Revised Action Research Plan

Goal: To determine the best strategies to motivate students.

Action Steps	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Meeting with Site Based Decision Making Team to discuss Action Research Plan	Administration Myself SBDM Team Members	During Staff development before school 2010.	TAKS data Teacher profiles	Action Research Plan
Select two classrooms from each grade level to serve as test groups.	Administration Myself	Before the first day of school 2010.	Past test data Previous teacher evaluations	Classrooms selected
Develop survey to be sent home to parents and teachers with Spanish translations on the back.	Myself ESL teacher	Before the first day of school 2010.	SBDM team list of questions Current research from literature	Completed questionnaire
Assemble packets to give to parents of students in test groups.	Myself	Before the first day of school 2010. Before the first day of the second semester.	Student Survey Parent Survey Parent Permission Forms	Packets ready
Distribute packets to students in test groups.	Classroom Teachers	End of the first week of school End of the first week of the second semester.	Classroom Teachers	Number of packets returned
Analyze packet information.	Myself	Beginning of school year and beginning of second semester.	Student Survey Parent Survey Parent Permission Forms	Student and parent responses.
Analyze teacher surveys.	Classroom Teachers Myself	Beginning of school year and beginning of second semester.	Teacher surveys	Teacher responses
Analyze test data	Myself	On-going until the end of 2010-2011 school year.	CBM test data TAKS data	Improved test scores
Analyze Action Research Data using the Delphi Method.	Administration Myself SBDM Team Members	Before the end of 2010-2011 school year	Data from action research Current Research from literature	Improved test scores Improved school climate
Present Action Research Data to Faculty	Myself	During staff development for 2011-2012 school year.	Data from action research	Improved test scores Improved school climate

Action Research Project

My site supervisor and I have agreed upon the action research topic of what motivates students to learn. Once a student is motivated, they become engaged in the lesson. This helps to eliminates off talk behaviors and increase student effort. I will use student, teacher, and parent surveys. I will analyze the data to determine what motivates students. I will also pilot several of the techniques in my own classroom to determine their effectiveness.

Benefits of Blogging

Blogs are a great tool for educational leaders to use in communicating with stakeholders. All posts are kept in one place and in a sequential order. They are also very easy to update and manage. Most importantly, blogs allow for other individuals to interact by posting comments.

Action Research

Action research is used to improve a school or district by finding multiple solutions to specific issues. The research and conclusions are made by those that are closest to the problem. This can include administrators, teachers or other personnel. Traditional research requires that experts pose questions, examine the data, and make general conclusions. These experts are considered “outsiders” because they are not involved in the operations of the school. In fact, many of these experts have never worked in the classroom. The closer you are to a problem, the more you know about it. This knowledge can be put to good use with data that has been collected and analyzed.

On my campus, I will use action research to find solutions to issues that arise. I will work with the leadership team to pose questions about what we can improve. Through this systematic process we will be able to try new strategies that are specific to our situation. The more individuals that you can work on a problem the better the outcome will be. Another great aspect about action research is that with each new strategy you try, more information is gathered and analyzed. This improvement process should be continual.