Getting Started With My Action Research Project

Well it seems to be a crazy start to the school year, but nevertheless my action research plan is underway.  My plan seemed to get a slow start because of a lack of information on different methods for the memorization of math facts.  I spent numerous hours this summer researching brain theories that are related to the memorization of math facts.  It was extremely hard to find any programs that were specifically focused on the mathematical operations.  I ended up combining strategies from different sources as well as using some techniques that are not specified for math, but are best brain practices for memorization in general.  Once school started I used a free computer program that has timed fact practice in order to assess the current fact fluency of all of my classes.  After the pre-assessment, I looked at the data and the classroom demographics to determine which two rooms I would use for my action research project.  I have a very large number of special education students this year so that was one of the biggest considerations on what classrooms to use.  I determined that I will use my first period and second period classes.  For the first five weeks all of my students have been receiving fact practice each day in the form of Flash Masters.  These are hand-held games that give the students nine seconds to answer a particular multiplication problem.  During the second six weeks we will continue fact practice with the Flash Master and computer games, but my first period class will start receiving additional fact practice that is based off of the brain research.  Every two weeks the students will be reassessed and their scores will be graphed to show improvement trends.

Reflections on the Action Research Class

Week 5 has finally arrived and so comes the end to our second class.  I feel that I have gained confidence during this class that I did not have after the completion of my first class.  I am very excited about my action research plan and what its outcome will hold for my students and my school district.  I have gained a great amount of knowledge regarding action research and feel that the information presented in this class was very helpful.

The lectures for this class were helpful.  They gave me some where to start each week and overall had very clear information and instructions.  Both the Dana text and the Harris text were helpful to my understanding in this class.  I really liked that Leading with Passion and Knowledge had numerous examples and templates that seemed to clarify some of the topics discussed. 

I felt like all of the assignments in this class were well laid out and progressed in a logical order with the content in the texts.  I had a hard time with the week 3 assignment and felt a bit overwhelmed at the task of creating an action research plan. I was just not sure of what was expected of me, but after completing the assignment I do see that you are not wanting to give too many guidelines on the research in order for each students’ plans to be unique to them and their schools.  But being a perfectionist I feel that it would have been helpful to have clearer instructions and to know that we would have a chance to revise these plans later in the class if they were not exactly what was expected.

I think the blogs are a great idea and could be very helpful by communicating concerns and reflections with other classmates, but I found that I was very discouraged by the blogging process.  Even though I am following other classmates’ blogs and made numerous comments to other students’ plans, I only had two comments posted to my blog.  This was very disheartening to me especially when you can see that most of the blogs were getting up to 5 comments for each post they made.  I feel that I got more feedback on the discussion board than I did on my blog in this class.  I think overall students in this class gave better feedback on discussions than they did in my EDLD 5311 class.

I would say that the weekly web conferences probably helped me the most.  It made me feel at ease to know that other students were having the same struggles as me and to be able to get specific questions answered by Dr. Abshire.  Even on the weeks when I was not able to attend the actual web conference, I still feel like I received just as much insight by watching their recordings.  Out of all of the aspects of the class I feel like this one helped guide me the most.

I have enjoyed this class and am ready to start working on my action research project when the 2013-14 school year starts.  I am grateful for a well-organized class with pertinent information for being a successful leader in the school setting.

Revised Action Research Plan

I made a couple of revisions to my Action Research Plan throughout this week.  I am still looking for feedback or any suggestions that would improve my plan.  I am also interested to hear from anyone who knows effective brain research or memorization strategies.  I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th week!

Action Planning Template
Goal: Will incorporating brain research memorization skills help students retain basic math facts better than skill and drill alone?
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Find the latest brain research related to memorization and math facts.	Hutcherson	July 2013 To August 2013	Internet   Library
Give a math fact pre-assessment to all of my classes.	Hutcherson	September 2013	Math Fact Test	The number of correct answers in the allotted time.
Use the demographic make-up of the classes and the results of the pre-assessment to choose two different classes to observe.	Hutcherson	September 2013	Result of test   Eduphoria
Give both classes the same skill and drill type instruction for math facts including Flash Masters and Speed Tests	Hutcherson   Social Studies Teacher	September 2013 To March 2014	Speed Tests Flash Masters
I will practice memorization techniques in relation to the math facts to one of the two classes.	Hutcherson	September 2013 To March 2014	Memorization strategies	Journal about the methods used and how they are received by the students.
I will continue to give speed tests to gauge progress in the automaticity of the math facts.	Hutcherson	September 2013 To March 2014	Speed Tests Spreadsheet for recording data	Keep a record of the data achieved.
Give a final assessment to determine how much improvement has been made.	Hutcherson	April 2014	Final Assessment	Compare the number of correct answers in the allotted time to the pre-assessment.
Evaluate the results to determine if there is a noticeable difference between the two groups.	Hutcherson	May 2014	Data to compare	Compare the number of correct answers in the allotted time to the pre-assessment.
Analyze state assessment scores to see if math fact fluency increased student achievement.	Hutcherson	May 2014	State Assessment Data	Compare students’ achievement from 4th grade STAAR to 5th grade STAAR.
Share the findings with the district curriculum director.	Hutcherson   Curriculum Dir.	May 2014	Results of research

Action Research Concerns

I have done a lot of reflection on my action research project this week.  I am excited to know that I have almost completed this class, but I am also starting to worry about carrying out my Action Research Project.  It is hard to plan this far ahead of time and although I am excited about the possibilities with my plan it seems overwhelming.

