AR Update

So much has happened since my last update. Way back in January or February I started meeting with my administrators about my action research project. Our principal invited me to lead the committee that was in charge of our back to school program, Wrangler Ropes. I learned so much from being the committee lead for my action research. I realized very early on just how much time is required when leading a committee. The time I spent composing and answering emails alone was well over 8 hours from the start of my time with the committee through the end of Wrangler Ropes.

My action research was to find out if modifying our back to school program from previous year would have an impact on school culture and discipline issues. The committee I was on reviewed feedback from teachers and students from previous years and made our modifications based on that feedback. The most significant change was that we went from a 5-day program to a 3-day program. This was the most requested change for the program from both teachers and students. Our committee met many times in the spring of the previous school year to review what needed to be done to make the appropriate changes. We were able to finalize the program before the end of the school year and left for the summer with a very solid plan in place that was ready to implement when school started back up this August.

The changes we had made were well-received by students and especially by teachers. At this point the program is over as well as the first half of my action research. I have decided to wait for at least a month to pass by from the end of the program until I start looking at data to try to determine whether or not there was a change in school culture and discipline issues. I have also decided to expand my research a bit by looking at schools with similar demographics as ours who do not provide a back to school program like we do. I'm curious to see if the type of program does in fact impact discipline. I realize that this is entirely dependent on being able to access data from other campuses and might not play out.

Action Research Reflection

EDLD 5301 has been quite an eye-opening course. I had known just how much an administrator or other educational leader might face on a daily basis, but this course also helped to drive home the idea that a school leader should be the head learner on their campus.

During the start of the course we were taught about the idea of action research. I wrote the following reflection in my blog:

"Administrative inquiry or action research is the process by which an administrator systematically assesses and affects change within their campus. It includes the collection and analyzing of pertinent data and a continued effort to monitor how effective the resulting changes are. Dana notes that this method lends itself to the overall professional development of principals (2009). The main difference between action research and traditional educational research is that with action research the principal (and anyone else included in the inquiry) are active participants. With traditional educational research administrators are given a set of data or curriculum which they are intended to implement and troubleshoot. This means that administrators have little or no role in the research they are being presented with and expected to carry out (Dana, 2009). In contrast, administrative inquiry is generated by the campus' administrators themselves and is specific to the needs of that particular campus.

I can think of a couple of different ways I can use action research on my own campus within the next year. I was recently put in charge of a committee which will be responsible for making changes to our campus' week of back-to-school activities this coming August. This basically amounts to a leadership team and one in which our principal will also participate. I plan on using the committee to examine what various teachers think are the most important aspects of our program and begin making changes that would be more beneficial to both our students and teachers."

A large portion of this course was devoted to developing and refining an action research project which we would conduct on our own over the next several months. I found that this was an excellent opportunity to look at my campus from a new perspective. During the second and third weeks of the course I met with my administrators to discuss possible areas that were ripe for inquiry.

During our second meeting we reached a consensus about what I would be looking into. I wrote the following in my blog after that meeting:

"I think I'll focus on our campus' first week welcome-back program in which we sort of get students to focus down, settle in, and get ready for the year. Traditionally this week has been completely non-academic and instead focuses on character-building, get-to-know-you activities, and games at the end of the week. The students seem to really like it, but I think that the staff has mixed feelings about it. Fortunately my principal is letting me head the committee for this week for the next school year. I think that there will be plenty of opportunity for some meaningful research during my time as committee chair."

I have since refined this idea into one problem statement which is " Will modifying our back to school program (Wrangler Ropes) from the standard of previous years lead to a more positive school culture?" I have already put many hours into this research and have been getting great feedback from other teachers and have been able to use information I have learned from this course as well as the previous course EDLD 5311.

To sum up this course I would say that it has helped me to understand the crucial nature of action research on my campus. It is through this method that I will be able to help continually improve not only our campus, but also myself as a lifelong learner.

Moving On

I had my first committee meeting for my action research project this past Tuesday. I was a bit nervous since this was my first time leading a committee, but it went great. I acted more as a facilitator and allowed the other teachers involved to share their opinions and really get the ball rolling. We actually made quite a lot of headway and were able to focus down on some issues we'll be looking at for our next meeting. I have also already started to do some data collection. The person who headed the committee last year gave me a big stack of teacher feedback forms. I've gone through them and synthesized the various responses. It was a great way to get a very clear picture about what changes people really wanted to see for the next iteration of our back to school program. I was also able to delegate a few tasks out to other committee members which I had been a bit reluctant to do. I knew going into all of this that I would need to let go of the reins a bit and delegate tasks to other people. Surprisingly a lot of the other teachers really wanted to help out and this allowed me to focus on other tasks and will also help tremendously with them taking ownership of our task.

