Lourdes Mueller's Research Action Plan

Action Research Plan
Goal:  To determine if developing an assessment tool for Pre-K students will target weaknesses in instruction and curriculum.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Survey kindergarten teachers in district to align Pre-K assessment to Kindergarten expectations	Principal Lourdes Mueller	April 2013	Survey Monkey	Use survey questions to gain insight on the preferred expectations of teachers for incoming kindergarteners
Develop an Evaluation tool for PK students	Principal Lourdes Mueller	June 2013-August 2013	Research assessment tools used by other districts for Pre-K	Share with steering committee for feedback
Give teachers assessment tool for the year and relay expectations for students based on Teacher results from survey monkey	Tonya Garza Lourdes Mueller	August 2013	Assessment tool, Results of survey monkey	Feedback from teachers
Train teachers on components of Balanced Literacy to ensure expectations for student evaluation	Consultant, Andrea Torres	August 2013	Balanced Literacy components	Meeting Agenda, teacher evaluation of training .
Analyze Data from 1st  9 weeks evaluations	Tonya Garza, Lourdes Mueller Steering committee members	October 2013	All Data Collected	This data will provide a starting point for study of this research project.
Analyze Data from 2nd 9 weeks evaluations and compare to district expectations.	Lourdes Mueller Tonya Garza Steering Committee	January 2014	District Pre-k checklist, Pre-k evaluation results	Look at data and compare to 1st  9 weeks to determine areas of weakness, if any and align instruction to meet expectations.
Meet with site supervisor and discuss research findings thus far. Determine if changes to instruction need to be made.	Tonya Garza Lourdes Mueller	January 2014	All Data Collected	Look at data to determine if there is a pattern in results which point to weaknesses in instruction. Get feedback from site supervisor.
Analyze Data from 3rd 9 weeks evaluations and compare to district expectations.	Lourdes Mueller Tonya Garza Steering Committee	March 2014	District Pre-k checklist, Pre-k evaluation results	Look at data and compare to 1st and 2nd 9 weeks data to determine areas of weakness, if any and align instruction to meet expectations.
Compare data from two participant groups and determine if there is any difference in student achievement between participants.	Lourdes Mueller Tonya Garza Steering Committee	March 2014	All Data collected	Report results to site supervisor and steering committee
Analyze Data from 4th  9 weeks, and compare to previous 9 weeks evaluations.	Lourdes Mueller Tonya Garza Steering Committee	June 2014	District Pre-k checklist, Pre-k evaluation results	Look at data and compare all 9 weeks data to determine areas of weakness, if any and also look at data as it relates to participants and determine if there are differences in student achievement among participants.
Determine results of research action plan. Share with site supervisor and SBMT, PK steering committee	Lourdes Mueller Tonya Garza	June 2014	Data from evaluations	Determine if evaluation tool identified weaknesses in instruction and curriculum

Analysis of why leaders use and benefit from blogs

Educational leaders today have a very powerful tool in blogging.When leaders blog about their thoughts and practices, and questions they collaborate and support one another.  Administrators have a chance to share insight, ideas and issues in a forum that other principals can read and contribute to. Blogging is also like keeping a journal, which gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we are doing and the direction we want to take to make changes. Sharing your inquiries in a blog connects you to a very large audience of principals, who may have insight on your issues or action plans that can help you in your research to improve your research action plan. This mode of communication allows leaders to grow professionally at a quicker pace, than if reflection is done alone at one's own campus. I think blogs are a great and positive resource for administrators that are in a technology driven world.

Action Research as a Powerful Tool for Success

What have I learned about action research and how I can use it?

Action Research is a very powerful tool for integrating change for overall improvement of your students, culture and climate of your school.  As an administrator, using action research allows me to focus on the needs of my students, teachers, and environment at my school. I learned that traditionally, an administrator was more of a technician, carrying out what others, outside of their campus have researched and recommended to improve their student achievement and school environment. Although the research of others is a very important part for initiating change, it is imperative that the inquiry or question come from the administrator and address problems that they face on their campus and with their teachers and students. Action research has a powerful effect on administration.  As an administrator engages in inquiry, it makes her reflections purposeful and visible. It allows her to be reflective, collect and analyze data about the needs of her students and teachers, and it allows for administrators to work in a “professional learning community” with other staff members, which builds rapport on the campus as well as creating a good model of instructional leadership. I feel that as an aspiring leader I could use action research specifically on my campus to take initiative and reflect on the needs of my campus. Meeting with teachers and staff will enable me to inquire about the needs of our students and our school that are keeping us from being more successful.  As an inquiring leader, I will specifically assess the needs of Pre-K students on our campus and research how improving student learning and instruction through assessment can improve teacher performance and student achievement. I feel that researching other full day Pre-K campuses and researching what 4 year olds can accomplish and how you can assess them will give me great insight on what we have to do to raise the expectations of teachers and students on our campus. I am very excited to get started on my action research project and with my supervisor, implement changes that will help our emergent learners be more successful and kindergarten ready.