Action Research --How classroom size affects the students ability to learn and to achieve the desired results for learning at that grade level

Developing an Action Research Plan
Action Research --How classroom size affects the students ability to learn and  to achieve the desired results for learning at that grade level
Note: Steps 1- 6 pertain to Conroe ISD. Steps 6-7 Pertain to National Data and Analyzing the two
Outcomes	Activities	Resourses/Research Tools Needed	Responsibility to Address Activities	Benchmarks/Assessment	Revisions to SIP/PIP bases on monitoring and assesments
Step 1-- Determine what the current class sizes are in grades 1-12	Meet with curiculum director and counselor at each grade level	Permission from Principlas of each school to conduce interview	Jo Ann Guido	Completed by end of 2011-2012 - June 2012	Currenty I do not have any revisions as I am in the creation of the project.  As I continue with the creation and move on the revisions will create themselves and I will make the changes.
Step 2 --Once the class size is determined then the achievement level for each class needs to be determined	Gather the data for a three year period on the achievement level. Use three years to determine an average to work with	Obtaining access to the data from the Principals	Jo Ann Guido	End of 2011-2012 school year - June 2012
Step 3 - How does Gender, race, social growth and subject matter affect the learning outcome with different class sizes	Gather the data concerning achievement for these areas. Use three years to determine an average to work with. Create the data separate from Step 2 and then merge Step 2 data and Step 3 data together to start to analyize and create a solution.	Obtaining access to the data from the Principals	Jo Ann Guido	End of 2011-2012 school year - June 2012
Step 4 --Interview teachers at each level for feedback on student achievement in various class sizes	Set up interviews with each teacher to understand their class sturcture with different sizes.  How they alter their teaching structure based on class room size. How much is accomplished with each classroom size. How student behavior changes with classroom size.	Access to teachers and acceptance of Interview	Jo Ann Guido	End of 2011-2012 school year - June 2012
Step 5--Analyze Data- Class Size/Class Achievement	This step requires building spreadsheets and graphs to begin to determine how the two pieces of the data relate to each other	Spreadsheet software	Jo Ann Guido	End of June 2012
Step 6-- This step will be the beginning of actually determining how classroom size affects learning. All the data for Conroe ISD will have been gathered and organized into a format for analyzing	Compare the learning achievement with the classroom size based on how the teacher has to adjust teaching with classroom size variation.	Data that was gathered in Step 1-4	Jo Ann Guido	June- July 2012
Step 7 -- Steps 1-6 dealt with Conore ISD.  In this step analyzing the National recommendation for classroom size will be the goal	On line activity. Data should be available thru National School Sites	Internet Access	Jo Ann Guido	July - August 2012
Step 8-- Create comparison data to evaluate the Conroe ISD and National Recommendation	Build comparion spreadsheet for evaluation	Spreadsheet software	Jo Ann Guido	August 2012
Step 9 -- Once Step 8 is created the recommendation for the school can be built for presentation.	Create presentation and reiview for Principals	Set up meeting to present data.  By now the 2012-2013 school year will be underway and the data will be focused on making changes for the the 2012-2014 school year	Jo Ann Guido	Sept - Nov 2012

Class 2 ------Week 2 Reflection

Week 2 reflection. This is the second week of this course and it is proving to be a very good course. I have been able to really look at different areas of inquiry and really think about what goes into school system success. I do not have a desire to become a principal. I want to be able to assist the principal in making the school a success and keeping moral up and students learning with excitement. I am looking forward to the rest of the class as I feel it is helping me to focus on areas I have not thought about.

How Educational Leaders might use Blogs

How Educational leaders might use blogs What comes to mind is to use Blogs for brainstorming. This is a great way for everyone involved to quickly post their idea and allow everyone else to see it. This will allow everyone involved to look at all the ideas and expand the thought pattern of whatever the ideas were about. It is another form of communication across distance and the communication is instant

What I have learned about Action Research

Action research moves us away from the standard learning which I view as memorization of facts. In the standard learning we are taught to memorize and know these facts. Many times we do need to do just that. As an example --- learn all 50 States. This is purely memorization. And yes you do need to know this. However, action research goes beyond this memorization and allows the student to look at all 50 States and analysis something about the State. An example would be to compare all the States in the Southeast with the States in the Southwest concerning the number of Students that go on to college. This would allow the student to gather information on this and then go further in depth as to why one area of the United States has more students entering college than another. Staying with the traditional learning would only have the student know the names of the States versus Action learning will allow the student to start to gather a larger picture and understand what needs to be looked at in order to determine why one area has more college students than another. With Action research one is able to think “outside the box” and explore beyond the traditional learning environment. By doing this more information is gathered and learned thereby allowing for change to be made based on the Inquiry that was created and results of this inquiry. Action Research can really help the student and faculty to move beyond the boundaries of learning that Traditional Research has created.