Supervisor Review

After meeting with my principal, there are very few changes to be made to my plan. I do need to add a literature review to my plan. He was very interested in the outcome of my topic and wants to help me when it comes to organizing surveys for our teachers. I will make few additions to my plan and submit it for all to see soon.

Action Research Plan

GOALS	ACTIVITIES	RESOURCES	TIMELINE	PERSON RESPONSIBLE	MONITOR	ASSESSMENT
Determine on the average how many days each teacher in our district is absent	Interview our business manager and obtain number of absences per teacher	Business manager and teacher attendance records	August 2010	Jack Parker	Compile a chart by teacher and campus of days missed for sick, personal, and school leave.	ongoing
Review TAKS pass / fail rate for each teacher	Document the pass / fail rate for each teachers students on the TAKS test	TAKS test data	September 2010	Jack Parker	Compile a chart of each teacher’s pass / fail rate on the TAKS test	ongoing
Compare each teacher’s absenteeism rate to their pass fail rate on TAKS	Look at hard data gathered on the two previous studies and combine data	Absenteeism and TAKS data previously obtained	September 2010	Jack Parker	Compile the data from the two previous studies and determine if teacher absenteeism and pass / fail rate are correlated	Hard data from chart will determine if teacher absenteeism is a factor on student performance.
Determine what activities teachers leave for substitutes when they are going to be on a planned absence	Survey teachers on activities they leave for students when they are on a planned absence	Survey	October 2010	Jack Parker	Compile results from survey and determine how many of the activities us Higher Order Thinking	ongoing
Determine what activities teachers leave for substitutes when they are going to be on a non planned absence	Survey teachers on activities they leave for students when they are on a non planned absence	Survey	October 2010	Jack Parker	Compile results from survey and determine how many of the activities us Higher Order Thinking	ongoing
Determine is teacher preparedness when absent has an effect on student performance	Compile all data in an easy to read format	All data collected	November 2010	Jack Parker	Use data to produce an easy to read report on all data collected in this project	Data report
Determine how much substitute teachers get paid per day	Interview business manager to determine sub pay	Business manager and sub pay records	September 2010	Jack Parker	Use data in later part of study	ongoing
Determine the average teacher salary for each campus and the district	Get salary records from the business managers office	Payroll records	September 2010	Jack Parker	Compile a study of sub pay and average teacher pay per campus and district wide	ongoing
Determine how much the district spends on substitute teachers each school year per campus	Get this figure from the business office and match this data with data from the study	Business office	October 2010	Jack Parker	Use all data collected thus far to compile a visual on how much subs cost the district	ongoing
Determine what incentives will help keep teachers in class	Survey teachers on what incentives will keep them in the classroom more	Teacher survey	December 2010	Jack Parker	Compile results from survey to determine what incentives may reduce teacher absenteeism	Ongoing

Week two of the research class has been interesting. I have learned that all research in education must be geared toward student performance. Many topics can be explored and researched. Teachers, students, culture, staff development, leadership are a few. Learn to use other research to compare to yours and what you are dong on your campus. If it helps students it is worthy of research.........

How to Use BLOGS in education

Blogging is a great way for administrators to share ideas with colleagues, faculty, and staff. Blogs allow you to keep an online journal and allows others to share their thoughts or provide feedback on your findings. You can use text and illustrations and refer to other bolgs to compare thoughts. Using blogs to refelct on your thoughts is a way to deepen professional development, and allows you insight on ways to change situations in your school.

Action Research

Action research is basically learning by doing. You have to experience certain things to become effective at doing them. Action research allows you to do this. You collect data, analyze it and them decide what action to take. Action research is used in real life situations rather than in experimental studies. This type of research deals with breaking down a particular system and then collaborating with stakeholders and determining the best way of making the system the best it can be. If a first your results are not to your liking then you try again. This type of research is forever changing because it deals with the human element. You must use it to become a successful leader and use it to gain professional growth in your position. One of the goals of action research is to turn the people involved into researchers too. People learn the best by doing and are more willing to use what they learned when they do it themselves. This research takes place in the real world and is meant to solve real world problems. The researcher makes no attempt to remain objective and acknowledges their bias to other participants. Action research will be a great tool to use in solving the ever changing field of education. It will give me a way to institute change in a collaborative way with my staff and faculty.