not heard of before, Survey Monkey. Since then, I have looked it up, signed up for an account and have seen its trademark on many questionnaires or surveys I have taken in the past few weeks. This is a technology that is very intriguing and I cannot wait to delve into it more in the next week as I develop my school-wide survey for my action research.

The assignment that was the most difficult for me was week three's. Just looking at a blank chart was like having writer's block. I just didn't know what to put where. I knew what I wanted to do, but I haven't seen some of those charts since my first teaching position when I was on the site-based committee for my school. I almost panicked trying to figure it out until I saw someone's chart on their blog. Suddenly it became clear and I understood it meant a step-by-step chart of what I was going to do. Even though this was probably the most difficult assignment for me to do, and change, it also was the most useful assignment. My plan was coming together and was becoming more clear in my head as well. I went back over the readings for deeper understanding and tweaked my plan to follow their guidelines. Once I was done with the draft, the next difficult thing to do was put another framework on top of it. I didn't see the purpose of that until I finished. It helped me smooth out some steps near the end that I hadn't thought through yet. Posting it on my blog made it seem real and even others said they liked it as well.

Blogs were something I had heard of, from my techie friends. I have never been one to really keep a diary or journal, but I have been active on social networks for a long time and this forced me to step into another arena. I feel I have so much more to add to my blog, I just need more time. I enjoy reading the other blogs and my goal is to follow all of the ones listed for this course. I may not be able to read all of them every week though.

Mostly I just can't believe all that I have accomplished in just five weeks. I know I have a lot left to learn, but I am looking forward to getting started. My plan has me doing school-wide surveys in two weeks and I have been researching permission slip formats online in my free time today. I found some very interesting ones that others have left for others to find. I will post them in my blog soon so others can find them as well.

Challenges

My AR project is "To evaluate if collaborating with the students on improving our school climate has an impact on student behavior, performance, and attendance.

Challenges: The biggest obstacle is that I am changing campuses at the end of this year. Some others could be setting up unbiased surveys, student participation (either not being willing to participate, give silly answers, or parents not willing to give permission), teacher and/or administration not buying in to whatever suggestion the students give (within reason).

Addressing the Challenges: My thoughts on changing campuses is to get organized as quickly as possible and get this going right now. I have checked the school calendar and put dates in my plan that I should be able to meet. I have also contacted the principal at the new campus and emailed her my plan as well as my internship plan in the hopes of bringing her up to speed as quickly as possible. Setting up surveys is a new task for me and I have checked into SurveyMonkey to see what they offer. Biggest issue with using them is that unless I pay for a membership, 100 responses is the maximum allowed per survey. I will keep researching. As far as silly responses, I'm just going to be prepared mentally to get some and be willing to just set them aside. I also need to get busy designing a permission slip quickly. This was something my principal suggested just to make sure there are no issues. Teacher and/or administration buy in might be a challenge, depending on the suggestions of the students. I will be prepared to sell my AR whenever I perceive resistance.

