Sunday, July 25, 2010
Week 2 Assignment Reflection
I'm feeling more comfortable about this course at this point. It is extremely rigorous, but I like that is blends seamlessly with my Internship Plan. It, sort of, puts together a lot of the previous learning into this intimidating, but useful action research project. As you all know from the discussion board, my project falls right on the lap of my new position as a TAP Master teacher. I will be in charge of a third of my school's staff, complete with their staff development, mentoring, observations, and evaluations! Yikes! I just hope that, at the end we can see results on students' success stories!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
My proposed Action Research Topic...
Hi Everyone! At the end of last school year, my school was chosen as one of 6 schools in the district to participate in the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) this coming year. TAP™ was developed based upon scientific research as well as best practices from the fields of education, business and management. The TAP Elements of Success stem from research findings about effective practices in attracting, developing, motivating and retaining the highest quality teachers to the profession, and particularly to high-need schools (http://www.tapsystem.org/policyresearch/policyresearch.taf).
Basically, program, created by the Milken Foundation, has 4 components; multiple career paths, ongoing PD, instruction-focused evaluations (not PDAS), and performance pay for teachers. The staff had to vote on participating or not. Since we had to base our votes on a 1 hour presentation and the research some of us did, everyone had a million questions. The school voted yes, but by 4 votes. Nevertheless, the staff is very anxious about what we will be doing this upcoming school year.
Purpose of my Action Research: Will the TAP program improve student achievement, will it raise staff morale, and will it increase teacher retention in my school. I will be using last year's and this year's TAKS data, as well as DRA, DIEBELS, and TPRI BOY, MOY and EOY data. I will also use teachers and parents' surveys to address the morale portion of my research. Lastly, I will compare teacher turnover numbers from the last 3 years and this upcoming year.
Significance of Action Research: My research will, not only make me a better informed professional, but it will also benefit my colleagues. Since this is a 1 year program, we will have a better understanding of it's impact in our school and our students. Therefore, we will be able to make a better informed decision for following years. It will help use determine, will we stick with it for the benefit of our students and ourselves as professionals, or will we vote to not participate for lack of evidence of its effectiveness. It will also make us reflect on our practice. Some of the inquiries I will be addressing are: Did the TAP program helped me improve my practice through its professional development component?, Did my students learn more deeply as I changed my practice?, Did the mentoring component of the program helped me professionally?, etc.
Basically, program, created by the Milken Foundation, has 4 components; multiple career paths, ongoing PD, instruction-focused evaluations (not PDAS), and performance pay for teachers. The staff had to vote on participating or not. Since we had to base our votes on a 1 hour presentation and the research some of us did, everyone had a million questions. The school voted yes, but by 4 votes. Nevertheless, the staff is very anxious about what we will be doing this upcoming school year.
Purpose of my Action Research: Will the TAP program improve student achievement, will it raise staff morale, and will it increase teacher retention in my school. I will be using last year's and this year's TAKS data, as well as DRA, DIEBELS, and TPRI BOY, MOY and EOY data. I will also use teachers and parents' surveys to address the morale portion of my research. Lastly, I will compare teacher turnover numbers from the last 3 years and this upcoming year.
Significance of Action Research: My research will, not only make me a better informed professional, but it will also benefit my colleagues. Since this is a 1 year program, we will have a better understanding of it's impact in our school and our students. Therefore, we will be able to make a better informed decision for following years. It will help use determine, will we stick with it for the benefit of our students and ourselves as professionals, or will we vote to not participate for lack of evidence of its effectiveness. It will also make us reflect on our practice. Some of the inquiries I will be addressing are: Did the TAP program helped me improve my practice through its professional development component?, Did my students learn more deeply as I changed my practice?, Did the mentoring component of the program helped me professionally?, etc.
Friday, July 16, 2010
How may educational leaders/principal-researchers use blogging?
Blogging can be the means of collecting data. The data, in this case, will be the researcher's own reflections. The more frequent the researcher engages in blogging, the more data she is able to collect. In addition, the researcher is able to receive feedback in the form of comments and even engage in 'conversations' with other professionals with common interests.
What I've learned about action research...
Action research is a process that serves administrators and teachers as their own ongoing professional development that is focused on student learning and school improvement. As an administrator the first step of conducting action research is to reflect on my own practice, inquiring and identifying a practice in need of improvement. I then must collect and analyze data that will help me develop a plan of action and that will help me answer specific inquiries. The next step to action research is to study and learn ways that will bring about changes that will improve the specific practice. Implementation of the new practice follows, along with evaluation and reflection. As soon as the new practice shows positive and measurable results, it is institutionalized and the process begins again with a new inquiry. Simply put, Principals ‘take charge of their own professional development, and become the ‘head learner’ of their school’ (Dana, 2009).
The main difference between administrative inquiry or action research and traditional educational research is that, instead of someone from the outside going into a principal’s school or into a district to conduct an audit, ask questions, and tell them what to do to ‘fix’ a problem area, it is all done within. When principals conduct administrative inquiry they experience a sense of ownership, which will bring about actual change.
I also learned that there are several benefits when engaging in inquiry. It eliminates the norm of working in isolation since the principal is engaged in a real professional learning community. Also, the principal becomes a role model for his staff and students demonstrating the value of life-long learning. Additionally, instruction and learning improves with all of the continuous professional studying. Lastly, the principal’ pace naturally slows down since time for reflection is such a vital part of the process (Dana, 2009).
I will definitely be able to use this process with my leadership team as the tool to improve teaching practices and student learning. I will also use it for my own professional development.
The main difference between administrative inquiry or action research and traditional educational research is that, instead of someone from the outside going into a principal’s school or into a district to conduct an audit, ask questions, and tell them what to do to ‘fix’ a problem area, it is all done within. When principals conduct administrative inquiry they experience a sense of ownership, which will bring about actual change.
I also learned that there are several benefits when engaging in inquiry. It eliminates the norm of working in isolation since the principal is engaged in a real professional learning community. Also, the principal becomes a role model for his staff and students demonstrating the value of life-long learning. Additionally, instruction and learning improves with all of the continuous professional studying. Lastly, the principal’ pace naturally slows down since time for reflection is such a vital part of the process (Dana, 2009).
I will definitely be able to use this process with my leadership team as the tool to improve teaching practices and student learning. I will also use it for my own professional development.
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