10/1/12 Action Research Progress

I have completed the first step of my action research project and am currently working on step two.  I logged approximately 15 hours for step one, although a couple of those hours were spent trying to explain my needs to the PEIMS clerk and just getting the project started in general.  The remaining hours were logged accessing and compiling tardies by month and organizing them into an excel document.  I have also begun to collect tardies by month for the 2012-2013 school year.  I have spent approximately 2 hours setting up and organizing the tardy data. 

So I have been somewhat intimidated with this whole action research project.  Kind of thinking we would take a few classes before jumping into research!  I did get some valuable advice this week..."keep your first action research clean and focus on data that can be collected".  Seems to make a lot of sense, huh?

Final Action Plan...although I doubt it is really final!

Action Plan Final
Goal: Evaluate and Improve the campus tardy protocol.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Collect Data on Tardies by month for 2011-2012 school year	Kasondra Aguilar Principal Attendance Clerk	August 27, 2012/September 30, 2012	Access to Attendance Data	Analyze Data
Collect Tardies by month for first semester of 2012-2013 school year	Kasondra Aguilar Principal Attendance Clerk	End January 30, 2013	Access to Attendance Data	Analyze Data
Administer, Collect, and secure teacher and anonymous student surveys	Kasondra Aguilar Teachers Students	October 1, 2012/ November 1, 2012	Survey Monkey	Analyze and Organize Data from Surveys
Analyze Survey Data	Kasondra Aguilar	November 1, 2012 – January 30, 2013	Excel	Analyze Information from Survey
Gather research from education sources regarding tardy policies	Kasondra Aguilar	November 1, 2012 – January 30, 2013	Professional Literature, Educational Journals, Blogs, Books	N/A
Organize and write a summary of findings and action suggestion	Kasondra Aguilar	November 1, 2012 – January 30, 2013	Microsoft Word Professional Readings References	N/A
Share action research findings with Principal, Teachers, and other stakeholders	Kasondra Aguilar	Faculty Meeting Spring 2013	Powerpoint Presentation	Feedback from Administration and Discipline Committee

Format based on Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)

Action Research Plan Template

Action Planning Template
Goal: Evaluate and Improve the campus tardy protocol.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Collect Data on Tardies by month for 2011-2012 school year	Kasondra Aguilar Principal Attendance Clerk	August 27, 2012/September 30, 2012	Access to Attendance Data	Analyze Data
Collect Tardies by month for first semester of 2012-2013 school year	Kasondra Aguilar Principal Attendance Clerk	End January 30, 2013	Access to Attendance Data	Analyze Data
Administer, Collect, and secure teacher and anonymous student surveys	Kasondra Aguilar Teachers Students	October 1, 2012/ November 1, 2012	Survey Monkey	Analyze and Organize Data from Surveys
Analyze Survey Data	Kasondra Aguilar	November 1, 2012 – January 30, 2013	Excel	Analyze Information from Survey
Gather research from education sources regarding tardy policies	Kasondra Aguilar	November 1, 2012 – January 30, 2013	Professional Literature, Educational Journals, Blogs, Books	N/A
Organize and write a summary of findings and action suggestion	Kasondra Aguilar	November 1, 2012 – January 30, 2013	Microsoft Word Professional Readings References	N/A
Share action research findings with Principal, Teachers, and other stakeholders	Kasondra Aguilar	Faculty Meeting Spring 2013	Powerpoint Presentation	Feedback from Administration and Discipline Committee

Format based on Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)

EDLD 5301-Week 2 Reflections

The focus this week was refining the action research topic previously selected last week.  I did quite a bit of reading...textbook, blogs, discussion boards.  Interesting ideas out there!  I even signed up for a free trial of EBSCO, an educational research website. 

I am looking forward to putting my idea into action!

Blogs for Administrators

Administrators could use blogs in many different ways, but staying in touch with parents comes to my mind very quickly.  Once familiar with authoring a blog, an administrator could widely distribute the blog address and have immediate output to many parents.  I think this would be very well received by middle and high school parents who so often hear that school was "fine" or "nothing is going on" from their child.  A simple blog about upcoming open houses, or asking for more parent involvement in the lunchroom would be a quick and very effective way to keep parents feeling in the loop with their child's school.

Action Research Summary

After much reading on action research versus traditional educational research I believe the main difference is the involvement of the person implementing the plan prescribed after the research.  In traditional educational research, educators and administrators often adopt a plan or approach to fix a problem based entirely on outside research.  This is usually a broad based study of a situation and the campus culture, environment, and defencies may be quite different than those studied.  Regardless, the decision is made to adopt a particular set of rules or methods based on data driven results and the plan is implemented with very little if any input at a local level.  In contrast, action research involves the administrator, or other educator in a much more intimate capacity.  The administrator is the author of the problem and utilizes all available resources, as well as outside research, to attack and solve the problem.  This solution will directly address the needs of the campus and the solution to the problem is widely shared and implemented.