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.