And we're done!

Ta-Da! My project plan is done. 

I titled it "From Information to Understanding". Students have endless access to information these days with anything they could possibly want right at their fingertips. If the recent events in Baltimore are any indicator, information via social media, live news-feeds and mobile devices is readily available and students are accessing it every minute of every day. What is not as clear is how ready the students are to deal with the information- to comprehend the ideas presented in informational text, to competently synthesize those ideas and then to analyze them for credibility, reliability and bias. Students need these skills. Hopefully, this plan gives teachers a way to easily assess their own teaching to most effectively help their own students develop these skills. 

Find the final plan here and/or watch the web demo below to determine if this plan will be helpful for you. 

Comments and feedback welcome!

My Action Plan Mission for YOU!

To sum up my Action Research Plan I created a Web 2.0 presentation, using Powtoon video. In my Powtoon video, teachers must complete a mission to save the Art class using the Action Research Plan. After completing the Action Research Plan, I found that Action Research is an excellent organization tool to prove significance to any educational practice.

 

 

The Beginning of the End...

As I finish up my action research project plan I realize how much I have accomplished and learned.  I went from feeling like a novice to exemplary status when it comes to creating an action research plan.  Even though this is the end of the class and I have my plan ready to turn in I know this is just the beginning of the end.  Now that I know what I am doing, as I enter my last year in my Master's program I will have to implement my plan.  I still have a long road in front of me but I at least know which direction I will be heading.  I am feeling confident with my plan and know that I will be successful as I move forward.

As you look through my action research plan, please feel free to leave me comments and suggestions along the way.

Prezi

Wiki

Action Research Project Plan Progress

It is the end of April! Rowdy students, tired teachers, and the end of year rush is speeding to a frenzy. My action research project plan is no different. Hiccups, accidental deletions, and a shift in topic have hindered my progress on mastering the plan. Still, the creation of the research plan is a process and mine is nearing its completion. Outside of a few, hopefully, minor edits my plan is ready to be implemented at Saint Ignatius Loyola Academy.  The product of a few months of work is linked below. Anyone with the link can comment on the page, or, if you do not wish to comment, can fill out the survey at the close of the plan. Also included is a Prezi that describes the plan in a much more concise fashion.

ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT PLAN

PREZI

The best place to start is the end....

As we're in our last few weeks of action research class, I'm struck by how much it isn't the end. From here, I'll be moving into the final year of my Masters program. This class is really the beginning of the end because I'll take all that I've learned and apply it to my final project next year.

But I suppose for this to be the beginning, it also has to end. So, the last part of this beginning end is a Web 2.0 presentation of our project. There are so many tools that could be used! Does anyone who has had experience using these tools have a suggesting for which is the most user-friendly AND engaging?

Prezi

PowToon

MovieMaker Video posted on YouTube

Or something else that is fun and exciting! Let me know and stay tuned for my presentation coming next week!

Full Circle

I have an obsession with "loops". I know, loopy. My family often teases me because whenever  I go on a walk or a drive, I am happiest when I can go in one direction and somehow "loop" back home without going the same way I came. This concept is the most obvious geographically when I walk, run or drive; however, it comes up in all areas of life. I love coming back at an original idea or concept in a whole different way. It makes me happy in my classroom- finding those looping themes and concepts in the curriculum and coming at old ideas in new ways. It turns out, grad class is no different.

At the very beginning of this class, we began by analyzing the importance of action research. And now, as I consider how to present my project and discuss the results, I am reminded of those preliminary conversations. Glanz, in the text Action Research, made a salient point that action research is only effective if the results are easily understood and easily replicated and utilized by fellow teachers.

My hope at the beginning of the project was to test some strategies for informational text that would be useful to other teachers, especially those fellow Language Arts teachers who are being asked to teach informational text whereas previously they had primarily been teaching literary text.

As I've recently started teaching the unit that I would use to conduct the research, I've been thinking about how I will integrate the strategies. Part of my presentation of the project will have to be the inclusion of lesson plans that directly teach the strategies. Outlining my whole plan for teaching the strategies will make it much for useful to teachers as a whole so long as the strategies prove to be successful.

It's been nice to have the foundation in the importance of action research as I look at how to apply and present the results of my study.

The End is in Sight...

The final step in my action research is to Apply the Results.  The data that I collected in the previous step will yield one of two results.  Either the students will meet the standard (75% of the students will get an 80% or higher) I have set for them or they will not.  If the students meet the standard then the DPR strategy was a success and I will recommend other math teachers to use this strategy.  If the students do not meet this standard I will let my coworkers know that this program was not successful for me.

If the program was not successful I will be curious to see if there were certain students this program did work for.  I will also want to understand why the program did not work for my class if it had worked to improve a group of students in the original experiment.

The final part will be to decide how I would like to present the information so others can learn from what I have done.  What will be the best way to allow others to learn from me; a PowerPoint, a video, or some other format?