The Light At the End of the Tunnel

Wow! There are many things that have happened since I last posted. The short and sweet of it: I am finishing up EDLD 5388 this week and then starting on my last two classes beginning June 2, 2014. I should finish up my Masters in mid-August 2014. The crazy thing about all this is that I am giving serious thought about continuing with my doctorate degree!! Yikes!!

School Community Relations

I am beginning my 3rd week of School Community Relations. So I will work on catching up on what I've learned in the first two weeks of this course.

According to Joyce L. Epstein, Ph.D., there are six types of of involvement. 

• Type 1
• Parenting
• Help all families establish home environments to support children as students,

• Type 2
• Communicating
• Design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs.

• Type 3
• Volunteering
• Recruit and organize parent help and support.

• Type 4
• Learning at Home
• Provide information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other curriculum-related activities, decisions, and planning.

• Type 5
• Decision Making
• Include parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives.

• Type 6
• Collaborating with Community
• Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student learning and development.

For additional elaboration on each of these types of involvement please click on the link below.

http://www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/sixtypes.htm

This and That - Update

Things have been moving right along in regards to my Internship Plan and Action Research Plan.  My principal and assistant principal have been very supportive. First, I need to say to anyone who is considering an online Masters program. Lamar University by far has provided the best online education and customer service, at least in my opinion.  Believe me when I say, I was enrolled in another online university and I dropped out in the first semester. It was so frustrating, there was no direct communication with the professors and the graduate assistants couldn't give you an answer because they had to check with the professor first. I know some of you may not feel the same way, I respect your feelings, but Lamar University has an outstanding online education program. No! They are not paying me to say this, I have experienced the worst and can compare the performance.

Internship Plan

Wow!! I've have been doing so many things that are geared towards the competencies. Here goes:

• I planned and conducted a professional development after school for all teachers. The subject matter was ELPS.
• On Saturday, the science teacher and I are taking our students (the ones who sign up) to a mock surgery at an Austin area hospital. 
• In December, my principal called me in to meet with her and a couple of students from a nearby high school. These students were wanting to find out if they could tutor our students (preferably on Saturdays).  In January, they contacted the principal and the principal put me in charge of creating a letter (English and Spanish) to parents of prospective students that need that extra boost of help. This Saturday (Feb. 9) will be our first. They will tutor two times a month.

• Today (Feb. 6) at the request of my principal, attended a professional development entitled: Race: The Power of An Illusion. It was a film series regarding race in America. It was a very intense PD. It was also an eye opener for many!Here's their website if your interested. http://www.centerhealingracism.org/home0.aspx

 Action Research Plan

 Another big WOW!  Things are going well.  I have started my ARP which is working with ELLs in Science.  The science teacher and I tutor the students twice a week and on Fridays assess them.  Snacks are provided by the school district.  We conduct various activities including experiments, vocabulary, and videos...oh and we play Jeopardy!! It's been lots of work but lots of fun too!!

Reflections of Five Weeks Gone By...

From the beginning of EDLD 5301 – Research, it has been an eye-opener and given me new insights and perspective of how research is has changed. We began with comparing and contrasting administrator inquiry and traditional research. We learned about the benefits of conducting an action research project. We also created a blog that will be used to keep track of changes or adjustments of our action research throughout its course.

In our second week, we viewed four interviews of administrators and researchers who provided advice about action research. This it was very useful information because it made me feel easier about action research. Many times schools are not open to change.

Moving on to our third week we created a blueprint of our action research plan.  Using the action planning template really helped me to organize my thoughts and action plan, step-by-step. We also use the 8 steps from analysis to action book that was very useful and insightful in assisting with further organization.  During this week we posted our action research plan on our blog. It was quite useful to have our peers leave comments on our plan. The majority of the comments were very useful and I was able to revise my plan based on some of those comments. 

The fourth and fifth weeks have been to reflect on what we have learned throughout the course of EDLD 5301. The lectures with Dr. Arterbery and Dr. Jenkins were very useful and they were very understanding and at times I felt they knew what I might be thinking, “Oh, this sounds difficult!” but they were right, things moved right along through the five weeks.

The web conferences (face to face) with Dr. Abshire were great. She answered our questions, without making us feel incompetent.  I really think the web conferences are very useful because it helps with connecting with a real live person that can answer our silly questions or help build our confidence in what we already know and applying it to the course.

Discussion boards are great forums for communicating with peers. It allows us to help each other by asking those questions we haven’t thought of ourselves. This assists us in creating a better plan by taking some of our peer’s advice to heart.

My favorite part of the textbook (and both are keepers to be added to my library) is in the Dana textbook, Chapter 3, entitled, “The Road Map,” I plan on rereading this section to help me with the various ways I can use and create data. I really think the strategies they spoke about can be incorporated into my research plan.

Fourth Week - Revised Action Research Plan

I will not re-post my Action Plan Research due to the fact that during the third week, I was able to change my plan using comments from my peers. After reviewing my plan with my site supervisor, I did not make any additional changes. Please see Week 3 for my Action Plan Research. Thank you to all of you who took the time to post a comment. I truly appreciate it. If there is anything I can do for you, please let me know. Thank you again.

