May Progress

At this point, I am breaking down the test scores for the year.  These scores and the final grades for each student will provide me with the data needed to complete the project.  Many of my students are successful, many have parents that stay involved, but there are a few that do not have the support at home needed to keep them going in the direction needed.  Much of my research and data gathering should be complete before the end of the summer.

Continued Work

At this point in my research project, I am continuing to analyze the data from my students and their work.  I have been charting my students' grades in the class, on projects, and on tests, as well as documenting all parental involvement with parents.  This information is being charted for students whose parents are involved and those who are not.  At the end of the school year, I should have a report to show how parental involvement has impacted this small group of students.

As noted in previous posts, my project is designed to determine the worth of parental involvement in the classroom.  With my students, 6th graders, this is a very important time in their lives in terms of parental involvement.  Many of the parents believe that their child no longer needs the attention in school that they once provided and many of the students do not want their parents involved.  My goal is to show both that they should yearn for the opposite.  From my discussions with teachers and the research, it is noted that students with parents that are not involved tend to have more discipline issues and a higher failure rate in classes.  I do not want that for any of my students and I truly wonder if the parents realize this is a consequence to allowing their child to "grow up" by leaving their education totally in their hands.

I have already hosted the initial meeting to introduce my parents to the concepts of how to stay "connected"; however, I plan to host at least one more before the current school year is up.  Beyond that, I plan to restart this project with a new group of students next school year.  If successful, my roadmap to parental involvement could be something that the entire campus adopts.  Let's all hope for success!

Parent Meeting

The parent meeting took place on January 14, 2013 in the computer lab.  Twelve of my seventy-nine students had parents there to represent them - a little more than 15%.  Parents were given the opportunity learn from the counselor in charge or parental involvement, an assistant principal, and myself.  Items discussed include parent meetings on campus, Skyward parent access, communicating with teachers, and important dates in Pre-AP Language Arts to finish the year.  Monitoring will continue from here.

Research Update

My research is moving along smoothly.  I have completed the spreadsheets that contain the information on the students needed prior to beginning my research.  The same spreadsheet will be used later in order to compare my results after the research is completed.  The date for my initial parent meeting is set and the documents (invitation, informational sheet, Skyward access information, survey, etc.) for the meeting are just about completed.  I have solicited the help of the counselor in charge of parent contact and another colleague on campus has offered assistance for the meeting as well.  Let's hope the entire research process goes this well.

Challenges of the Research

As I'm looking at my research project, I am excited to get started and to begin to document the results.  In my mind, things are going to go well and I'll find the information that I'm looking for.  However, I have to stop myself and be realistic, realistic about the challenges that I could face.
The first challenge begins with the target audience - the parents.  I need the parents to believe that my presentation is a worthwhile investment of their time.  I need parents to actually attend the informational sessions and to get involved using the information presented to them.  I plan to send letters home with the students and use our automated call-out, email, and texting service in order to continually remind parents about this great opportunity to help their child.
Another challenge is TIME!  Time seems to be everyone's concern when they're conducting an inquiry on top of the other things that life has to offer.  As Master's students, we now have an action research project to go along with the internship opportunities that we are to be seeking (150 hours), and the actually classes that we are taking.  I'm really doing my best to take it one week at a time.  In no way do I want my personal life (earning this degree) to get in the way of giving everything I possibly can to my students in the classroom.  I have and will continue to push towards being the best I can be at both, but, if push comes to shove, my focus will not leave my students.  Let's hope I can continue to be successful at managing my time wisely on both fronts.

Describing the Study

As a Title I campus, parental involvement is stressed and new ways are always being sought to involve parents.  This research project contains plans to educate the parents on how to be involved in their child's education through a training program that will educate parents on various ways to be aware of their child's progress.  My belief is that the parents are interested in helping their child succeed, however, proper guidance is needed.
As I stated before, my research will be conducted on a Title I campus.  This is a campus of only sixth grade students, 80% of which are economically disadvantaged.  I will conduct the training for all interested parents; however, my sample size will be 80 students, all of which are my current students.  I chose to keep my study to this sample size so that the information was readily available and so that my reported results were more accurate.  My sample size is also diverse in many ways - more than five races are represented, the male to female ratio is relatively equal, there are at-risk students, gifted and talented student, students with high and low grades across all subject areas, and a relatively equal proportion of economically disadvantaged students as compared to the school.
This research will require me to hold parent meetings where involvement in their child's education is discussed.  Parents will also have the opportunity to learn technology that can aid in the monitoring process of their child.  This technology includes access to their child's grades through an online, real-time program, and information on how to acquire an email address (if they do not already have one).  Parents will be instructed on how to go about contacting teachers and be encouraged to do so.  Once parents have gone through this initial meeting, their contact with the teachers will be monitored as well as their student's progress academically.  Schedules for other parental involvement meetings and surveys will also be disseminated at all meetings.  Through the implementation of a more in-depth parental involvement program, the goal is for barriers to be removed for improved student learning.  The research question: How does improving the parental involvement program at a Title I campus affect the academic performance of the students?

