Action 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 GuidelinePart 2, Professional Development Initiative
In any plan, it is necessary that Professional Development Activities address the SBEC Teacher Technology Standards and the integration of Technology Applications relating to student understanding. As learned in week 3, the ultimate goal of our increased professional growth is to make us a more effective educator while using technology, and in turn, to increase students mastery of the Technology TEKS relating to their learning. As we become more knowledgeable of technology and its uses, we can directly impact the classroom and further students learning.

In order to meet the ultimate goal of a more technologically literate staff population, it is important to establish a dynamic professional development plan that will provide growth opportunities for staff across a broad range of technologically literate levels. The goal is to provide activities that all educators can participate in, and those that will meet their needs. As we identified in week 1 of the course, much of the plan needs to be based on providing activities that will meet staff’s needs for all levels of the STaR Chart. It can also be useful to utilize the NET*S Standards as well, but again, the main focus needs to be on meeting the SBEC Teacher Technology Standards.

Areas that I would directly focus on in developing a professional development plan for our campus are below. This plan is developed after reviewing our responses on previous and current years STaR Chart data, the campus and district improvement plans, and the overall comments from students on technology use in the classroom.

I believe a STRONG emphasis needs to be placed on utilization of current software applications used on campus, specifically the operating system, spreadsheet and word processing, and a large focus on the use of presentation software. Professional activities need to focus on ensuring that all educators can completely navigate the OS and use the software in such a way that will allow them to create various electronic forms of documents or presentations that can then be used for presentation. With this, educators will then be able to better meet SBEC standard 1.3s select and use software for a defined task according to quality,
appropriateness, effectiveness, and efficiency, which should also show an increase in teacher response/performance on the STaR Chart in the area of EP1, EP3, TL1 and TL4. This segment would also include a strong understanding of the Districts grade software and student information software, i.e. COGNOS, and show teachers the access to information about student’s performance on HST and other state and federal markers that drive school accountability and funding.

As we better understand the inner workings of software, we also need to provide opportunities that will promote educators use of multiple input devices to further enrich the amount utilized in the teaching process. As identified in the week 3 report, teachers currently have access to whiteboards, smart boards, airliners, PDA’s, ceiling mounted digital projectors, etc, but all teachers may not have an understanding of how to utilize these. Opportunities need to be provided to get these in the hands of educators. Providing opportunities that would place these in the hands of all educators, and expecting them to demonstrate an ability to utilize these should increase the effectiveness and meet the needs of not only SBEC competencies, but show an increase in educator responses in EP3 and EP5 of the STaR Chart. I also believe the you would potentially see an increase INF 3, since more educators would have the understanding of the technology, they should be more inclined to use it, which would potentially justify more of specific items.

The technology plan must include effective use of the internet as an instructional resource, and should also model appropriate practices in understanding copyright and ownership of electronic media. In week 4, it was tremendously interesting to learn about copyright and then to see the lack of understanding that many on the discussion board. I think it clearly is an area that needs to be highlighted and incorporated into a section over usefulness of the internet and instructional resources avail through online media. Our campus improvement plan includes a specific area that indicates, “to provide increased educator understanding of the internet by providing professional development opportunities.” Opportunities in this area would directly provide more positive responses from educators in areas of EP3, TL4 and TL6 of the STaR Chart, and directly addresses the SBEC Standards of 1.14s, 1.15s and 1.16s.

Finally, I think it is important to include a segment that focuses directly on lesson planning and the integration and utilization of technology. We have many “digital natives” who have a strong understanding of technology, but may not fully understand how to directly incorporate it daily to enrich the learning environment. With this, we provide staff an opportunity to see models of lessons with extensive use of technology, which will increase our ability to make more effective lessons and include the use of technology in the plan.
Implementation of the Technology Plan can take place through individualized campus meetings including departmental and team Technology Meetings, by utilizing Video share sessions, active engagement tutorials where educators have to complete a series of steps to move forward in the development course, or by 1 to 1 face to face interaction in a traditional setting. Ideally, the plan needs to have a mix of ALL of these, and all levels need to have educators interacting with the technology throughout their learning. Just as we want students to have the ability to utilize the resources, we need to make sure that all educators have the actual resource to practice on while learning, which will increase their comfort with the mechanism.
We also need to ensure that we have an accountability standard on educators and require a minimum amount per year of their required professional growth to be technology related. This segment is part of objective 3 of the assignment and is discussed below.


Part 3, Evaluation and Plan
Data that is important in formulation of this action plan must be comprehensive, factual, and pertain directly to the needs of the campus. As highlighted in the week 2 assignment, the following sources of data are valuable in evaluating the effectiveness of current technology plans, and for potential changes, and are used in identifying the Priority areas later in the plan:

• District's current technology implementation
• State Long Range Plan for Technology
• Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Technology (TEKS)
• Texas School Technology and Readiness Chart (STaR)
• Comparative data from other school districts
• SBEC Teacher Technology Competencies
• Computer industry developments and forecasts

The plan must ensure we are taking into consideration increases in student enrollment and increase in faculty and staff, as well as current funding and future funding. Likewise, we must consider the importance of meeting the requirements set forth in the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology.
Evaluation must be done regularly and data must be reviewed and plans adjusted to continually meet the needs to teachers and students.

Professional Development needs to be mandated in areas of technology use, and staff must show successful completion of a set number of technology hours each year. Professional growth of ALL faculty and staff is integral to ensure a successful plan.

The plan is structured to identify areas of need in importance of priority. This allows a much more flexible way of addressing needs in a limited resource environment, and can serve to identify areas that are considered one of 4 specific areas:
Priority 1, necessary to maintain programs and services
Priority 2, items that can enhance and enrich instruction and are becoming the norm in schools
Priority 3, items that can provide extensions or assistance to current programs
Priority 4, items that would be recommended for future considerations.

In reviewing all information and data affecting our school, the following areas would classify as follows:
In reference to our campus, items that would be considered Priority 1 and need to be given premium consideration are new computers, new software and improved network efficiency, power supplies, video conferencing capabilities, smart boards, airliners, PDA’s, interactive white-boards, digital projectors.
Priority 2 items would be increased online professional development system, printers, document scanners, telephone system, document cameras, wireless overlay. Priority 3 items would be increased computer access to a 2 to 1 ratio and the ability to improve sound tables on network presentation. Priority 4 items would be distance learning equipment and a stand-alone achievement management software system.
Although all of these are key, by identifying the most important resources, we can focus our plan on each element and ensure that we will be providing the most important items first that will provide the greatest benefit.

It is imperative that new data is collected each time a priority element is completed and becomes “operational”, so to speak, in the educational environment. From this new data, we can further evaluate and adjust the plan to continually meet the needs of an ever changing diverse population.
The plan is developed with the expectation that everyone will “buy into” integration, growth and development, which will ultimately benefit student growth and campus improvement.