One of the challenges that I can foresee with my action research plan is deciding on the most appropriate brain research methods to use.  My school district uses the Quantum program which has great methods but none that are specific to the math area or the memorization of math facts.  I will probably incorporate the Quantum methods with other types of math fact memorization techniques but I am wanting to find the best methods available.  I will be looking into numerous programs and research studies to find what will work best for my action research plan. 

I am very concerned about choosing the "correct" methods in order to effectively do my project.  If anyone knows of any programs, I would love to hear about them.  I would be open to any suggestions that you may have.

Action Research Plan

Action Planning Template
Goal: Will incorporating brain research memorization skills help students retain basic math facts better than skill and drill alone?
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Find the latest brain research related to memorization and math facts.	Hutcherson	July 2013 To August 2013	Internet   Library
Give a math fact pre-assessment to all of my classes.	Hutcherson	September 2013	Math Fact Test	The number of correct answers in the allotted time.
Use the demographic make-up of the classes and the results of the pre-assessment to choose two different classes to observe.	Hutcherson	September 2013	Result of test
Give both classes the same skill and drill type instruction for math facts including Flash Masters and Speed Tests	Hutcherson   Social Studies Teacher	September 2013 To March 2014	Speed Tests Flash Masters
I will practice memorization techniques in relation to the math facts to one of the two classes.	Hutcherson	September 2013 To March 2014	Memorization strategies	Journal about the methods used and how they are received by the students.
I will continue to give speed tests to gauge progress in the automaticity of the math facts.	Hutcherson	September 2013 To March 2014	Speed Tests Spreadsheet for recording data	Keep a record of the data achieved.
Give a final assessment to determine how much improvement has been made.	Hutcherson	April 2014	Final Assessment	Compare the number of correct answers in the allotted time to the pre-assessment.
Evaluate the results to determine if there is a noticeable difference between the two groups.	Hutcherson	May 2014	Data to compare	Compare the number of correct answers in the allotted time to the pre-assessment.
Share the findings with the district curriculum director.	Hutcherson   Curriculum Dir.	May 2014	Results of research

Week 2 Reflection (Action Research)

This has been an extremely busy week.  I am currently teaching summer school for 5th grade students who did not pass their second administration for STAAR.  I have felt a little rushed on my readings for this week, but also feel that the infomation from this week was beneficial.  I feel like all teachers do some type of inquiry within the classroom naturally.  Action research is just taking those inquiries a little further.  Reading Chapter 2 "The Passions That Drive Your Journey" really streached my thinking about just how many areas your can use the action research process to benefit the students and the school environment in general.  Even though I feel like I have used these strategies numerous times since I started teaching, I am nervous about doing an official action research project.  I am happy with the area that I choose to research because it means so much to me and I think that may make it easier for me to follow through on.

Choosing An Action Research Topic

 

        The three areas that I discussed with my site supervisor for action research were to see how successful the “BAC” unit was for getting students with extreme behavior problems back on the right track for success, see how brain research could help in the memorization of basic math facts, and determine if changing a student’s schedule to include and extra RTI class was beneficial in raising a student’s ability level.

         I discussed these three topics with my site supervisor this week.  During the discussion we decided that I should do my action research in the area of basic math facts.  He said that he felt like the success of the “BAC” unit may be a little hard to track because it is not located on our campus and I would not have direct access to it along with the fact that we don’t have a huge number of students from our campus that are placed there each year.  Philip said he thought the math topic area would work better than the RTI for the fact that I am more passionate about this area because it is what I teach on a daily basis.  He said it was better suited for me and that I would be able to directly use the results in my own classroom.

Using Blogs in Education

         I can think of a couple of ways in which educators could use blogs to better connect with today’s students and have an easily accessible way to communicate with each other.  In my district we have a new teacher mentor program that I feel would benefit from a question / answer type blog.  First year teachers have so many questions about district procedures and curriculum that I think an open line of communication could be extremely helpful to them.  I also think that teachers of high school students could use the technology of blogging to connect better with their students.  They could post questions for the students to respond to or they could simply post lectures and due dates for projects or homework.

Administrative Inquiry & Action Research

           Administrative inquiry is a more hands on approach to research and professional development than the traditional literature based research. According to Nancy Dana (2009), “Administrator inquiry refers to the process of a principal engaging in systematic, intentional study of his/her own administrative practice and taking action for change based on what he/she learns as a result of the inquiry.” (p. 2)  In the process of action research the administrator stops relying on the research and data of others and starts doing the research themselves based on their own school, students, and faculty.  This allows them to make changes that are relevant to their school’s own needs.    

            Educational research was traditionally implementing change based on the findings of “outsiders” who were viewed as experts in their fields whereas action based research is personalized to the specific school.  “Given the complex environments of today’s schools where much of the decision making and discussion regarding what happens in the schoolhouse occur outside the walls of the school, the time seems ripe to equip administrators with the tools of inquiry and thus enable them to cultivate the expertise residing within the schoolhouse itself and to utilize these critical, untapped resources to improve their schools from the inside out rather than the outside in. (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2006)

I feel like there are many benefits to conducting action research within our schools.  This type of professional development is more meaningful and more valuable than the traditional professional development that we as teachers have been accustomed to.  Dana (2009) said, “Learning must be something teachers and students do, not something that others do to or for them.” (p. 12)  I feel like asking those tough questions that make you reflect on your own practices make you become a proactive teacher / administrator who is more in touch with the needs of their students and staff.  It makes instruction more personal, specific for your schools needs and allows you and the staff to take ownership of the curriculum and school culture.

            I think there are many places within schools that action research would be beneficial.  Currently I am a classroom teacher and I feel like the majority of my inquiry would be based on curriculum and student performance / achievement levels.  We as teachers need to be reflective within our classrooms and find the areas in which change is necessary for the students to be more successful.