Goals and objectives of research investigation:
Create an online community of content area teachers working on instructional strategies for LEP instruction.
Raise awareness of how technology can be used for professional development among teachers.
Raise the awareness of how technology can be incorporated with students.
Raise LEP scores of schools whose teachers are participating in the action research project.
Participating teachers will have the capacity to create new online PLC communities in the future.
Activities designed to achieve the objectives:
Six hour professional development session to be offered at Regional Service Center for science teachers. This session will teach teachers how to create their own blog, post to their blog, and learn how to follow and respond to other’s blogs.
Instructional strategies will be posted each week on the science specialist’s blog. Teachers will implement the strategy with their students and then reflect about their experiences on their blog and then respond to others reflections.
Teachers will be asked to incorporate a new technology practice with their students as one of their weekly strategies.
Teachers will be asked to come back the following year and be a part of a new group of teachers as they create their own online PLC team.
Discuss the online PLC project during the Curriculum and Instruction PLC meetings to help others start similar PLC teams in their own content areas.
Resources and research tools needed for data gathering:
Teachers will need computes and internet access to be able to use their blogs.
Surveys will be used to gather data about blog usage and number of LEP students being served.
Interviews with participants will take place during the project.
Access to regional TAKS scores.
Timeline for completion/implementation of activities:
August – Professional Development Session to be added to Regional Website
September – A Six Hour Professional Development Session to be held at Service Center and a survey will be created to determine demographic data and past instructional strategies that have been implemented by the teachers. Each of these will be completed by the Science Specialist.
November – Survey of participants to be created by Science Specialist and completed by teachers.
November – Report on action research project with the Curriculum and Instruction PLC team to be given by Science Specialist
March – Interviews with participants to be conducted by Science Specialist
May – Face to Face meeting with all participants to review the online PLC process and interviews to determine how the new instructional strategies affected instruction. Interviews and meeting will be conducted by Science Specialist.
September 2012 – State Science Specialist meeting to share action research project with other science specialists across the state.
Persons responsible for implementation of the action research plan:
The Secondary Science Specialist will set up the Professional Development Session and facilitate the teacher blogs.
Teachers who sign up for the Professional Development Session will be responsible for the implementation of the strategies in their own classrooms and reflecting on the research.
Other Content Area Specialists will be responsible for repeating the plan within their own content areas with assistance from the Science Specialist.
Process for monitoring the achievement of goals and objectives:
Science Specialist will monitor and facilitate the teacher blogs weekly to offer support and ideas.
Teachers will be asked to rate the effectiveness of their interactions with their LEP students and the instructional strategies at the end of each six weeks.
Technology integration will be documented in teacher blogs. Teachers will be asked to post how they have used technology with their students.
Assessment instruments to evaluate the effectiveness of the action research study:
Surveys of teachers to gather demographic data of students to be created by Science Specialist and completed by teachers.
Interviews at the beginning and end of the project to determine which instructional strategies have been used in the past and any new strategies that were found to be helpful at the end of the study will be completed by Science Specialist.
TAKS data for the Region and for individual schools to be reviewed by Science Specialist and individual teachers.
Usage data to track the amount of posts/interactions between the teachers using the blogs will be completed by Science Specialist.
Patricia,
ReplyDeleteYour project looks very interesting. I see that you are disseminating the completed project information in September to the State Science Specialist. I would recommend that you also review the completed report with the PLC. It would give them closure to the process and data to present the idea to their colleagues on their home campuses.