Action Research Plan: Individualized Goal Setting

I intend to research the impact on individual goal setting and student expectations on individual student achievement.  I want to find out if creating higher student expectations and giving students more ownership of their success will have a positive impact on student performance on standardized district assessments.  

Setting the Foundation: Through meeting with administrators, teachers and students, I will address the issue of student motivation and it’s impact on student perfomance as an identified concern.  This assertion will be supported by data gathered from various sources. I will pose the question that individualized goal setting can have a positive impact on student performance.

Analyzing Data: I will gather data such as report card grades, student performance on district assessments and classroom teacher input. Also included will be internet research on the effects of personal goal setting on student performance.  

Developing Deeper Understanding: After looking at original data, I plan on a follow up meeting with students/classroom teachers to further investigate and potential outlying factors that might be impacting data. 

Engaging in Self-Reflection: During self-reflection, I need to think about whether or not I will be physically present enough to evaluate this issue and will I be able to create enough teacher buy in so they will continue the plan while I am off campus.

Exploring Problematic Patterns: Possible issues at this point, will creating a heterogenous sample of students to survey and then trying to implement a single method of goal setting be problematic?  Will different learning styles impact the results? 

Determining Direction: I feel like I am clear on the topic being addressed and have proper resources in place to conduct this action research.  I still need to follow up with in person meetings with administration, teachers and students.  I believe conducting this research during the 2012-2013 school year is a reasonable time frame.  

Taking Action for School Improvement: Have weekly meetings with the sample group and classroom teachers will allow me to adequately monitor students progress and reevaluate each goal setting method.  

Sustaining Improvement: I need to create a plan of action among the collaborating teachers and a course of action to share the results of my action plan.   

Reflection on Week 2

I learned a lot more about Action Research during this week's work.  I was excited to go more in depth and see more real world scenarios discussed in both the videos and readings.  There was a lot of emphasis on data collection and I could think of several instances on my campus where the suggestions would have been very applicable.  This week helped me refine and focus my own action research plan before presenting it to my site supervisor.

How could educational leaders use blogs?

I believe that blogs could be an invaluable tool for administrators.  In just a basic use, principals could use blogs as a method of communication with their staff.  They could also create a blog forum to use with students, creating an open dialogue about school issues.

Action Research and What it can do for Me!

At the start of this course, I have learned the basics of action research. Admittedly, when I first started reading about the topic, action research seemed a little vague.  Once I delved deeper, I began to see the process and thought that it could be incredibly beneficial to teachers.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed and unproductive by what seem to be a mountain of concerns or frustrations, I think that action research enables teachers or administrators to telescope into a specific area of potential concern and create a plan of action.  This streamlines the process and creates a more effective campus.  I can really appreciate how prescriptive action research plans seem to be.  The specifics of this type of plan eliminate the waste of resources and ambiguity of traditional educational research plans.  Instead of taking a plan studied and developed in a university classroom and trying to apply it to your specific needs, you are using data from your specific population and your individual campus. It should naturally be a productive process, because you are providing the product!
I can see using action research plans in professional learning communities assigned to specific campus needs. For example if there is a professional learning community devoted to the promotion of literacy at the campus, or a professional learning community geared specifically to the vertical alignment of the writing in all grade levels, an action research plan could be a fantastic guiding model for the community to  use.  Instead of identifying multiple issues, research can be done on one particular need and the committee can see the process address that need from identification to conclusion.  All the members would be on the same page as far as what action or actions should be taken.