Week 3 Action Research Rough Draft

Goals and objectives/outcomes of the research investigation:
To investigate how inquiry based learning will affect our student’s performance on standard’s based testing, district reading assessments, and student work.
To determine if inquiry based learning will have an effect on the level of engagement I child has in a classroom with these strategies compared to when not using these strategies.
To investigate whether our climate or culture will change based on the new style of inquiring about global things and expanding the horizons of our students.


Activities designed to achieve the objectives:
Participate in training on inquiry based instruction through the year in a Rice University Course partnered with Conoco Phillips called Science Module For Elementary Teachers.
Compile all the data of the school’s District Benchmark Assessments at the same period throughout the year with the previous years.
Compile all the data of the school’s Classroom Walk Through Assessments at the same time period throughout the year with the previous years.
Survey students and faculty at mid year and end of year to see how they feel about the school ex: bullying issues compared to last year, learning is more encouraging or interesting; feel of being supported by teachers, ease of talking to educators about problems.

Resources and research tools needed for data gathering

Administration and instructional coaches to help disaggregate and compare the data between this year and the previous year.
I will be calling on numerous staff members who will implementing the strategies in their classroom to make sure they are being do effectively and the data is adequate.
I will also be calling on my student’s and staff to help with the survey of the climate.
Koch, J. ( 2009 ). Science Stories:Science Methods for Elementary and Middle School Teachers. California: Wadsworth Publishing
Barell, J. (2008). Why Are School Buses Always Yellow?: Teaching for Inquiry, PreK-5. California: Corwin Press, Inc.


Draft timeline for completion or implementation of activities

The first round of data will be compared with previous years DBA data around September 20th. Will also compare beginning of the year DRA’s with previous years.

November 15, 2011- Compare second round of data to previous years through District Benchmarks. Also look at CTW data to see if engagement in classrooms is up.

February 3, 2011- Compare third and final round of District Benchmarks with previous years, also revisit CTW to see if engagement is continuing to increase.

April 2011- Compare first round of TAKS with previous year’s first round.

May 2011 Compare TAKS with previous years.
End of May 2011- Ask students in class and faculty to participate in survey to see if climate has changed for better.
June 2011- Meet with faculty to present the action research project through power point and to discuss how inquiry based learning has helped raise achievement and engagement in my classroom.

Persons responsible for implementation of the action research plan:
I talk full responsibility of implementing the action research in my classroom as well as collecting the data. I ask for the help of the instructional coaches and administrative team in comparing data and discussing data and where instruction should and could be improved.

Process for monitoring the achievement of goals and objectives:

I will monitor the achievement through the various points of data collection and comparison noted in the timeline. I will also continually touch base with staff at faculty meetings to state progress.

Assessment instrument(s) to evaluate the effectiveness of the action research study:

CTW’s, District Benchmark Assessments, Survey, State Mandated Testing,