A Draft of My Action Research Plan

GOAL: To increase effective daily lesson planning that includes a balance between teacher-directed and differentiated activities. To increase the number of teachers utilizing differentiated instruction in their daily activities.

ACTION/STEPS	PERSONS RESPONSIBLE	TIMELINE (START/END)	Resources Needed	Evaluation
Guiding Question: Describe how and why your problem was selected? Why was this problem important to you? 1. Establish survey methods. 2.Review and discuss differentiated instruction rubric 3.Coordinate with teams leaders the meeting times/dates/locations 4. Review and discuss Action Research progress 5.Organize the observation dates	Team Leaders, Department Chairs, Director of Instruction.	August/September	Differentiated Instruction Surveys; Laptops for computation of results	Differentiated Instruction Rubric and Guidelines
Guiding Question: What baseline data on student performance was collected and what did you find? 1. Review survey methods. 2.Share Data Collection and Analysis 3.Share Data Collection Plan 4. Discuss observation finding. entries/ reflection	Team Leaders, Department Chairs, Director of Instruction	October	Differentiated Instruction Surveys; Laptops for computation of results	Differentiated Instruction Rubric and Guidelines
Guiding Question: Based on the data that you are collecting, what changes in your teaching practice and in the learning environment do you see yourself making? 1.Review Survey methods 2. Update on team planning progress with differentiated activities. 3. Looking at Student Work based on differentiated assessments. 4.Share reflections	Team Leaders, Department Chairs, Director of Instruction	November	Differentiated Instruction Surveys; Laptops for computation of results	Differentiated Instruction Rubric and Guidelines
Guiding Question: What actions have you taken or changes have you made in your teaching practices and in the learning environment as a result of your ongoing discoveries? 1.Review and discuss Differentiated Instruction rubric 2.Update on surveys from all participants 3. Share reflections	Team Leaders, Department Chairs, and Director of Instruction	January	Differentiated Instruction Surveys; Laptops for computation of results	Differentiated Instruction Rubric and Guidelines
Guiding Question: What Impact could the Action Research study have on the your teaching in the future? 1. Update on findings from all participants 2. Receive final reflections and surveys from each team 3. Share Journal entries/ reflection	Team Leaders, Department Chairs, Director of Instruction	May	Differentiated Instruction Surveys; Laptops for computation of results	Differentiated Instruction Rubric and Guidelines
Final Study Completed		June	Differentiated Instruction Surveys; Laptops for computation of results	Differentiated Instruction Rubric and Guidelines

My Action Inquiry

As a high school mathematics teacher, it is my job to meet all of their learning needs. In my Geometry classroom, I made it a priority to differentiate learning based on student needs. With half of my students on Individual Education Plans and approximately and many of my students taking my course for the second or third time, my attention was directed at differentiating for this population. However, during several staff developments on differentiated instruction, I often found it difficult to lesson plan each day to differentiate for all learners, including those with advanced abilities. It was at then that I recognized that I neglected the students in my room with a high achievement record. In an hour period I must be able to reach students on every level and also assess them regularly. How do I challenge the advanced without neglecting the remedial? How do I meet all their learning needs in my lesson planning? In my end of year observation I recognized I was not engaging all of them fully. Therefore, my final action research question became How does differentiated instruction benefit or inhibit daily lesson planning?

Educators and Blogs

The blog can be an extremely useful tool for an educational leader. It can act as a working discussion journal for issues in the field of education. This blog will provide opportunity for debate and discussion about concerns in the system and also offer strategies that will make fellow educational personnel better.

Action Research

Administrative inquiry is taking the time to gather your recent decisions or strategies used and reflect on their success or failure.The inquirer would gather information from teachers, students, classroom interactions, or even test scores to guide their reflection. Using these findings the researcher will compare the decisions and present them to the stakeholders and use these results to guide the next decisions to be made.

The traditional educational research was done usually by university researchers and outside souces and was very process – product oriented. They would come an speak to practicing educators about what they feel should go on in the classrooms. This traditional practice seemed negligent because the individual dispensing the information lacked the in the field experiences that the educators in the classroom were seeing on a day to day basis. So some of their research was flawed. However with action research it calls upon each individual educator to reflect on their own goals and to identify the successes and failures from input they have gathered. It is an immediate inquiry on the effectiveness of their actions and provides for an opportunity to remedy the failures on a regular basis or to capitalize and improve on the successes.

One example of action research for a school could be to examine their state test scores to identify areas that need improvement, and then determine a plan of action to improve student performance. Another example of action research could be examining how the development of a common location for shared knowledge and the use of interactive communication tools increase the collaborative effectiveness of the classroom? A third example of action research in the educational setting could include and inquired as to would setting up community circle time to dialogue with students about their learning experiences in the classroom, in what ways, if any, will the information about their learning processes help me redesign the way I teach?

The benefits of conducting action research are found in the reflection. The reflection is the most valuable learning experience. It allows a connection between what was in the past and what will occur in the future. Another benefit of action research is that it gets everyone in the learning community involved in the research and dialogue to improve the schools. Inquiry is often the best method for identifying a problem. Every problem in a school setting is not solved by on solution however each environment may have a different solution all within itself. The action research method allows for focus on the tasks within your community and therefore can lead to more valuable results.