Student Collaboration Action Research Plan

Student Collaboration Action Research Plan
Goal: To evaluate if collaborating with the students on improving our school climate has an impact on student behavior, performance, and attendance.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1a. Setting the Foundation: Meet with several teachers to discuss a campus need	Jeri Collins	January 19, 2012 - January 23, 2012	Notes	Find a common campus need from teacher concerns
1b.Setting the Foundation: Review Internship Plan for possible topics	Jeri Collins	January 19, 2012 - January 23, 2012	Internship Plan	Find a topic that relates to teacher concerns
1c.Setting the Foundation: Personal Observations of student interactions in the halls and classrooms	Jeri Collins	January 19, 2012 - January 31, 2012	Notes	Find a concern based on student interactions
1d.Setting the Foundation: Conference with principal to share possible action research topic	Jeri Collins Mr. Smith, Principal	January 24, 2012 - February 1, 2012	School Email Proposal of Ideas	Selection and approval of topic
2a. Analyzing Data: Research for additional information / research done on changing school climate	Jeri Collins	February 1, 2012 - February 29, 2012	Internet Google Bing Ask.com	Word Document of information gathered
2b. Analyzing Data: Research for additional information / research done on changing behavior, performance, and attendance	Jeri Collins	February 1 - 2012 - February 29, 2012	Internet Google Bing Ask.com	Word Document on information gathered
2c. Analyzing Data: Research surveying methods	Jeri Collins	February 1 - 2012 - February 29, 2012	Internet Google Bing Ask.com Survey Monkey	Create an online survey
3a. Deeper Understanding: Get baseline numbers of office referrals from the first semester 2011 - 2012	Jeri Collins Mr. Chalfant, Asst. Principal	March 1, 2012 - March 8, 2012	Office referrals	Word document with the numbers of referrals given in the first semester
3b. Deeper Understanding: Get baseline numbers of failure rate from the first semester 2011 - 2012	Jeri Collins Ms. Rodriguez, PEIMS Clerk	March 1, 2012 - March 8, 2012	School failure report	Word document with the failure rate for the first semester 2011 - 2012
3c. Deeper Understanding: Get baseline numbers of attendance rate from the first semester 2011 - 2012	Jeri Collins Ms. Rodriguez, PEIMS Clerk	March 1, 2012 - March 8, 2012	School attendance report	Word document with the attendance rate for the first semester 2011 - 2012
3d. Deeper Understanding: Survey all 6th grade students Send out parent permission slips	Jeri Collins Mrs. Smoke, Computer Lab Teacher	March 9, 2012 - March 9, 2012	Permission Slips Computer Lab Internet Survey Program Survey Monkey?	Completed initial student surveys on current school climate
3e. Deeper Understanding: Select 8 - 10 students with the most office referrals for a Focus Group and meet with them	Jeri Collins	March 9, 2012 - March 9, 2012	Office referral information from baseline research Discussion prompts	Suggestions from Focus Group meeting
3f. Deeper Understanding: Select 8 - 10 students with the highest class failure rate for a Focus Group and meet with them	Jeri Collins	March 9, 2012 - March 9, 2012	Failure information from baseline research Discussion prompts	Suggestions from Focus Group meeting
3g. Deeper Understanding: Select 8 - 10 students with the most absences for a Focus Group and meet with them	Jeri Collins	March 9, 2012 - March 9, 2012	Absences information from baseline research Discussion prompts	Suggestions from Focus Group meeting
3h. Deeper Understanding: Select 8 - 10 students with the no referrals, no failures, and perfect attendance for a Focus Group and meet with them	Jeri Collins	March 9, 2012 - March 9, 2012	Information from baseline research Discussion prompts	Suggestions from Focus Group meeting
4. Self Reflection: Reflect on focus group results	Jeri Collins	March 9, 2012 - March 19, 2012	Focus group notes	Word document of suggestions
5. Exploring Patterns: Analyze the focus group list of suggestions for any developing patterns	Jeri Collins	March 9, 2012 - March 19, 2012	Word Document of suggestions	Word document with top 3 suggestions
6. Determining Direction: Conference with principal to share focus group results	Jeri Collins Mr. Smith	March 19, 2012 - March 19, 2012	Word document with top 3 suggestions	A suggestion has approval to implement
7a. Take Action: Implement the best solution	Jeri Collins Other staff depending on the suggestion	March 26, 2012 - March 26, 2012	Depends on the suggestion	Suggestion has been done
7b. Take Action: Collect data on referrals, grades, and attendance Every 3 weeks	Jeri Collins Mr. Chalfant Ms. Rodriguez	March 26, 2012 - May 25, 2012	Office referrals, grade reports, attendance reports	End of school reports
8a. Sustaining Improvement: Reflect on collect data for need of another suggestion being added	Jeri Collins Mr. Smith, Principal	March 26, 2012 - May 25, 2012	Word document with top 3 suggestions	A suggestion has approval to implement
8b. Sustaining Improvement: Survey all 6th grade students	Jeri Collins Mrs. Smoke	May 30, 2012 - June 1, 2012	Computer Lab Internet Survey Program Survey Monkey	Completed final student surveys on current school climate
9a. Report Findings: Write results from action research	Jeri Collins	Summer 2012	All gathered data	Draft Action Research Paper
9b. Report Findings: Share the results with school administration and faculty	Jeri Collins	Fall 2012	Power Point Presentation of Action Research	Final Action Research Paper