Sunday, February 3, 2013

Week 3, Part 3



1.    Examining the work: Setting the Foundation
·        The question that I propose is will the state academic performance (STAAR) of our LEP students heavily increase with an increase in parent/teacher bilingual involvement. As I mentioned to my principal, I feel that our 9th and 10th graders do not understand the gravity of the STAAR test and the main reason being that the parents do not stress to them the importance of it because, due to the language barrier, they themselves do not know. In addition to that, we also have a problem with parents of our LEP students showing up to activities/workshops we host at school for them. Therefore, instead of asking them to come to us, we will go to them. My principal has authorized me to set up informational workshops/mixers at places where we know a great number of our LEP students and parents attend. With the approval of my principal, I have received permission to plan said activities/workshops with my first one tentatively being on February 24, 2013.
2.    Analyzing data
·         What I plan to do to analyze my data is gather the STAAR results from the previous year from 9th and 10th graders. I will break the data according to subjects, scores, LEP and non-LEP students and make a comparison to. In addition, I will request the academic grades of my LEP students and analyze common trends that I may observe.
3.    Developing deeper understanding
·         After I have gathered all of my data, I will perform further research and create focus groups or surveys aimed towards the LEP students. The best way to understand the problem is to hear it from the subjects themselves. Perhaps with the focus groups and/or surveys, I will be able to gain a better understanding as to why these students did not perform to the state’s level.
4.    Engaging in Self-Reflection
·         Since this is an action research topic, I will continue with my research/investigating and create a plan in order to achieve my goal. Monitoring the progress of the students will take place throughout the entire action research project. I will make proper accommodations/revisions if I notice things going in the wrong direction.
5.    Exploring Programmatic Patterns
·         Throughout the entire action research project, I will be able to observe common trends from the data that I collect the previous year, current year, and make predictions for the future years. Staying consistent and maintaining contact with LEP students and their parents will assist me with making an revisions if needed.
6.    Determining direction
·         With a group of ESL/Spanish teachers and myself, and with the support of our principal, we will maintain our vision and goal with the subjects of our action research topic and that is out LEP students and their parents. Informing the parents of what they need to know in regards to STAAR testing and providing activities for them and the students.
7.    Taking action for school improvement
·         My textbooks being my main point of resources as well as my site supervisors and tech supervisor, when needed. In addition, the small group of ESL/Spanish teachers that will be assisting me with the planning and implementation of these activities will also be needed.

8.    Sustaining improvement
·         Constant monitoring will be performed through the course of this study. Improvements will be noted and if improvement is not seen, then we will re-focus our group and create an alternative way/plan so that we may be able to obtain and achieve our goal.

3 comments:

  1. i to am conducting action research over LEP students and parent involvment. I found it vary dificult to gather data and have an actual number given of succesful or not. Parent involvment is nto something we have control over. We can ask them to come but e cannot force them so ithink its great that youa re going to them. I am concerned about your time line. make sure you give yourself enought time to finish the project with the amount of tiem we have been given. I decided to stay away from the test numbers because I am mostly concentratign on the prek-2 grade parents. we have bench mark ad telpas but not much more. Instead my data will be driven by the survys i receive and the sign in ssheets i will create at for my paretn fair sessions. i will try to provide te paretns will help socially and in the school environment...after word gets out i am hoping that my numbers grow and that they come in larger numbers to the sesssions. we shoudl get togther and discuss some of our ideas. In week four i tink they are going to try to get us to meet up with people who are also researching the same ideas and topics so its great that we already found each other. i left my contact info on the the post you sent me ealrier in the class. i am just getting used to this blog thing and i am really new to it so i might be doing things wrong...lol anyway please try to commen on my stuff so i can have somting to write about too.

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  2. thanks!! ANd of course, would love and will get together with you to discuss ideas.

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  3. Please blog on mine... i only have one comment and need some feed back to do weeks four assignment.... :(

    http://dduhonthinkingwithdd.blogspot.com/

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