Developing an Action Research Plan

I thought that developing an action research plan would be easy but as I began to talk with my site supervisor she told me that my topics were too broad and that I needed to be more specific. She helped me understanding it by comparing it to the SMART GOALS that we do at the beginning of every year. She said that I want to make sure that I could track the progress and that it would not take too long to see results of it working or not working. I wanted to really concentrate on parent’s involvement in schools since I feel that this is something that is really lacking. Even though I do not understand it because I want to know everything about my son's education to ensure that he will be successful. After thinking about it, I was able to find a place to start at....increasing parent involvement in the math classroom. Whenever I contact parents about their Childs math grade I seem to constantly hear that they do not know how to do it or they were bad at math and that is why their child struggles too. I am not so sure that math skills are genetically linked, but okay. So I now want to look at developing a program, or sessions so that we are able to work with parents so that they are able to help their child. All this one on one help could benefit many children and it is hard when our tutorials are anywhere from 8 to 30 kids. One on one really doesn't get to happen that much at my school. I am looking forward to developing and implementing this program at my school hopefully with the help of the other math teachers!

Action Reseach

I am still in the learning phase of what action research will mean to me and how I will use it. Really what I have learned about it so far seems what would be normal for an administrator to do. As we strive to better our students learning environment and their success rate we should be in constant evaluation of our process and how we fit into the master plan. I want to make sure that I have a hand on approach. From what I understand in action research we will be using literature, others experiences, and data to improve an issues that we may have on our campuses. It is a process that we will continue to use until perfection is reach if that is even possible. With the way that areas change our schools are changing constantly which in return means that we have to learn how to adjust ourselves and our practices to meet the needs of our students. I would use action research as I begin to develop an improvement plan for anything and implement the plan. As described in the text it is like a "spiral" effect (Elliot, p. 5). You want to be constantly reflecting and seeking an action whether it is a small tweak or a huge change that needs to take effect. I would like to use action research when dealing with parent involvement; this seems to always be an issue throughout the year. Parents are working or have too much on their plate. I would outline the reasons why parents are not involved in the first place. I would then seek out schools with similar economic backgrounds like us that have successful parent involvement and see the steps that they took to get that spot. I would also continue to read literature on how to get parents involved while looking to my colleagues for advice. Each year guaranteed I would be looking for ways to tweak it so it would be like a spiral that will never end. As a new class of students comes in I have to be willing to evaluate the situation and re-think my strategies and approach. I hope that I am looking at action research in the right way, and am starting to grasp a correct understanding on how it should work.

How Educators Might Use Blogs

Blogs are a great way to document your thoughts and keep track of the process. Whether you are seeks a solution to an issue or trying to develop a new idea it allows for a building process in which you can review your thought process. It allows you to begin to develop ideas and keep building off of them. You can also ask that other school employees read your blogs and input their thoughts about the blog on your blog wall.