EDLD 5301 Week 3 -Action Research Project

 

ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

PROCESS OVERVIEW

 

 Special Population Students in ISS and their Academic Success towards AYP

 

 

1. SETTING THE FOUNDATION – Creating a climate to explore action research issues:

Since I had been involved in ISS (In school suspension) in previous years in my school with students with a behavioral issue, it has always made me wonder about its effectiveness in regards to all students populations and achieving academic success by the end of the school year, especially for meeting AYP by the campus .  It has always seemed to me that ISS is being used as an escape by students to avoid attending a class with a particular teacher or all classes.  I feel that students are wasting too much time in ISS instead of the classrooms where they should be learning and achieving the academic success.  A lot of the learning process is lost in ISS because the actual teacher for each particular class is not there and the student misses the opportunity to engage in class to grasp the taught knowledge.  I believe that conducting an action research study will be very beneficial for the academic success of the ISS students and the teaching process by the educators who will not have to waste additional time to re-teach those students from ISS.  At the same time, administrators will benefit from having less ISS referrals allowing them more available time to accomplish other important school duties.  Last, the school can benefit by meeting and exceeding AYP as more students are engaged in a learning process in class vs. ISS isolation.  I know that with an action research study implemented the students will spend more time in the classroom engaged in the learning process than wasting their time escaping towards ISS.

 

 

2. ANALYZING DATA – Data will be gathered in several ways: 1. Referrals given to all students will be collected by the administration secretaries.  At this point, the referral student will be identified for a particular special education population.  This information will be noted on the referral.  In addition for data gathering, TEA AYP Progress campus data will be obtained to analyze AYP passing and failure data from last year to current year.  ISS students will be classified into behavioral or non-behavioral categories with subcategories of the different reasons for their misconduct with a scale for the severity of the offense.

 

3. DEVELOPING DEEPER UNDERSTANDING – In order to get a better result of the data gathered, all parties involved need to be aware of the project and data generated.  Those writing the referrals need to specify complete information on the referrals.  Issues will rise about whether student should or should not be allowed back in a classroom after an offense.  Pros and cons need to be examined to get a desired correct possible solution to benefit academically those students in ISS.

 

 

 

4. ENGAGE IN SELF-REFLECTION –

• For the action research project, do I have the correct data available?

• How will teachers react to students sent back to class to learn instead of ISS?

• What is the district and campus policy on sending ISS students home? ,.

• What reactions will generate from students, teachers, parents and administrators the idea to eliminate ISS from school?

 

5. EXPLORING PROGRAMMATIC PATTERNS –

The removal of an ISS room from campus will force and allow the students to write and meditate on their actions and correct their behavior to continue in the classroom.  Failure to comply will have to implement OSS (out of school suspension) where parents are going to deal with the student at home.  A greater number of students will go back to class and learn their different subjects improving their academic performance and meeting AYP requirements.

 

6. DETERMINING DIRECTION – You are about ready to launch your action research project but you must be able to answer these questions:

 

It is time to double check your approach to implementing your action research project!

A. Are you clear on what you are attempting to solve (your research questions)? YES

B. Have you adequately addressed the skills and resources questions? YES

C. Have you established a collaborative approach to the issue? YES

D. Are your time lines realistic? YES

E. Do you have a reasonable plan to monitor the project? YES

F. Do you have a reasonable plan for determining the level of success – how do you evaluate if the plan is effective? YES

G. How will you revise and improve the plan based on monitoring and evaluation? Double checking the ISS student special population, keep them in class with a parental involvement commitment and evaluate with benchmarks and STAAR test results.

 

7. TAKING ACTION FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

I have prepared a plan of action.  Using the action research project committee to help develop a plan of action, The Tool 7.1 Action Planning Template will be the primary source to guide my plan of action.  The project will be closely monitored and a summary report will be created to show the outcome of my action research project of special population ISS students are affected academically and meeting AYP recognition.

 

8. SUSTAIN IMPROVEMENT

Keep positive results from the action research.  If indeed special populations in ISS benefit from removal from it and place in classroom and improve academically towards AYP, then keep applying and monitor all positive aspects of it.  Last, share this research with your school, your district, and other district so that they can also benefit in the future.