Third Week - Action Plan Template (revised)

Action Plan Research
Goal: Increase 5th grade English language learners (ELLs) achievement in science vocabulary.
	Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1	Decide on Action Research topic	Josephine Valenzuela	November 2012	Principal’s input, previous assessments, AEIS reports, etc.	Determine the needs of the school and its effect on previous student performance on STAAR, benchmarks, etc.
2	Identify ELLs in 5th grade.	Josephine Valenzuela Principal and Assistant Principal	December 2012/January 2013	Data identifying students as ELLs in 5th grade.	Utilize TELPAS Rating Sheets and Scores
3	Evaluate and create a spreadsheet of scores by grade level.	Josephine Valenzuela 5th grade Science teacher	January 2013	TELPAS Scores	Disaggregate data to determine present levels of each student.
4	Prepare/develop curriculum, including planned assessments on a weekly basis	Josephine Valenzuela, Principal, Assistant Principal, 5th grade Science teachers	January 2013	Use a variety of resources to plan curriculum	Weekly assessments will determine growth
5	Prepare permission letter to parents for after school activity.	Josephine Valenzuela, Principal, Assistant Principal	January 2013	Approval from principal for sending permission letter to parents	N/A
6	Conduct after school tutoring to 5th grade students specifically in science vocabulary	Josephine Valenzuela	January 2013-April 2013	Begin tutoring, reflect and assess	Conduct assessments on a weekly basis and chart/graph growth
7	Continually monitor progress through weekly assessments and science classroom assessments	Josephine Valenzuela and 5th grade Science teacher	January 2013-April 2013	Weekly assessment, science assessments	Plot or graph growth with students, teachers, and parents
8	Review and evaluate EOY District Benchmarks and STAAR Science results	Josephine Valenzuela, Principal, Assistant Principal, Science Teachers	May-June 2013	EOY benchmark  and STAAR results	Summarize findings of EOY and STAAR results
9	Survey	Josephine Valenzuela	June 2013	Survey	Survey results

Week 3: Reflections on Reading

 Since I posted last week about Chapter 2 of Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher, this week I will focus and reflect on Chapter 3 of that same book.

Chapter 3 is entitled “The Road Map” and for good reason too.  It shows us the various ways in which we as action researchers can obtain data to drive our research into action.  It all begins with a plan.

Strategy 1	Quantitative Measures Of Student Achievement (Standardized Test Scores, Assessment Measures, Grades) We assess students everyday and in every way.  This is data! Use it to your advantage.  For me that means, TELPAS, TAKS/STAAR, ITBS, district benchmarks for BOY, MOY, EOY, DRA, etc. Data drives everything that means change.
Strategy 2	Field Notes According to Dana, “Field notes are not interpretations; rather, they focus on capturing what is occurring without commenting on why the action is occurring or judging a particular act.” Field notes can be a script, conversational notes, drawings, dialogue (Dana, 2009). How your field notes take shape depend on what you are researching. Using field notes can help the researcher capture the moment.
Strategy 3	Interviews Administrators are constantly being asked for a “moment” of their time. This can be at times overwhelming and can burnout an administrator (Dana, 2009). This strategy calls for the reverse to occur.  The administrator is doing the interviewing to help in the decision making or in a wondering about the building community. This helps the administrator gain a grasp on what others are thinking and an opportunity for the administrator to reflect and perhaps derive a wonder from it.
Strategy 4	Documents/Artifacts/Student Work The type of strategy provides an insight into the daily happenings of a school.  Generating a paper trail of student work, curriculum guides, textbooks, teacher manuals, children’s literature, IEPs, district memos, parent newsletters, progress reports, teacher planning books, written lesson plans, and correspondence to and from parents, specialists, and you as the principal (Dana, 2009).
Strategy 5	Digital Pictures Capturing photos in the new age technology is simple, quick and easy. The development and process of photos is even quicker. You don’t have to wait to the roll of film to have it developed and processed. Photography is immediate and is still a great way of telling a story.
Strategy 6	Video As in Strategy 5: Digital Pictures, video plays a vital role in capturing the moment with nothing added to or inferring of as in a photograph. It is the essence of “being there” and knowing and being able to tell the story by what is said and done in the video.
Strategy 7	Reflective Journals and/or Weblogs Journals and weblogs are one in the same with the exception that journals may not always be easily accessible for immediate reflection. Weblogs on the other hand can be updated by simply logging into it from any internet connection.  Weblogs can be in the form of a blog or a website. It chronicles your reflections. Either way it helps the principal-researcher gain new insight to everyday happenings and it provides for a way to reflect at the end of a day or week.
Strategy 8	Surveys Surveys give teachers, parents, and students a space to share their thoughts and opinions about any number of happenings in the school building (Dana, 2009). There are several ways to present surveys but the most important thing to keep in mind is that before people can complete a survey, there needs to be the element of trust. Knowing that whatever is said will not come back to haunt the person completing the survey.  Programs such as Survey Monkey can provide such anonymity if necessary.
Strategy 9	Literature Researchers whether traditional or action cannot conduct research without searching for similar types of studies and their results.  It is vital tool to your wondering, inquiry or research. Dana (2009) says, “To collect literature as a form of data for your inquiry, you will need to figure out which pieces of literature connect to your wonderings and will give you insights as your study is unfolding.”
Summary What form or how much data will help you in your wondering or inquiry?  Optimally, data collection proceeds until you reach a state where you are no longer gaining insights into your wondering or question and no new information is emerging (Dana, 2009).