update on in it to win it 9/12

We are just starting the program this week (9/24) at the school.  The students had their first week of no zeros to be able to participate in their chosen activity.  Of 1031 students in the school 500 did not qualify to participate.  They had to go to PAT (Panther Academic Time) and complete their missing assignments.  The 7^th graders had 25 activities to choose from.  They were

Movie Time

Wii Sports

Ind. Music Time

Crazy Cards

Chess / Checkers

Games Galore

Laughter Zone

Crazy Cards

Games Galore

Suddenly Sudoku

Games Galore

Read for a Better Life

Volleyball

Floor Hockey

Online Games

Kickball

Walk and Talk

Water Colors

Cooking Up Snacks

Soccer

Music Time

Talk Time

Book Club

Word Finds

Cultures

The 8^th graders also had 25 choices and they were 

Phone Photo

Computer Games

Games Galore

Crosswords

Dominoes

Suddenly Sudoku

Chess / Checkers

Movie Time

Free Writing

Creating Videos

Listen Music

Online Games

Soccer

Floor Hockey

Online Games

Volleyball

Walk and Talk

Dance Rev.

T-Shirt Design

Kickball

Duct Tape Craft

Talk Time

Karaoke

Read for a better Life

Movie Time

You can see that some of the class choices were the same but there some that were different.  The activities were presented by students and teachers as areas of interest that they would be willing to participate in.  We, as teachers had to submit the list of students to the principal.  He created a Google doc survey where we just imputed the names and it put it into a spread sheet that he could sort and print off attendance where the kids will be going and which ones will be in PAT time and those participating in their activities.  After the first week I have had several students that have been working their butts off not to be in study hall.  I did notice that I had more students this week not qualify because they were missing some video notes that they needed to complete.  But as a whole the school numbers seem to be going down in the study hall category.  The hardest part for the study hall teachers were that the students came in claiming they did not know what they were missing, so teachers started making them copy the dictionaries or wordy documents, like the declaration of independence.  By the second day of study hall the students mysteriously had their missing work. 

Highlights from research course

This course has taught me that there is a wealth of knowledge out there to help me in achieving my goals in this research project and future projects. There are several lectures, readings, searches, assignments and activities, discussion boards, and Blogs.

The discussion board topics in each of my classes has taught me that I have a cohort of other professionals to bounce ideas off of. I have also found that I am not in this alone and that many schools have similar problems. I have taken some of their ideas and am going to present them to my committee that is helping me and see if we can implement them into our program.

The lectures have been somewhat helpful. I found that it was the same lecture for a couple of weeks in a row. Sometimes they were helpful and then other times they had no bearing on what I was doing that week. For example, in week five the lecture talked about setting up an appointment during week four with our site supervisor. So I had to learn to pull the relevant information from the lecture that applied to that week which was a little tricky for me.

The readings were very helpful when clarifying the assignments and activities. This whole course was on research, what I learned from the readings is that as a teacher I already did this in some shape or form. What I needed to do was take it from my classroom to a larger scale of the entire school, something that would affect more than my hundred students.

The assignment and activities helped me work through my motivation project and apply it to the whole school. I did motivation for my class and wanted to take it to the whole school but was not sure how. The high school that we feed into does a study hall twice a week but the students who had all assignments completed still had to sit in study hall. I wanted the students to have the study hall but I also wanted to allow for those that had completed their work could receive some sort of reward for their hard work the previous week. This is where the thirty minute activity came in. One of the assignments during this class made me sit down with my site supervisor and bounce ideas off of her. She also brought up some very good points about logistics and getting certain things done. I was able to tweak some aspects of the plan and take things to the committee and answer some questions before they are going to be asked by the teachers in the school. I also will now be able to do some comparisons at the end of the year looking at diversity, attendance and also was it beneficial in the area that we wanted it in, the state mandated test.

The blog has been the newest thing for me. I have known many teachers that blog but I have never followed them. But by doing a blog of my own, it has forced me to be very honest and vulnerable to criticism from people that I have never met or may never meet. But it also has opened me up to a world out there where other professionals are doing great things and following their blogs it gives me the opportunity to help and learn from people I do not know.

As a teacher I always use searches to better my teaching and supplement my lessons in my classroom. Sometimes it is a video about football that talks about Pythagorean Theorem, other times is is an online game that may enhance a lesson that I just taught. But with searches, one needs to make sure you are researching as well. There is some crap out there.

