Mentor/Researcher Agreed Upon Action Research Plan

After meeting with my action research mentor this week, we discovered more questions regarding issues that may affect my action research on the short and long term. One of the main issues that always come to discussion is internet safety. Due to the fact that we are a catholic institution, internet safety is one of the most important factors that my mentor is concern about. We decided that to be on the safe side, the next meeting we schedule is going to be with the presence of our school’s server manager. That way we can ask questions, be proactive, and better understand how our can students will be safe in, and out of our campus. All the options will be consider and we will team up to find solutions to all the problems we might encounter.

Another recurrent issue was scheduling the right time for instruction to prepare our students for the program. Last week we talked about selecting a sample group that was going to provide some virtual data that we can start using to make changes and to develop a more accurate plan. After discussing the plan with the sample group, we decided the first time we implement the online class, we will weight it on the grade books to make sure we don’t affect the students GPA with an experimental course.

We truly believe this options will improve the program, and that the program itself will help our middle school students be better prepared when they more to high school.

Sharing the progress and process of the action research

1. Provide Background Information

The best way of explaining the action research I will be conducting on the next few months is to provide some background information about all the parts that would conform the activities that will allow us to collect the data.

After discussing the issues with my mentor and principal, we came to the conclusion that our major issue, and the one we should concentrate our research, was scheduling and finding time for middle school students to obtain more instruction hours during extra curricular time. We are a mid-size Catholic School located in Lake Charles, LA, and our middle school students normally graduate to go to St. Louis Catholic High School or to enroll into public school for their high school years. We currently do not have any online courses, though we offer technology enrichment classes that are web-based, and algebra classes that are web-based as well.

2. Share the Design of the Inquiry (Procedures, Data Collection, and Data Analysis)

He idea is to implement online classes that can open some more curricular time for instruction for our students that are getting ready to move to high school. The procedures will take place during the third week of the rotation schedule where a sample group will be put into an online course after proving their capacities to perform an online-based course. The data obtained by the experiences with this sample group will be utilized to determine the accuracy and the effectiveness of the project.

3. Stating the Learning and Supporting the Statements with Data

The statement for this action research is based on a virtual group that can benefit from online instruction time, computer-based courses, and extra curricular hours of school. The data will provide an accurate vision of the possibilities this technique may open for a school dealing with scheduling issues, and shortage of hours due enrichment classes and new subjects that matter while preparing for high school.

4. Providing Concluding Thoughts

If the program proves to be successful and opens up more spaces for instruction during curricular time, the other departments at school can start implementing online courses for other different subjects and even for the lower graders as well. Not just middle school students will benefit from these programs, but also elementary grade levels can implement single subject or project online classes to improve the student’s performances and instructional time.