Revised Action Plan

After following the 8 steps from our text I made a few minor changes to my action research plan. It wasn't really too much, but I did decide to also include groups of students in my data gathering steps. I hadn't really considered it before I started making revisions, but it soon became clear that I really needed to include student input since my research is all about improving school culture and they are of course a huge component of that. I simply included a step in which I will ask teachers to disseminate a brief survey to a few 7th and 8th grade classes asking for the input about our back to school program. I think it should provide me with some insights into what they think would be better ways to strengthen our culture. I realize that not all of their suggestions will be feasible (I can only imagine the responses I'll get if I'm not specific with my questions!).

Action Step	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Resources Needed	Evaluation
1. Survey staff about previous years Wrangler Ropes: benefits & drawbacks	Myself, Assistant Principals, Staff	March to April 2013	Access to Survey Monkey account; previous years teacher feedback forms	Completed surveys from at least 75% of teaching staff
2. Analyze teacher & student feedback	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal, 7th & 8th grade students	April 2013	Survey results; previous years teacher feedback	Categorize and analyze responses
3. Modify the current Wrangler Ropes program	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal	April to May 2013	Current Wrangler Ropes program guidelines	Form consensus about modifications
4. Create new Wrangler Ropes program binder	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal	April to May 2013	Word processors, copy machine	Produce a hardcopy of the finalized program
5. Discuss and disseminate the new Wrangler Ropes program to staff	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal	August 2013	Conference room, Wrangler Ropes binders, presentation software	Teacher feedback
6. Analyze  Wrangler Ropes program	Myself, Assistant Principals, Staff	August to September 2013	Access to Survey Monkey account	Completed surveys from at least 75% of teaching staff

Research Plan Draft

Goal: To strengthen the school culture at the beginning of the next school year by modifying the Wrangler Ropes program.

Action Step	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Resources Needed	Evaluation
1. Survey staff about previous years Wrangler Ropes: benefits & drawbacks	Myself, Assistant Principals, Staff	March to April 2013	Access to Survey Monkey account; previous years teacher feedback forms	Completed surveys from at least 75% of teaching staff
2. Analyze teacher feedback	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal	April 2013	Survey results; previous years teacher feedback	Categorize responses
3. Modify the current Wrangler Ropes program	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal	April to May 2013	Current Wrangler Ropes program guidelines	Form consensus about modifications
4. Create new Wrangler Ropes program binder	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal	April to May 2013	Word processors, copy machine	Produce a hardcopy of the finalized program
5. Discuss and disseminate the new Wrangler Ropes program to staff	Wrangler Ropes Committee, Principal	August 2013	Conference room, Wrangler Ropes binders, presentation software	Teacher feedback
6. Analyze  Wrangler Ropes program	Myself, Assistant Principals, Staff	August to September 2013	Access to Survey Monkey account	Completed surveys from at least 75% of teaching staff

Distilling Ideas

The biggest thing I got out of week two was the ability to narrow down my potential research topics to just one that all of my administrators agreed to.

I met with all three of my administrators yesterday to discuss possible ideas for my research project (I still can't decide exactly what to call the process since it's given so many names in our texts!) and we narrowed it down to one topic. I was hoping that they would be agreeable to me modifying our school's demerit system which is used to track problem behaviors. However, they informed me just how much time and effort went into creating and implementing the system...it's a lot! So that ideas was shot down.

The good news is that the other topic that I most wanted to do did get everyone's approval. I'll be heading up a committee that will look at how we can improve school culture through our back to school program we do during the first week of the school year. So I'll begin to work on gathering some data (mostly for my campus, not so much these classes at this point) that I can bring to my committee meetings.

Changing research plans

My initial idea for an action research project looks like it will have to wait. The idea was predicated on our school's 7th grade class receiving iPads before the end of the current school year. Many of our campuses are starting to receive iPads for our 1/X program in which each and every student receives their own iPad to use throughout the year. My idea was to survey and track student self-efficacy in my art classes before and after students received their iPads to see if there would be a change. Art is one of the areas that I see a serious lack of advocacy for new technology and I was hoping that by doing this research I could at least start to shine a light on this issue. Granted, most art classes are concerned with using one's hands to create physical artworks, but I think there is definitely s place for new technology.

Back to my point...it doesn't look like our campus will be getting iPads this year. I'm sure they will within the next couple of years, but because I was doing this research as part of my M.Ed. A program I don't think I'll be able to use it. Instead I think I'll focus on our campus' first week welcome-back program in which we sort of get students to focus down, settle in, and get ready for the year. Traditionally this week has been completely non-academic and instead focuses on character-building, get-to-know-you activities, and games at the end of the week. The students seem to really like it, but I think that the staff has mixed feelings about it. Fortunately my principal is letting me head the committee for this week for the next school year. I think that there will be plenty of opportunity for some meaningful research during my time as committee chair.