EDLD 5301 Action Research Plan

School Vision: To provide educational programs that will help each child develop academically, socially, politically, economically, and psychologically, thus educating the whole child. Furthermore, the educational experience should provide a curriculum designed to meet each student’s needs while encouraging enjoyment of learning. We believe individuals must be active participants in their learning.


Goal: To establish a recognizable percentage of passing scores on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) End of Course (EOC) test for the 9^th grade English students who participate in an English curriculum integrated with technology.

Action Step(s)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1. Setting the Foundation – Establish 9th grade English as target population of action research.	Safirah Ibenana, site administrators and faculty	10/11	Surveys, discussions	During meetings with administrators and teachers, the issue of student writing has been identified as a major weakness on state standardized exams. STAAR test takers (9th grade) will be the focus since TAKS is phasing out.
2. Analyze previous standardized scores, benchmark scores, and various student writing samples.	Safirah Ibenana	10/11	Previous test scores and writing samples	I will look at areas of weaknesses identified by the exam. I will address those weaknesses with various writing exercises.
3. Developing deeper understanding – Interview teachers and students about the disinterest in writing.	Safirah Ibenana	End 11/15/11	Surveys, classroom time	I will poll students after research to see if they felt the curriculum addressed their concerns.
4. Ask self-reflective questions	Safirah Ibenana	End 11/15/11	Students’ reasons explaining disinterest	How will I be able to help captivate the attention of students who have been disinterested thus far?
5. Integrate blogging into the journaling and peer revision exercises of curriculum.	Safirah Ibenana, Ivy Perkins	10/11-2/12	Curriculum guidelines, previous lesson plans	Integration will be evaluated by how well the model is received by students and their responsiveness (successful completion of each weblog activity)
6. Activate weblogs for students.	Safirah Ibenana	End 11/15/11	Computer lab	Ensure that all weblogs are active through monitoring.
7. Activate RSS feeder for instructor.	Safirah Ibenana	End 11/15/11	Instuctor’s desktop	Ensure that we’re continually subscribed to weblogs.
8. Compare/contrast essays from students who blog and students who do not blog.	Safirah Ibenana, Ivy Perkins	11/11-3/12	Students’ work, assessment chart	Using assessment rubric, note growth in writers and determine if blogging was a factor.
9. Exploring Programmatic Patterns – Talk with students’ homeroom teachers and counselors to gather any pertinent information on their backgrounds.	Safirah Ibenana	10/11-2/12	Discussion points	I will monitor writing samples according to writing prompts. Especially the prompts relevant to their lives in order to identify increased engagement.
10. Determining direction – I will specifically work with two 9th grade English sections (1 pre-AP and 1 regular).	Safirah Ibenana	10/11	9th grade English teachers.	Not only will I compare scores of target group with rest of 9th grade, I will also compare scores between the pre-AP target and regular target.
11. Write formative and summative evaluations on the impact of blogging on student’s writing samples.	Safirah Ibenana	3/12-4/12	Data and comments from research, writing samples	In order to take action for school improvement, I will share evaluations with administration.
12. Share research’s impact with rest of the grade levels.	Safirah Ibenana	5/12	Data and comments from research, writing samples, and Microsoft Powerpoint	In order to sustain improvement, I can survey faculty on their thoughts of presentation. I can follow up the following school year to see if the model is adopted.

Process Overview:

1.    Examining the work: Setting the Foundation – During meetings with administrators and teachers, the issue of student writing has been identified as a major weakness on state standardized exams.

2.    Analyzing data – I use previous standardized and benchmark scores. I also use various student writing samples. Findings from electronic searches have shown that I can use technology to encourage disinterested students to write more coherently.

3.    Developing deeper understanding – I plan to interview teachers further as to WHY their students are disinterested in writing. I will poll students on their side of this concern as well.

4.    Engaging in Self-Reflection – I ask myself the question: How will I be able to help captivate the attention of students who have been disinterested thus far?  

9.    Exploring Programmatic Patterns – I will talk with students’ homeroom teachers and counselors to gather any pertinent information on their backgrounds. I will use the information to formulate writing topics relevant to their lives.

10.    Determining direction – I am clear that I specifically want to work with 9^th grade English at this time. I will research how blogging can improve their writing skills. To ensure that the computer lab will consistently be available for the targeted students, I am working with few number of classes. The only collaborative approach established in the curriculum thus far is the peer revision component. I am unsure about the timeline because I have 3 months to note progress. The instructor and I will subscribe to students’ blogs using RSS feeders to monitor their progress. Instructor and I are still determining assessment rubrics for essays. We will customize writing prompts according to students’ progress.

11.    Taking action for school improvement – I will write formative and summative evaluations on the impact of blogging on student’s writing samples.

12.    Sustaining improvement – Proposed positive impact would be shared with rest of the grade levels to assist them with improving writing scores for STAAR exam the following year.