Action Planning Template

Tool 7.1 Action Planning Template
GOAL	To alleviate curricular instructional time for our middle school students by implementing online classes and e-school courses during extracurricular hours.
Action Step(s)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1. Perform a check on all students participating on the sample group to make sure they posses the requirements to enroll the online courses.	David Rivero (Technology Enrichment, Webmaster, IT) Patsy Beverung (Technology Coordinator) Jane Piraro (Middle School Coordinator)	Sample group to be picked by the second rotation (third nine weeks of school).	Create a sign up form for students interested on participating on the sample group. Create a dead line for them to analyze the information and make a decision.	After returning sign up sheet, perform a basic technology test for insurance of comprehension of terms and conditions.
2. Select a sample group of students to perform a pilot class to finish details before moving to the real online class.	David Rivero (Technology Enrichment, Webmaster, IT) Jane Piraro (Middle School Coordinator) With the approval of: JoAnn Wallwork (School Principal)	Stating the selection right before the third nine weeks start, and ending right before the class begins.	Forms, basic technology test, computer lab with internet accessibility, students to create a sample group to collect data from.	Check for the student’s knowledge and comprehension of the online course. Make sure students meet the requirements for the online class, and they read the terms and conditions for it.
3. Post schedules for assignments, classes, web meetings, and due dates for students to start organizing a plan for the class.	David Rivero (Technology Enrichment, Webmaster, IT) Jane Piraro (Middle School Coordinator)	Starting the class the very first meeting day. Continuing the student/teacher communication until the end of the nine-week rotation.	Computer lab at school fully equipped and with access to the internet. A blogging account for each one of the students to post assignments and comment on the class blog.	Evaluate and analyze the results of the discussion boards for each week’s assignments.
4. Exploring Programmatic Patterns	David Rivero (Technology Enrichment, Webmaster, IT) Jane Piraro (Middle School Coordinator)	Before the nine weeks start, program leaders need to understand the issues better to be able to organize a more accurate course for students to take.	Assessments with the right questions to gather the right data needed to start the online program.	Asking the appropriate questions, identifying data patterns and gaps, and learning to address equity issues.
5. Taking action for school improvement	JoAnn Wallwork (School Principal) David Rivero (Technology Enrichment, Webmaster, IT) Jane Piraro (Middle School Coordinator)	Throughout the school year, with special emphasis during the weeks while the course is taking place.	The actual resources of this step would be the support from administrators and other members of the school community, including parents and stakeholders.	Using appropriate steps or templates like the SIP or PIP Plan of action to guide the action research

Real Life Research Examples

Real Life Action Research Examples
Week 2 gave us a better understanding of active research, and how can we use it in our own particular campuses. Listening to the interviews from important active research users was very encouraging and brought a real taste of what this method can do to help administrators become better leaders. Listening to the testimonials and reviewing our own internship plan will help us decide what kind of issues are really relevant for our campus at this particular moment.
Site mentors are also leaders that are helping us chose the right area of interest. They guide our steps as we move along, and support our research by bringing their own questions into the plate for us to start “wondering” about the same issues. Ultimately, we will work as a collective institution to narrow those issues and work on active research that will promote more accurate solutions for them.

Action Research Topic

As our school grows on student enrollment and our schedules get loaded with new classes and enrichments, the administrative team keeps struggling to find quality time management, good scheduling, and more academic time for students to benefit from. One solution that seems realistic and that can be put into action in the short term is the implementation of virtual classrooms or e-classes.

I will conduct an action research to analyze the possibility of establishing distance-course learning opportunities for the students that are preparing to go from middle school to high school, and depending on the results, administrators can extend the initiative to lower grades that may need more time for instruction as well.

The ultimate goal of this research will be to provide the school’s community with an alternative form of instructional time for students that is not necessarily classroom time, or face-to-face instructional time.

Why Blog?

Weblogs are a great way for exchanging knowledge between members of a cyber community. Educational weblogs are an important tool fir teachers now days. The exchange of the experiences within the classroom is something that used to take meetings, e-mails with long time replies, conferences out of curricular time, and other time consuming ways for it to be part of the teacher's sharing information, now thanks to educational blogs, all of these experiences are just a few clicks away.

Introduction to Action Research

Previous to the activities on week one I wasn’t really aware of the techniques used while applying action research to the different educational contexts. Normally the settings proposed at the school I teach at were based on process-product research and qualitative research, and often isolated the ideas of the people within the field.
There are many ways our school can benefit from the action research process. Implementing a more open-to-collaboration method increases the chances of targeting the right problems when it comes to the classroom collective learning process. Gathering the data and all the results directly for from the students on particular issues is a great way to verify the whole class is getting the correct information to use it for future problem solving. The process seems to be complicated, especially at the beginning, but seems to become more of a routine after is being used from time to time. The results are the proof of the process accuracy, and the more the administrators get involved with the method, the more sharing goes on and increases the amount of information that becomes available for other to use to accomplish goals.
At our school we might be able to utilize this method with the students that are ready to move to high school, by collecting data on the main issues they might present before moving to the next step. Getting them better prepared will increase their chances of a better performance during their high school time.