Action Research Project Progress Report

Action Research Project Progress Report

Action Research Project Summary (9-20-12)

Action Research Project: Developing a Points System for Determining Exemptions for High School Students

AR Project Summary (at least 250 words):

The purpose of my action research plan is to investigate whether improving our current exemption policy for students will affect test scores, attendance, and classroom behavior. Our current policy was not very successful last year and I wanted to see if including more incentives in that policy will help our student performance. We had a great number of students have to take final exams because exemptions were only based on absences. Our campus principal looked at grades and behavior as well, but they were not final determining factors. Most of our students were not exempt because they missed too many days of school or had too many tardies to 1^st period. We wanted to come up with a more comprehensive plan that would encourage our students to perform better by rewarding them with something that means a lot to them. We wanted to develop a program that would be acceptable to the teachers, students, parents, and community.

At present, we have made some progress in the development of the plan. We actually plan to present it to the student body on Monday. We have visited with our student council about the plan and now we need to approach our campus site based committee with it to make any final adjustments before presenting it to the student body.

We have developed our points system that we will use to determine the exemptions. We wanted to deduct points for the things that we feel are non-negotiable on our campus. Those are the things that we enforce the most and hold the most dear to success with our students. We will deduct 1 point for any absence, excused or unexcused, and for any office referral. We will also deduct 1 point once a student has accumulated 3 tardies. We will deduct 2 points when a student is sent to detention for or during a class period and also for being placed in ISS. They will be deducted 2 points for every day of ISS placement they receive. If a student is placed in DAEP or they receive a failing grade in any six weeks, they will not be eligible for exemption. They will also not be eligible for exemption if they are placed in out of school suspension.

 We are also going to award points for perfect attendance, A Honor Roll for every six weeks, and for extracurricular participation. Those things will allow for students to make up for points that they lose. We wanted to reward points for the things that we feel are very important to not just success, but performing at the highest level possible. We felt like students doing things that require going above and beyond what they are normally asked to do should get rewarded. We want to encourage more students to participate and give of their time to be part of something bigger than themselves. We also want to reward the students that make exemplary grades because those are the things that will allow them to attend college. In this day and age, making the A Honor Roll in high school is an impressive feat because of the new curriculum guidelines to prepare for the end of course tests. We want to recognize those students for their extra effort.

We have also decided to include every student, freshman through senior, in this exemption policy. In the past we only gave juniors and seniors the opportunity to be exempt. We are now going to give every student that chance in hopes of improving student achievement. We also feel that this will become an incentive for students to achieve on a larger scale throughout their entire high school career. We want them to be involved in as many activities as they can handle for as many years as possible. We are a 1A school and we need all of our good students to participate in as many things as possible. We feel that this program will encourage and promote that and allow them to get a reward for their sacrifice to better our school.

We will present that plan to the site-based committee to see if they would like to make any further adjustments to it. We will then present the final plan to the students and start tallying the point totals next semester. That will give us the rest of this semester to run some trials with the system and get students used to that system of guidelines. 

Brian Bibb Action Research Plan LinkBrian Bibb Action Research Link

How Educational Leaders Might Use Blogs

Before I started this action research course, I was very ignorant on what a blog really is. I always knew it was a way for a person to write down their ideas. After setting up my blog and doing my reading, I now feel that a blog is extremely valuable to an educational leader in a lot of ways. It allows a leader to write down their thoughts and feelings about virtually anything and everything so they can refer to it later. It can be used for self reflection. It can be used to document the results of various activities that have been implemented. It can be used as a way to ask for help from others that might be facing similar experiences or that have more experience in that area. It can be used as a way to communicate with followers on various important matters and give them the ability to provide feedback in a different manner than e-mail. A blog is more interactive and has many more possibilities. I look forward to having a different avenue with which to keep track of my thoughts than just pen and paper. I always struggle with remembering things that I have thought of that I need to do and this will now allow me a way to write down those things before I forget them.

What I Have Learned About Action Research

Action research is a phrase that I definitely had pegged wrong in the beginning. I really thought that it was actually doing research on a topic that I did not know much about. After reading my text for the class and completing the discussion and assignment, I now realize that action research is really looking at your current situation and evaluating the success of the things that you are already doing. It is self-reflection. It is analysis of the job you are doing and the programs that are in place and seeing if you can do something different or better to make them more effective. We are always asking our kids to improve on various things. We, as educators, should do the same. Action research allows us to take a topic or area of what we are doing and dissect it. We can look at our test scores and see if there are other ways to make them better. We can look at the programs we already have in place and see if we are headed in the right direction or if we need another approach. We can look at the effectiveness of how we are doing things and decide if we need different leadership so that the lines of communication can be opened up to get everyone on the same page. We can look at any areas where we are not meeting expectations and decide what new things we need to add to those areas to address those faults. Action research is such a broad topic that it involves almost anything. There are so many things that you can do so that you are constantly evaluating yourself. This is the best way for improvement in my opinion. Self-reflection can help a person realize a lot about themselves and the job they are doing. It helps you to stare your problems right in the face and figure out a way to get better. There are always going to be issues that we have to encounter as educators. Every time we face one of these issues, action research is appropriate so that we can best address that issue. It involves proper thought, communication, and action to ensure that we meet the needs of that issue the best that we can. It doesn't mean that the way we decide to address the issue is the final way that it will ever be done. There is always room for tweaking the adjustments that we make. You have to be willing to improvise and adjust if what you are doing is not working. In my opinion, action research opens the lines of communication to where everyone can voice their opinion and get on the same page. A lot of the time, decisions are made and there is not a proper level of communication on why the changes are made. Action research gives everyone the opportunity to voice their concerns or ideas. This allows people to take ownership over the situation and have a chance to be heard. It also allows the reasoning behind what we are doing to be heard by all. All of these things make us better. I now have a much better understanding of what action research really is and how useful and effective that strategy can be to making us better educators and administrators.