Wednesday, August 4, 2010

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?