The Purpose and Significance

My proposed action research study, as stated before, deals directly with parental involvement.  The purpose of the plan is to research the change in academic achievement of students whose parents become more involved in their education and the difference in academic achievement of students whose parents are not involved.  I will meet with parents at least once a month after school in large group settings.  Meetings will be scheduled to teach parents how to be involved and where to find their student's academic information as well as stay current on what is happening in their child's classroom.  Parents will be provided with technology training to assist in this matter as the information needed to monitor the child is readily available online.  This technology training should also assist the parent in keeping in contact with their student's teachers.

I believe that there is a great significance to this research study.  First of all, the most important stakeholders, the students, will surely benefit.  Students will benefit because they will have the extra support and push from home, even if it is not wanted.  no matter the task, I firmly believe that everyone needs someone there to keep them on track - especially if that person is a child.  The second stakeholder to benefit from the action research will be the parents.  The parents will not only learn how to monitor their child's learning and progress, my goal is to teach the parents mini-lessons on technology and communication.  It is my belief, from experiences I've had and from talking with the children, that many of my student's parents lack the knowledge and confidence to stay readily involved in their child's education - my hope is to change that.  I also believe that the teachers, including myself, will benefit.  We will benefit from the support of the parents and higher grades from the students.  Most educators claim that if the parents just gave more support, everything at school would improve - this research is intended to test that theory.  I also believe that the administration and the school will benefit from better test scores, which should be a result of this study as well.

Educational Problems of Interest

There are many small problems in education that interest me - discipline, missing work, low grades, social behaviors, etc.  However, many of them seem to revert back to the one idea that I believe could solve many of them - parental involvement.  This is an important problem to me because I teach at a Title I school of just sixth graders and I already see parents becoming uninvolved in their child's education.  However, I'm not always convinced that the problem lies with the parents choosing to leave the child on his/her own, which is what I want to research.  This is a critical area because students can often go astray educationally and socially without proper parental guidance.

Let me set this situation up for you.  First of all, my campus is the child's first school away from elementary and I feel that there are quite a few parents that don't know how to be involved.  Also, I believe that students are learning, at this early age, how to keep information from their parents when they don't want them to know (either they don't want to do the work assigned or don't want to tell their parents information that could get them in trouble).  This is where I want to bridge the gap - I want to provide paths of learning for the parents to be able to understand what is happening from this point forward with their child's education.

I have the belief that this action research study would be beneficial in solving this problem because I have a strong faith in people.  I have a faith that people want the best for their children, we just have to provide them with a pathway to help that happen.  In my opinion, if we set the parent up now with being involved in the education at this level of schooling, they'll be knowledgable for the future and will, hopefully, continue to stay involved.  I want to have monthly parent meetings where the parents learn how to access their students grades from an online account, learn how to communicate with the teachers (set up an email account for them if needed), review important projects and their guidelines, and just simply show the parents what to expect of their child.  I know that we provide this to parents in the syllabus, but how many parents truly read all eight syllabi all the way through enough to understand what is going on all of the time?  This task, on top of filling out paperwork and signing papers, can be a lot for a parent at the beginning of the school year.  My hope is that grades, discipline, etc. will improve just based on the fact that an avenue of communication has been opened between the teacher/school and the parent.  I'm excited to see if this works.

