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Sunday, August 18, 2013

EDLD 5352 Week 5 Reflections

Week 5.1:  Post your ONE web conference reflection of the web conference sessions you attended to your blog link or your Google Site and submit to your IA in course ware.
From the last web conference, I was able to hear my classmates knowledge and views on flipped classrooms. While I have only a small amount of knowledge, the conference prompted me to gain more knowledge and try to occasionally flip my classroom. Additionally, there was clarification given regarding the week five assignments. We are to do one reflection of web conference, reflect on our knowledge gained during this course, and report on our progress with our Campus-Supervised Activities and Action Research Project. Throughout my coursework at Lamar, web conferences have been a great resource of information. It is a way to feel more connected during distance learning.


 Week 5.2: Write brief Reflections and Status Report of your technology skills and knowledge gained in this course, your progress with your Campus-Supervised Internship Activities, and your progress with your Action Research Project. Submit to your Google Site, Wikispaces, or Blog and to your IA in your course ware.

Technology Skills and Knowledge
My work in this class has helped my technology skills grow immensely. While I felt like I had a pretty strong knowledge of technology to use in the classroom, this course opened up several new areas that I will continue to learn about. I plan to use lessons from LiveBinders in my classroom. One main goal of mine for this school year is to create at least one LiveBinder for both classes I am teaching this year (Algebra 1 and 2). I will introduce Google Docs in my class as a means of collaboration in my classroom. I am also going to try to flip my classroom at least once during each grading period. I am very excited to watch my students grow as they are introduced to new methods of technology and learning!

Campus-Supervised Internship Activities
I have made a great deal of progress in my Campus-Supervised activities. When I began to write my internship plan, the task of completing so many activities seemed very daunting. After learning from my instructors and classmates, and having conversations with my campus supervisor, I realized that many of the activities I was doing at school counted as activities and hours needed for my internship plan. That was a very nice surprise, and it helped me not feel so overwhelmed. Also, in completing my activities, I have been able to extend my width of knowledge about my school districts administration. I have been able to shadow the school attendance clerk, speak with the Human Resources Director, and interview our head janitor. These are offices that I dont always deal with in my day-to-day teaching, so it was good to see the challenges they face in their individual and very different duties each day. I have a few activities I still need to do, but I plan to accomplish those during the fall semester.

Action Research Project

I am working, along with our schools Parental Involvement Committee, on using results from our survey to develop a plan for the future of our Parental Involvement. We are currently in the beginning stages of developing a mentor program for our at-risk students. This will help our students have a positive adult role model to check on them and be a part of their life. Many of our students are great kids, but they have very little support at home. The PIC decided that, as part of our goals to increase parental involvement, we wanted to create opportunities for students without active parental figures in their lives to have a mentor to fill this gap. Also, we are working on developing a PTO, which our school has not had in many years. This will increase the communication and collaboration between parents and teachers, which we all agree will be a positive thing! I completed several parts of my Action Research Paper in EDLD 5397, but I need to finish writing the final parts. I feel confident that I will be able to finish it this semester. 

Saturday, June 22, 2013

EDLD 5397 Week 3: Web Conference Reflection

From this week’s web conference, there was a lot of good discussion regarding APA formatting. It helped me to read through it and check my answers with what my classmates and Dr. Borel were saying. Since my undergraduate degree is in math, APA is a new form to me, but I am learning slowly but surely! This week’s PowerPoint and chat pod definitely helped me out. Also, it was good to review all of the due dates and requirements for this course. I need to get my artifacts uploaded into Tk20 soon so I do not have to worry about that at the last minute.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Action Research Update EDLD 5326


Action Research Project Title: How can we increase parental involvement?
Blog URL: cobleactionresearch.blogspot.com
Number of AR Project Documented Hours: 25 hours
AR Project Summary (at least 250 words): This was a preliminary project in increasing parental involvement on our campus. In June, I was part of a group of teacher from my campus that were sent to a parental involvement conference. The team is comprised of teachers from various subject areas, and our district parental involvement coordinator. We were charged with the task of acquiring tools at the conference to bring back and begin increasing parental involvement on our campus. The conference was jam-packed with information and suggestions on how to build on current parental involvement and make improvements, regardless of the stage the school might be in. From this conference, I worked with another co-worker in developing an inservice for teachers about creating parental involvement opportunities in their classroom. We developed handouts and samples of monthly newsletters teachers could send out to parents to keep communication open. The response to this inservice was very positive- teachers were delighted to have resources in their hands that were able to be modified to fit their classroom and increase parental involvement in our school. We also created a parent survey to send out to all of the parents in our district. This survey had a paper and an online form, and contained lists of ways parents could say they’d most likely get involved at school. At this time, we are still working on taking the survey data, and creating programs based on the results. The mentor program I have drawn up in this course will be a branch of this research project. 

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Action Research Plan

Action Research Plan
Goal: Increase Parental Involvement
Action Steps(s):
Person(s) Responsible:
Timeline: Start/End
Needed Resources
Evaluation

Attend a Parental Involvement Conference



L. Coble, C. Mitchell, J. Mitchell, A. Cooke

June 2012

Funds from Title 1 Resources
Take the tools from the conference and modify them to fit our parent and student population.

Form a Parental Involvement Committee

B. Owen, L. Coble, J. Mitchell, C. Mitchell, and A. Cooke

August 2012- May 2014

Time to Meet on a Monthly Basis
Brainstorm Strategies and a Plan to Increase Parental Involvement

Conduct a Teacher Inservice on Possible Ways to Reach Out to Parents


J. Mitchell and L.Coble

August 2012

Handouts and PowerPoint Presentations over Conference
Teachers and Staff were Informed on the Goal to Improve Parent Involvement and Possible Strategies

Parent Survey








Parental Involvement Committee (see above)

November 2012- December 2012
Survey with questions regarding ways school personnel can help them, and ways they would prefer to be involved in the school
These results will help the committee better form our plan to get parents involved.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Week Two Reflections

I am feeling more confident with my knowledge about action research this week. In this week's reading, I realized there are so many aspects of action research going on in pretty much every corner of education on a regular basis. I am eager to continue in my own action research plan as well! 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

How Educational Administrators Can Use Blogs:


Administrators can use blog posts in many different ways, such as:
  • Posting reflections about current school issues
  • Suggesting articles or authors for other teachers/administrators to read
  • Posting monthly newsletters for parents and community members

What I've learned about Action Research (so far)...



Action research is an extremely beneficial practice that all administrators should take part in on a regular basis. While traditional research just seeks out what university professors or educational specialists say about a particular issue, action research involves conducting your own research and analyzing that data to decide the best plan of action for your particular situation. When an administrator sees an issue in the school or has an inquiry, it is most beneficial to begin an action research plan. This can be done solely by the administrator, or responsibility can be divided up among Professional Learning Teams (PLT’s) or to Campus or District Improvement Teams. All of these groups should be responsible for collecting and analyzing data for issues that are affecting their particular group. These issues may include parental involvement, test scores, student motivation, or any other topic of interest.  Collaboration with others in the school is essential during action research. Other teachers and administrators in the school can help reflect on the best method for solving the problem, and can assist in disaggregating data. While I am just now learning about action research, I think I have been taking part in it for awhile and just didn’t realize it. In our Math PLT, we regularly disaggregate data from common assessments to decide the best ways to reach out to students who are struggling. Also, in our staff development, we use state test data to create goals and plans of actions for the school year.