Update

I spoke with my site supervisor about my plans for the action research. She and I started off discussing some areas of concerns with our campus and some possible areas that were in need for more parental involvement. I shared with her my interest about parent involvement within our classrooms and the affect of student academic improvement.  She agreed to look at the effects of parental involvement and accountability in the daily work and test in the classroom environment. We talked about programs that we currently have in place such as math night, reading night and science night, which is producing good number of parent participation. We talked about possibly hosting something on a smaller scale within the classroom and based on the results becoming school wide. I shared with my site supervisor about possibly offering incentives for the students who convince their parents to come into the classroom and be apart for a day. I would like the parents to become co-teachers in a sense so that they are able to see what it takes as teacher to make sure their child is becoming successful. I hope to find a solution to help to improve student achievement within our campus and possibly our district through increased parental involvement.

Action Research Plan

I am very excited about researching the effects of parent involvement to student success in the classroom. I will share all I learn with team, and hopefully, this information will assist in all students reaching for the stars!

Action Planning Template
Goal: To obtain information on the effects of parent involvement to student success in the classroom.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Create a survey for students	Kendra Collins	September 2013	Students and survey monkey	Assess results from survey
Create a survey for parents	Kendra Collins	September 2013	Parents and survey monkey	Assess results from survey to establish a plan to involve parents
Conduct Student Interviews	Kendra Collins	October 2013	students	Evaluate student responses about barriers they feel will be a problem with parental involvement in the classroom setting.
Collect and analyze computer generated data	Kendra Collins, campus principal, classroom teachers, and Sp. Ed. teacher	January 2014	Students daily class work, benchmark test,	Examine and analyze data from time to time to evaluate student progress. Adjust and modify parental involvement plan according to the findings.

Week 2 Reflection

During week two, I really thought long and hard about what I wanted to do my action research plan over. I though about several ideas. Some ideas were not appropriate to fit the outline of the template. So I decided to research parental involvement. I believe parental involvement is crucial in order for most students to be successful. In the past, I have had students whose parents were not involved in their school life, but were very successful. This is not the case for all students. Therefore, I would like to research ways to increase parental involvement.

Benefits of educators using blogs

Benefits of educators using blogs.

Blogs are very beneficial in education because it helps to promote technology. Blogs promote critical and analytical thinking. Teachers can use blogs to promote learning beyond the classroom. Through blogging students, teachers, and administrators are able to post and view various contexts. Blogs can serve as a collaboration tool, classroom management, discussion, and student portfolios. Through blogging students and professionals are introduced to another world outside of most collaboration methods used in technology.

What is action research and how might you use it?

What is action research and how might you use it?

Through research and informative texts, I have learned that action research are analysis used by professionals to increase their performance levels as administrators and teachers. Administrators use various methods of appraisals among themselves and their staff . Action research has many components similar to a school improvement plan. Action research is performed by people carrying out their professional actions from day to day and its purpose is to understand and to improve those actions. It is about trying to understand professional action from the inside. It is research that is carried out by practitioners on their own practice and not by someone on somebody else’s practice. To sum it up action research is the improvement of practice, understanding of practice, and the situation in which the practice takes place.

One of the benefits of action research is to enhance the lives of administrators, students, and teachers through educational change. Through the Dana readings she states administrators and teachers who conduct action research are directly responsible for making decisions. They determine the issues or problems to be researched and they develop and implement the inquiry. Action research allows for the improvement of student learning and the enhancement of teaching and campus goals. Collaboration helps to improve working relationships amongst teachers. Through action research administrators and teachers gain a greater understanding of their own practice. Through action research teachers and principals are empowered to make informed decisions about what to change and what not to change. Action research can increase teamwork, student achievement and morale among all stakeholders of a school.