Monday, March 12, 2012

Developing an Action Research Plan

1.     Goals and objects/outcomes of the research investigation
To determine if Working Lunch is meeting the needs of all Raines High School students as a discipline consequence.
2.     Activities designed to achieve the objectives
Meeting with the principal to discuss data that can be provided on the following areas:
-       # of students per day that attend Working Lunch
-       the names of students that are habitual attendees
-       the grades of habitual attendees in 1st period and 4th period (right before lunch)
-       discipline referrals for the habitual attendees
-       collection of student anecdotal data
Meeting with a group of students to discuss a problem/solution process in which their voice will help shape the discipline/consequence structure at Raines High School
Enacting a new discipline/consequence structure at Raines High School and collecting data on this.
3.     Resources and research tools needed for data gathering
A log of all Working Lunch students from 2011-2012
A copy of discipline referrals that led to Working Lunch attendance in 2011-2012
A copy of attendance for the 2011-2012 school year (looking at tardies)
Grades for 2011-2012 Working Lunch attendees from 1st and 4th period
Time during the school day to meet with groups of students to discuss a problem/solution process
Full cooperation of staff to enact new discipline procedure during the 2012-2013 school year
A log of students who were consequenced under the new discipline plan from 2012-2013
A copy of all discipline referrals that led to consequences under new discipline plan in 2012-2013
A copy of attendance for the 2012-2013 school year (looking at tardies)
Grades for 2012-2013 students consequenced under the new discipline plan from 1st and 4th period
Student anecdotal data, to be collected throughout the process
4.     Draft timeline for completion or implementation of activities
Gathering data starts immediately (March 2012)
Student meetings needs to occur before the end of the school year (June 2012)
Implementation of new discipline procedure needs to be agreed upon by the staff by the start of the 2012-2013 school year (August 2012)
Implementation of new discipline procedure needs to be discussed with students on the first day of school (September 2012)
Data needs to be collected throughout the process (September 2012-ongoing 2013)
Final analysis (May 2013)
5.     Persons responsible for implementation of the action research plan
Jonathon Gutierrez – Masters student
Becky Tucker – Principal
Alys Shorter – Assistant Principal
Raines High School Staff
Raines High School Students
6.     Process for monitoring the achievement of goals and objectives
Collecting data as discussed in #3
Student anecdotal data
7.     Assessment instrument(s) to evaluate the effectiveness of the action research study
Success will be measured by tardies, attendance, grades, # of discipline referrals, promotion to the “auto” program and possibly graduate success.

1 comment:

  1. This is a good plan. Your school has an established discipline procedure and you want to see if it is effective. That is what research is all about. How big is your school? I ask because when you were proposing your plan, you mentioned changing the schedule and I noticed that you only had one lunch period. That leads me to believe that you are at a small school. If that is the case, you should really be able to get good information from your plan. Also, your step 3 seems very well organized.
    Overall, good plan because you will be able to find out if this program rally works. Too often, schools stick with things because that is the way that they have always done things. Maybe your plan will shake things up.

    ReplyDelete