Early Intervention

I think that the most important part of intervention--once students are identified--is to ensure the parents know that it is a process to help our student become successful. It takes all of us...working together... to ensure its success.

Action Research Plan

Action Research Plan

Goal: To determine if the Response To Intervention (RTI) process helps students enrolled in the process from Kindergarten to 2nd grade.

Action Step 1. Define and research the RTI process
Person Responsible: B. Langston
TimeLine: Start/End: July/August
Needed Resources: student data from evaluations
Evaluation: None

Action Step 2. Compile results from students in 2nd grade back to Kindergarten enrolled in the RTI process.
Person Responsible: B. Langston
Timeline: Start/End: August
Needed Resources: student data from evaluations
Evaluation: None

Action Step 3. Sort results into 2 categories: students exiting the program and students remaining in the program
Person Responsible: B. Langston
TimeLine: Start/End: August
Needed Resources: data collected
Evaluation: None

Action Step 4. With existing data, determine how many students were able to exit the program every year and how many students needed further interventions
Person Responsible: B. Langston
Timeline: Start/End: August
Needed Resources: data collected
Evaluation: None

Action Step 5. Create written report and/or PowerPoint presentation and share with colleagues
Person Responsible: B. Langston
TimeLine: Start/End: September
Needed Resources: data collected
Evaluation: None

Week 2-Research Lessons Learned

I learned quite a lot from listening to Mr. Briseno. He is a very positive leader and appears to listen to his staff and value their suggestions. The fact that he lets his teachers take the responsibility of teaching and instructing themselves when they have ideas that work for them in their classes shows that he knows and trusts his staff. Although data driven, he remembers to have a personal touch with his staff and reminds them to look at each individual student that they feel are having difficulty. He knows the importance of early intervention to try to help students before they get too far behind. No one wants to retain students. The students’ identity is very important to him and teachers have access to reports and can analyze different data to help more effectively help students.
I have also learned how important it is to apply for grants and keep up to date on the changes that occur in the field of education. This class is doing an excellent job in helping me to learn to analyze data and how to make comparisons between other campuses. It has also shown me that it is okay to talk with your constituents in other independent school districts to see how they work and how we can transfer that to help the students learn at my school. I have also learned that not all research is good research. Research should be relevant to my campus to ensure that all stakeholders will have a valued interest in it and be willing to use it.

Reflection in Action

Reflection is when you can think deeply about a problem and have the ability to make changes accordingly. When reflecting, you should be able to use prior experiences to help understand how they shape the future. In order for leaders to make decisions, they must have the cognitive skills that are required and these skills occur in three different and very distinctive stages. The first stage, the declarative stage, is when they learn the facts and they are loosely connected, but there is an increase in expertise. The second stage, the associative stage, is reached when there is a there is growth in declarative knowledge and you are becoming more of an expert. This is when you move from declarative knowledge (knowledge about) to procedural knowledge (how to knowledge). The third and final stage, the autonomous stage, is a refinement stage.
Most people assume that they already conduct action research, but reflection is a very important aspect of research. It is natural to act and then review the results of the action. Most of the time, many of us do not reflect as regularly or as critically or as systematically as we should. With regular, critical and systematic reflection we can have more confidence in our research conclusions. Without it we may overlook some important evidence. In particular, it seems to be uncommon for people to pay a lot of attention to evidence which doesn't fit in with what they expect or assume. In action research people are encouraged to seek out disconcerting evidence -- evidence which doesn't match what they expect or assume.

Educational Leaders and Blogs

Before enrolling in this university, I would have never expected to read a blog, better yet write one. Blogs are an educator’s online diary or journal. With a blog, unlike an ordinary journal, is an interactive, living document. We can receive responses (sometimes good, sometimes bad) and advice in response to the entries. Blogs can also be used as data collection devices also. Educational leaders can use the blog to correspond with faculty then have them respond to the blog instead of sending emails. In that sense, it would be a very open forum.

Action Research

Action research or administrative inquiry is a systematic way of collecting data. Inquiry is the process of examining data, questioning and gathering more information. As a leader, the principal should never forget that we are lifelong learners and should set the example for their staff by attending various workshops with staff along with administrative staff development. In administrative inquiry, the administrator or principal studies their own administrative practices and takes on action based on what is learned during the inquiry.

Action research differs from traditional education research in many ways. One difference is that in traditional research, you usually draw conclusions and in action research, you use the research to make decisions. When administrators actively use action research, they help develop teachers and it sets the example that their opinions are valued. While traditional research normally gives explanations for something, action research normally helps the various learners progress toward what they are looking for. Typically, action research is geared toward local campuses and traditional research is based on a wide range of sources.

One way that I would use action research would be to survey the staff and take their opinions on how they think that we should conduct our professional development during school hours. If they think that we should have grade level professional learning communities (PLC's) instead of the entire faculty having staff development together. The faculty would know that their opinions are always wanted and valued.

Introduction of STaR Chart at Powell Elementary

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S Ta R Chart

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