All of things have become very beneficial to me in my studies and bettering myself as a teacher and as a further my career in becoming a principal. I look forward to the other classes in this program and using the skills that I learned in this course to help me in the future ones.

Action Research Plan

School Vision: Moorhead Junior High believes in its students; supports their achievements; and builds rapport between students, staff, and parents.

Goal: To motivate students to complete school work and homework. Starting with an extrinsic motivator and teaching the students the intrinsic motivators that they will need to be successful in life and become life long learners.

Outcomes	Action	Resources	Person	Time line	Benchmark	Evaluation
	Students have no zeros participate in an activity of their choosing for completing weekly work	Survey of what students would like to participate in and also what teachers would like to lead	Allan Sapp-Principal and motivation committee	Aug-Sept		End of year questionnaire
	Students with zeros participate in study hall	~Google docs spreadsheet with students who have zeros and what study hall class they are assigned to ~Google Docs of missing assignments for the different teachers	~Teachers that teach students recording in Google docs if they have zeros or not ~Teachers upload the assignment to Google Docs or their web-sites	Sept-May		End of year questionnaire
	Students with no zeros all year go to end of year water park field trip	~Google Docs spreadsheet	Karen Brown and Dawn Smith	Sept-May		See if students that had no zeros all year would have qualified the regular way using their grades and attendance etc.

Action Research video review

The first person that I am choosing to respond to for this section is that of Dr. Johnny Briseno-Principal of Rancho Isabella Elementary School in Angleton ISD. I liked how he brought up that they are a data first school and that sometimes that you can not just go by the numbers. Sometimes that when you break down to the individual student that there may be some underlying causes for what is going on.

I like how the action research that they did was that the first and second grade teachers do flexible grouping based on the students multiple intelligences. I also liked how Dr. Briseno allowed for those teachers to communicate with the upper elementary teachers and say when they were in my class this is how they were and this is what worked best for them, and this is how I got the most results from them.

I know as a teacher I do not always want to hear the negative stuff so I very rarely go speak to the previous years math teacher about the student. But sometimes not having to reinvent the wheel is ideal.

The second person I chose was Dr. Kirk Lewis, Superintendent for Pasendena ISD. They have been working on a grant for the expectation graduation which is for the 9^th graders in their district. They were looking at ways to beef up the rigor and also the change of the delivery method to the students. They were able to take some information from other districts and combine it together to make their own program. But it was based on data. They wanted to see where the growth was coming from and the areas that they still needed to improve on. They look at it as a whole district and then they take all the way down to the individual students.

What I learned from both of these professionals is this. When it comes to research you need to be excited about the topic and it needs to interest you. If it does not interest you then you are not going to be focused on it. It also has to to be data driven. Why would you waste your time researching something that does not need to be fixed in your own school? If you are researching what is interesting to you and what needs to be fixed within your school then you are going to see it all the way through til the end.

How educational leaders could use blogs....

Educational leaders could use blogs in several ways. First they could use a blog for the daily happenings within the school that parents, students, and staff members could follow and maybe even give posts on upcoming events.

They could also use a blog if they were doing some sort of action plan on how to improve the overall scores within their school that the administrative team or district personnel could follow, and give feedback on.

A blog could be used as another teaching method to other administrators, or could even be a tool that other districts could access if they are maybe going through something similar that, that school has already gone through and solved certain problems.

What action research has taught me....

What I have learned about action research is this. That it needs to be done not just by principals but by teachers as well. If the whole school is on board with the idea then you as the administrator are going to have better results on the state mandated tests as well as the district tests.

If teachers are doing the research within their own classrooms as far as what needs to be done to help the students in their and then applying what they have found into practice then their individual scores will be going up. They may still not be up to passing but the key is adding value to the students.

The principals need to be able to do the action research for the whole campus. What needs to be fixed, what is working, what needs to be thrown out and just start over, is there staff changes that need to be made, are their curriculum issues that need to be fixed. These should be looked at not only by the principal but also the leadership team and the teachers themselves.

Once they have done this then they can get down to the brass tack ticks and fix what needs to be fixed, find what is working and have other staff members observe, and meet with district personnel and see what needs to be fixed in the curriculum.

Being able to do this and lead it is very important when it comes to being a principal. If your staff members do not see you doing this then why would they take upon themselves to do it in their own classrooms. As a principal you want everyone on the same page. You are all there for the same reason: to better the future of the students that walk through your doors every day.