Strategies for Sustaining Improvement

My school adopted a PLC model a couple of years ago.  We have been trying to really honor the process with norms and in creating a more open dialogue between staff and administration.  My action research is on writing and I am pleased to see that my principal either has great innate leadership skills or has heard of force field theory.  We encouraged teachers to share their apprehensions before implementing the writing curriculum and have included training and retraining to aid in the transition. Throughout our staff development meetings we have included time for listing and addressing concerns.  At the beginning of the following meeting we have summarized our findings from the previous meeting before proceeding with the content of the next staff development.  It sure feels good to think one did it the right way.  Planning trumps luck every time. 

I really like the Delphi method.  Too often teachers are asked to answer a questionnaire and then that’s it.  There is no closure.  No one knows what happened to the information, why it was gathered.  This has happened too many times at my campus and is taking a concerted effort to rebuild trust in the system so that teachers are willing and hopefully someday eager to share their thoughts.   The Delphi method is a great way to include many voices in decision making without long and frequent meetings.  I want to go and try this with my staff right now.  This would be really good for identifying critical academic needs or for narrowing down possible approaches to school policies.

Nominal Group Technique sounds very similar to a PLC technique called Ordered Sharing.  I like that it allows everyone in the group a chance to voice their opinion without any one person taking over the conversation.  I like that it is in a group but also seems to protect some anonymity allowing for genuine opinions to be shared.  This would be good for having the staff discuss concerns and obstacles to using a writing curriculum and in suggesting ways to implement it into their classrooms.

EDLD 5301 Week 3 Reflections

Finally got my action plan written out on paper.  It seemed so straightforward until I wrote it out and realized there were a few more steps than I had originally thought.  I also relearned the importance of having a new set of eyes to review it.

The English chair at my school suggested a major improvement.  Originally, I had thought to just look at test data and the changes in writing convention scores on the standardized tests.  Then I decided to survey the teachers and see how (or if) they are implementing the writing curriculum that is supposed to be schoolwide.  The English chair suggested that I ask the ninth grade teachers for writing samples from the beginning of the year so that we can compare them to end-of-the-year writing samples to look for improvement.  I think that will exponentially improve this study.

Since writing in all classrooms is a critical academic need at my school this will be a major boost for our self-study and for our accreditation process in the Spring.

ACTION PLANNING TEMPLATE (Revised Draft)
GOAL:	To measure the degree to which the staff at WVHS has implemented Step Up to Writing strategies in their daily curriculum To discover and ameliorate obstacles to SUTW implementation To measure the impact the implementation of Step Up to Writing has had on writing scores of students at WVHS on the high school exit exam and the  the CSTs?
Action Step(s)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1. Gather research articles and literature on writing across the curriculum	John Bradshaw	Aug/Sept 2012	internet access, professional education journals	Natalie Ruddell, district writing coach
2. Create teacher survey on SUTW implementation for 2011-2012 school year	John Bradshaw	Aug 8, 2012	Microsoft Word	Principal English Chair
3. Meet with supervisor to  get permission for teacher surveys	Principal	Aug 10, 2012	Copy of action research plan, teacher survey	Principal
4. Conduct survey of teachers	John Bradshaw	Aug 21, 2012	Teacher surveys	NA
5. Invite 9th grade English teachers to gather writing samples of freshman class	Ninth grade  English Teachers	Aug 28, 2012	Write requests to English department	English Chair
6. Get writing samples from English department	John Bradshaw	Sept 11, 2012	Folders for storing samples	English Chair
7. Analyze teacher survey data	John Bradshaw	Sept 2012	Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, surveys	NA
8. Review training of staff at site	SUTW Trainer John Bradshaw	Sept 2012	SUTW training materials	NA
9. Lead discussion of SUTW implementation  in leadership meeting	Department Chairs	Oct 2, 2012	Summary of surveys	NA
10. Collect evidence of SUTW implementation	Department Chairs	Nov/ Dec 2012	NA	NA
11. Collect testing data from 2009-2010, 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years	John Bradshaw	Sept 2012	Data Director CAHSEE data CST data	NA
12. Facilitate staff development on ways to use SUTW and how to grade it	John Bradshaw SUTW trainer	Nov 2012	SUTW rubrics List of writing prompts/ ideas	Principal
13. Survey staff again on implementation of SUTW in 2012-2013 school year	John Bradshaw	May 21, 2013	Microsoft Word	Principal
14. Write report of findings	John Bradshaw	Summer 2013	Microsoft Word, survey results, professional readings, testing data	Principal English Chair
15. Make recommendations to leadership team	John Bradshaw	Aug 2013	PowerPoint, report, summary of report, data	Feedback from Leadership Team
16. Collect data from 2012-2013 school year	John Bradshaw	Aug 2013	Data Director	Compare data with previous years
17. Present findings to staff	John Bradshaw	Aug 2013	PowerPoint	Principal Leadership Team

EDLD 5301 Week 2 Reflections

In week two I read about other people's action research topics.  It makes me wonder if my topic is too broad.  My research topic is "How is Step Up to Writing being implemented in the classrooms at West Valley High School?"  I had also wanted to find out how the implementation of the program has influence test scores on writing conventions on state tests.

I hadn't considered the wide range of topics that could be dissected with action research.  I actually enjoyed reading about the things other people wanted to research from the readings as well as from the webinar and the facebook site.  I would really like to see a school that has action research as part of its professional practice.  All too often it seems that a handful of teachers or admin want to improve the school and the majority while unhappy professionally keeps plodding along.  I like the idea of action research as a way to energize the staff and confront problems at my own site.

How Educators Can Use Blogs

Educators can use blogs in several ways.  First, educators could work in collaboration using a blog to share opinions with each other.   They could also link to videos and articles about educational topics and then discuss them.  This allows communication back and forth instead of just from the original writer of the blog.

Second, educators could use a blog to communicate with their students.  Teachers could post homework, study guides, and readings for the class.  They could also provide a venue for students to communicate with each other on topics of their own devising.

What I've Learned about Action Research...

Action research is the means by which the school can examine its practices to measure their effectiveness.  Schools are filled with programs.  Both teachers and principals rely too much on their gut instinct to decide whether their programs are effective.  All too often we, as professionals, lose perspective.  Teachers only see the school from their classroom perspective while principals see it from a school-wide perspective.

Action research is a tool to quantify what they believe to be true or to discover that programs are less effective than perceived.  Teachers are often convinced that their way is the best way without any external evidence to prove their view.

Action research is an opportunity for teachers and principals to really get involved with the larger vision of the school.  This self-examination forces them to get out of the "classroom in isolation" to larger concepts of teacher collaboration, vertical teaming, and school-wide culture.  Action research is a way for the teachers and administration to work together to work towards the school vision.  Rather than bringing in some outside theory based on an academic study at a distant university, action research is observation based on the campus for the campus.  It is the most pertinent examination of school practice possible.  Teachers will have more buy-in because it's a study about them for them.

Effective action research can show whether programs or teaching strategies are worth while which can help the school pursue and remain within a continuing cycle of improvement.