Within my action plan of research, In all actuality, I had about 5 topics that I had to narrow down to just one. The five topics of research included Parental Involvement, Behavior Referrals, At Risk Students on campus, Attendance and ARI/AMI Accelerated Reading/Math Instruction programs. These are all important topics to research to help restore the school environment. The parent communication at our campus could be improved. We have had three principals in the last four years, which caused a lot of changes in the community. This may have drove parents away, but this year already, parent involvement has improved. The turnout for our Fall Fest was phenomenal! Behavior on our campus has always been an issue whether it was for on campus or from the bus. The bus referrals were at a higher percentage than the campus referrals. Why is that? Attendance plays a major role in school and assists with all funding from TEA. Recently, I just found out that when students are not presently at school the campus will lose funding. This is vitally important because PRE-K students are more likely to be absent more than any other grade level in the school. Why is that? This could have been researched to find out how to encourage the parents of the PRE K students to make sure their child is at school each day. This also gets monitored by TEA and included in the AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) data. Why are parents not making sure that their four year olds are in school each day? What can we do as a campus to enforce the rule? I also thought about programs that are beneficial, being that funds are released from the district to pay for certain programs. What programs are we paying for? Some of them are not being utilized and some are not cost effective enough to improve testing. I thought about what programs we are using and how they may or may not value student learning. As I sat with my site supervisor, we found lots of important issues to research. We reviewed my ideas and they were of high importance. She mentioned that we are trying to improve on student learning as a whole campus. Funds are still needed for relevant programs but funding has been cut. She wanted to know what programs to keep implementing are cost effective. When she noticed that I wanted to research the same topic idea, she became astonished. She and I decided to research the cost effectiveness of the ARI/AMI programs. Are the programs worth students being pulled several times throughout the day from their regular classroom instruction? Are teachers being paid just to teach 11-15 students worth the cost of other materials and resources need for student learning? I thought that this would be a great idea to research, why waste money on something that we are not using or a program that is not effective. The district has already had budget cuts, as a result, the resources that we need may not be available. For example, we are still in need of funds to pay for Study Island, which is a technology program that enhances students learning at school and from home. Is the Study Island program more beneficial than the ARI/AMI programs? The program does not allow for a teacher because it is student self-oriented and student friendly. In life, most of us think of ways to save money, why not be an Educational Leader that save funds for the campus and research programs that will enlighten students cognitive skills for life-long learning.
Teaching may be regarded as a means of improving schooling, by focusing on generalized issues of the management of curriculum or class, or it may be seen as a means of engaging in a critical process of action reflection which is in itself education.
Jean McNiff, Action Research, Principles and Practice, McNiff,1988, xiii
Acquiescence is not a characteristic of an action researcher. He is resourceful, committed, tenacious, and above all, curious. He will not be satisfied with a given system if he sees elements of the system as unsatisfactory. He will seek to change it. In doing so, he refuses to be a servant, but becomes an acting agent. He rises above the role of a skilled technician and becomes an educator.
Jean McNiff, Action Research, Principles and Practice, McNiff,1988, 50
The notion of education as a commodity is essentially political, that is, has to do with power and who is wielding that power. It is a view that says the person who has the most power has the most of everything, including the most education. Education becomes a desirable STUFF, like money or property or clothes. If this is a prevailing attitude, teachers will be caught up in the net. The end product of their work will be functional, utilitarian, geared towards perpetuating a society founded on possessions, and believes that wealthy is healthy. This seems still to be a prevailing attitude in many areas of our educational system.
Jean McNiff, Action Research, Principles and Practice, McNiff,1988, 49-49
1. Planning 1. What is your concern?
2. Why are you concerned?
3. What do you think you could do about it?
4. What kind of evidence could you collect to help you make somekind of judgement about what is happening?
5. How would you collect such evidence?
6. How would you check that you judgement about what has happenedis reasonably fair and accurate?,
Barret and Whitehead, 1985, quoted in Action Research, Principles and Practice, McNiff, 1988, 57
