The enrichment session has been going well and I have researched many ways to organize the program based on information gained from other schools and literature.  Recently we have changed a couple of the major guidelines due to research and I will begin to survey students and staff about their opinion of how the time is being used and what could be modified to make it work and benefit our students and teachers even more.  I will also talk to several teachers about how the change in the school schedule to accommodate an enrichment period has affected them or their students. 
As far as our successes, students are gaining access to teachers and information during the day they had not previously been able to, some have not warmed up to the change in the bell schedule but most have managed fine.  Personally, my biggest disappointment has been with certain teachers and their distain for the organization and construction of the period.  I do not take it personally or blame any of them, I figure that it is partially due to the economy, looming salary cuts, and the apperance of increased workload.  Never the less, we will continue to work with the enrichment period in an attempt to make it as successful as possible.  What I am learning is that teacher morale can drastically be effected by school climate and perception, if peopole think they are doing more, yet constantly recieving les, it can begin to make them look at new programs as bburdens not improvements.

Cultural Diversity and Awareness

A Cultural Diversity and Awareness program has been completed and has already been implemented at my campus with the help of one of our school's guidance counselor's.  Mr. Curtis has helped me prepare and distribute a program for us to use on the last Friday of each month where all students participate in a thought-provoking cultural awareness activity that consists of videos, dialogs, and readings.  So far we have had two of these presentations and I have received nothing but wonderfully positive comments from both teachers and students.

SAT Weeks

I organized two weeks worth of SAT material that was given to students at my school during the "Enrichment" time.  They took the PSAT in October and we will get the scores back in December so I am looking forward to seeing how our students did compared to other schools in the district and previous years scores from our own.  The students were given five days worth of math questions that they worked on and reviewed in the study session, then four days of English reading and verbal assignments.  We are planning on doing this once again in February for two weeks.

Reflection on Action Research

The thing that has most caught my attention while in this course was all of the possibilities for not only action research but just general inquiry.We all know there are things wrong with the schools we work in but it can be quite difficult to pinpoint how to deal with them.I think that by asking ourselves questions about what we see or what we think needs to be changed, modified, or reviewed we not only can help our community and school, but we can grow individually.I have found myself asking myself all kinds of questions during meetings or even after I read emails from faculty members.Almost every one of my questions to myself is a base for an action research project.I have learned that I will never have enough time to work on all of the action research projects that I could or need to, so I probably should be working on one continuously, in other words I plan to use action research for the rest of my career as ongoing personal development and as a way to continuously help my community grow.

With that being said, I want to learn more about what other people and schools have done.I think that the more options and opportunities I give myself to identify research projects the more likely I will notice one that can be especially beneficial to my campus and me.Then I want to learn what methods others use to obtain data or info for their projects.This class has really motivated me to help my community move forward, action research seems so important that I’m surprised it is not more of a topic of discussion around my campus and county.I have already decided that when I become a principal I am going to ask everyone at my school to begin an action research project because of what I’ve seen in this course from other people, and how much of a benefit they can be.So I guess what I want to learn is how to complete more action research projects and which ones can help my school and community the most.I will continue to review blogs and search out action research projects in my county to see if they can be used at my campus, I also plan to keep a log of ideas to be used or assigned to my faculty at a later date.