Action Research Template

Action Planning Template
Goal: To provide direct services to families to reduce barriers to student learning.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Develop a Shared Vision, Literature Research, Initial Student Research, Planning, Self-Reflection, Exploring Programmatic Patterns, Determine Final Direction	Robert Seibert	December 21, 2012 – January 18, 2013	Time, Literature on Past Research (Online Database), Documents (Past Parental Contact Logs), Quantitative Data (Student Grades and Test Scores) found through Eduphoria and Skyward	Excel spreadsheet used to document information (grades, scores, and parent contact), Blog
Parent meeting to discuss and implement ways in which the parent can be involved in the child’s education	Robert Seibert	January 21, 2013	Time, School Cafeteria and Computer Lab, and Staff Members	Attendance Log, Meeting Agenda, Observations, Digital Pictures, Parent Surveys, Blog
Progress Monitoring	Robert Seibert	February 12, 2013 – February 15, 2013 March 25, 2013 – March 28, 2013 May 1, 2013 – May 3, 2013	Time, Documents (current parent contact logs), Quantitative Data (Student Grades and Test Scores) fround through Eduphoria and Skyward	Excel spreadsheet used to document information (grades, scores, and parent contact), Parent Interviews, Parent Surveys, Blog
Final Evaluation	Robert Seibert	May 27, 2013 – May 31, 2013	Time, Documents (current parent contact logs), Quantitative Data (Student Grades and Test Scores) fround through Eduphoria and Skyward	Excel spreadsheet used to document information (grades, scores, and parent contact), Parent Interviews, Parent Surveys, Blog

Format based on Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)

Week Two Reflection - Action Research 5301

Week two has brought about many new questions and ideas for action research.  Initially, I had no doubt that my research would be geared toward parental involvement.  However, as the week went by and I continued to read the text, I began to question myself.  I have been pursued by leaders on my campus to conduct other small projects - peer mentoring and student intervention groups to mention a couple.  In the end, I could not seem to move away from the passion that I had for affording parents the opportunity to become involved in their child's education.  I am interested to see the changes that could potentially occur given the chances for the parents to understand what's actually happening inside of the walls of their child's school.  More than anything, I want to help the many students on campus that are economically disadvantaged gain every edge possible to break the cycle that has entrapped many of their family members.  I look forward to learning exactly how to form questions and conduct the research in the weeks to come.

How can educational leaders use blogs?

Through the readings (Dana, 2009) and other research on blogging, two ideas on how blogging can be used by educational leaders stands out in my mind - REFLECTING and SHARING.

Reflections, essential to improve in all aspects of life, are, in my mind, the most important part of blogging.  Journaling ideas, thoughts, data, and actions can lead to a better understanding of the "why" in one's leadership experience.  Putting thoughts together and organizing the information can only be helpful to the position, if used properly.

Beyond that, blogs can be used to share the ideas, thoughts, data, and actions that you post with peers and, on occasion, with students.  Sharing with peers can elicit feedback and further help enrich the experience of being an educational leader.  Sometimes it takes someone else reading through one's ideas to fill in the small gap that was missing to take the blogger to the next level.  Also, allowing students to view the blog provides them with a greater insight into their own education and the process of it, and can also model a passion for writing.

Questions can be answered, thoughts and ideas confirmed, and data can be discussed further to create a valuable tool that improves inquiry and the educational experience for all involved.  Without a doubt, if used properly, educational leaders can use blogs to improve the learning of students, the teaching of teachers, and the overall experience of life within the walls of the classroom or school that the leader cares so deeply about.

References

Dana, N.F. (2009).  Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action     

researcher.  Thousand Oaks,  CA: Corwin Press. 

Action Research - What is it and how can I use it?

According to Nancy Fichtman Dana (2009), administrative inquiry or action research “refers to the process of a principal engaging in systematic, intentional study of his/her own administrative practice and taking action for change based on what he/she learns as a result of the inquiry” (p. 2).  Through this inquiry, administrators will review the facts on the topic, ask questions of all involved, and continue to seek out information to fully complete the research (Harris et al., 2009, p. 5).  This system of investigation is adapted from teacher action research, both of which are intended as a tool to advance professional development for the individual and improve the educational process at the studied school.  As a result of administrative inquiry, the administrator should better understand his/her position and how he/she fits in as a leader in the efforts to improve the school.
     
Action research in schools can be used in many different ways, all of which should be designed to improve instruction when concentrating on student achievement (Ringler, 2007, p. 36).  I will be able to use administrative inquiry to improve the productivity in my classroom.  Through implementing research plans, I will have the ability to validate my current teaching practices, change the methods that need changed, and enhance student learning through improved methods of communicating information.  Through action research, my hope is to build upon what I already do in my classroom to provide an even better environment and way of teaching that benefits all of my students.

References

Dana, N.F. (2009).  Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action      

researcher.  Thousand Oaks,  CA: Corwin Press.

Harris, S., Edmonson, S., & Combs, J. (2009).  Examining what we do to imrove our   
            schools: 8 steps from analysis to action.  Larchmont, N.Y.: Eye on Education.

Ringler, M. (2007).  Action Research an Effective Instructional Leadership Skill for Future

            Public School Leaders.  AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice, 4 (1), 27-42.