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.

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! 

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.