My Action Research Plan Template

Action Planning Template
Goal:  To find the best ways to use a 30 minute study session each day to improve Standards of Learning test scores as well as school wide SAT scores.  By implementing researched programs and ideas and by evaluating what is helping and what is not, I will gain insight into how to better organize such a program for future years at my school and maybe others.  This is the first year a 30 minute session will be used so teacher and student feedback will be obtained in making decisions and evaluating which programs are successful.  By raising SOL and SAT scores while enriching our school’s population, our students will become more intuitive, cognitive people and have greater chances of being admitted into college.  Higher SOL scores will also help my school meet AYP, something it did not last year for the first time.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
For two weeks at the end of September, all students (10th-12th) will complete selected Math and Reading/Verbal SAT questions and review the reasoning behind those questions/answers in this period.	SAT coordinator Sharon Lowe, Math Dept Chair Denis Zieters, English Dept Chair Brenda Gates, Cindy Waters, My focus team group, Myself.	September 19th-September 29th. Then PSAT to be reviewed by December, 2011.	SAT material. PSAT scores from 2010, 2009, 2008, and then 2011 once they occur.	Students PSAT scores from this year will be compared to previous years to see if there is any difference, if so, another two week period will be saved in February to complete this action again.
Four Math and four Reading/Verbal questions will be emailed to all faculty members at the beginning of each month to be given on Fridays.	SAT coordinator Sharon Lowe, Math Dept Chair Denis Zieters, English Dept Chair Brenda Gates, Cindy Waters, Myself.	October 3rd, 2011-May 1st, 2012	SAT material. Questions, answers, and explanations to each problem.	Teachers will log scores from their class on each problem then record the percentages of correct responses on a spreadsheet.  Weakest topics/areas of questions will be addressed by teachers through remediation of those topics/areas in class.
Teachers of a SOL subject (Math, Science, English, and History) will have an assigned day each week where they will receive class coverage and will be able to pull as many students as they wish to remediate in preparation for that course’s SOL.	School Improvement coordinator Beth Jaeckle, Myself.	October 3rd, 2011- June 10th, 2012	County AYP marks. SOL test scores and individual teacher passing rates.  Pool of 1st period “planning” teachers to assist in covering classrooms.  Holding areas or other classrooms.	SOL scores for 2012 will be compared to Sol scores from 2010-2011 for each teacher. Passing rates from those years will be compared to determine if passing rates improved and with witch teachers.  Teacher attendance logs documenting how many students and which students attended their “enrichment” class will be compared to individual teacher passing rates on the SOL to see if there is a correlation between “enrichment” study and passing rates and whether or not the session is improving real scores.  Achieving AYP is the goal for the year.
Benchmark test will be given at the end of each 9-week period.	All SOL teachers, Myself	November 1st, 2011-May 1st, 2012	Benchmark averages from 2009-2011, then scores from the 3 Benchmark tests our students will take this year	Scores will be evaluated against previous years scores, then the 2nd and 3rd BM’s given will be compared to the first to see if student comprehension and passing rates are improving.
A Pre-SAT test will be given to all 10th graders; those scores will be compared to previous year’s scores to get an idea where this class falls to make the comparison more realistic.	Guidance Department, Myself	October 3rd, 2011-June 1st, 2012	PSAT and SAT scores from 2009-2011, and then 2012 in May.	SAT scores given this year will be compared to SAT scores of other years.  Then the percentages of previous year’s PSAT scores to SAT scores average will be compared with this year’s PSAT to SAT score average.  The percentage increase from PSAT to SAT as well as overall SAT scores should be greatest this year if we are successful.
Other schools that have a similar program will be researched and successful programs will be implemented or modified to be able to be implemented.	My focus team group of 6 members.	October 3rd, 2011-December, 2011.	Information from other schools concerning how they organize and plan their study sessions.	Which schools have the highest passing rates among this group and which ones have shown the most improvement in test scores since implementing their programs.
Logs will be kept for each teacher and how many students they bring into their “enrichment” session each week.	All teachers, Myself, Administration.	October 3rd, 2011- June 1st, 2012.	AYP Goals. Spreadsheets documenting attendance.  Interview of teachers.	These logs will be cross referenced with teacher SOL passing rates to see if there is a correlation between the teachers bringing in the most students and passing rates.  We will also interview the teachers who are having the most overall success to see what they are doing.
Computer labs will be used during this session to enhance computer literacy and writing skills, students will be assigned to some labs by their English or Math teacher and can sign up for writing labs.  NHS (National Honors Society) members as well as AP Calculus students will assist teachers in helping students in these labs.	Math Dept., English Dept, Library, Lori Donovan, Sonya Mix, Heather Zoeller, Myself	October 3rd, 2011-June 1st, 2012, however interviews can begin in January to see if writing skills or computer literacy are improving.	Survey and interview of teachers.	A survey of English grades will be compared to previous year’s English passing rates and individual teachers will be interviewed to see if writing skills in their classes improved.
Meet with Principal’s to discuss this year’s findings, successes, and failures. Review guidelines for future study sessions and begin planning the enrichment session for 2012-13.  Review my successes and failures as well as receive guidance for the future.	Principal Pam Lumsden, AP Kimberly Ogden, AP Michelle Lewis, and Myself.  Head of the school’s improvement plan, Beth Jaeckle, may be involved as well.	June 1st-August 24th, 2012.	All data gained from logs, interviews, surveys, programs, and any pertinent information needed to review entire program for 201-2012 school year.	Principal’s feedback and opinions.  All data gained from course of the year will be reviewed and accessed to determine what should be done in the future and what I personally should do or work on as well as what I should correct or change about myself.
Give students anonymous surveys about the programs implemented during “Enrichment” time and if they feel they are benefitting from them as well as what they like, do not like, and would like to see or do more of.	My focus team group will design and give out as well as review surveys.	February 1st-June 1st, 2012	Created surveys, random students who will not be named at any point, only their grade level.	Student’s opinions will be used to examine overall usefulness of the study session.  Their ideas/opinions will be used as starting points at review sessions with teachers to decide how they want to continue working with their students during the “Enrichment” session.  Student feedback will help teachers see a different perspective and help me see what they need for the future and anything we as teachers did not think about.

 

Ideas on Action Research

The reason for action research is to get the data to study and make predictions for the future so that we can always progress.  We as teachers need to be able to understand what research is and how we can effectively use it.  We should never stop learning, we can continue to use data to make decisions for the future and identify what is working and what is not.  For each problem or situation there may already be a solution out there.  By reading and researching we can possibly discover a solution that has already been tested and successful.  I also realized how useful surveys can be and once again that protecting the identity of students and staff is important.  Finally, we need to be able to use data to change performance and to able to form an idea for what will be most successful in the future. 

How educational leaders might use blogs.

Educational leaders can use blogs to communicate and to learn.  By posting findings, questions, and research leaders can communicate to a desired audience easily and frequently.  By observing responses to questions or research leaders can learn from others and their experiences.

What I have learned about action research.

I have learned that action research is not just about examining someone else’s work and simply writing reports or gathering multiple sources on the same topic to write a paper.  Action research is about focusing on an issue at your school that needs to be addressed or asking a theoretical question that you can take a systematic approach to solving.  It involves taking that issue that needs to be addressed or question and researching information and findings related to it, then developing a plan to attempt to solve the issue/problem or answer the question.  It is about changing something that needs to be changed or looking at new options or directions for your school or yourself.  It can be personal or school wide.  Action research can be conducted and implemented in many different ways.  Small focus teams or PLC's could be used, coursework focused on inquiry can be effective, or creating leadership teams that can share responsibilities of a goal or research project and deal with the problems as a group.  Administrator inquiry also has many benefits.  You become part of the issue by being involved and it provides a vehicle for professional growth.  Another and in my opinion most important benefit, is you become a role model for other, teachers and students.