Week 2 Reflection

This week I finalized my plan for my action research project.  Based on my Internship Plan, I identified the following three areas as potential action research projects:

1.      Analyzing the use and effectiveness of our math intervention classes to improve student and campus TAKS passing rates.

2.      Working directly with new teachers to improve classroom management procedures and lower discipline referrals from these rooms.

3.      Analyze test scores, absences, discipline referrals, and anecdotal information from teachers to determine the highest needs students on our campus and work with teachers to come up with student-specific interventions to meet their individual needs.

In discussing these topics with my site supervisor, we agreed that these were all areas of concern on our campus.  We discussed each topic separately, identifying what elements were already in place to address the issue, to help us determine which topic should be my area of research. 

·         With the math intervention classes, we have a regular interventionist who works with our teachers and we will be getting a full-time person on our campus next year to help address this problem.

·         Our assistant principal has in the past met regularly with the new teachers to address areas of concern, but due to other obligations our of her control, has not been able to do this to the extent she would like this year.  Each new teacher has a campus mentor, but because they are teachers as well, it is difficult for the mentors to be in new teachers’ classrooms to see what areas need to be addressed.

·         Data analysis is very important on our campus.  Our teams already do a great job of looking at this information to identify areas of need with our students.  Our district has also implemented new software that makes compiling all this data quick and easy. 

After identifying these factors, we determined that working with the new teachers would be the most beneficial topic to our campus and would provide me with the most information for discussion and analysis.  The other two topics are important as well and ones that I want to be involved in, but due to the supports already in place for them, would probably not yield as much new information.  Therefore, the topic of my action research project will be, “Does conducting regular meetings with new teachers to address classroom management and discipline procedures result in an improvement in classroom performance for students and a reduction in office referrals?”