Sunday, July 25, 2010
Week 2 (EDLD 5301) Reflections
Lessons Learned: No matter how good we think our school is performing, even if the school has achieved Exemplary ratings from TAKS results, there is always room for improvement. There are examples in the Dana book that made me start thinking about the way things are done at our school and then I started realizing that there are numerous procedures that could be improved. Now I don't really want to be the person responsible for making all of the changes but I could certainly work on a few.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
An Education Leader's Use for Blogs
I think leaders in education could use blogs for the purpose of communicating information to faculty/staff/students. If the administrator make a regular posting to the blog and has the teachers set up RSS feeds on their computers then the administrators ideas will be readily available for students/faculty and parents to read. This could be an excellent way for them to stay current with information from the educational leaders.
Learning About Action Research
In the process of reviewing articles, and books, I have learned several things about action research. Action research, or inquiry, is a self-evaluation of your teaching methods or if a principal then your leadership practices. This type of inquiry directly involves the people that will be affected by the outcome of the inquiry. Several steps are involved in this process.
First, you must recognize there is a need for improvement. Maybe you hear grumblings from the faculty about a procedure you have been implementing or you hear from unhappy parents about something the teachers are doing in the classroom, or maybe your students are not performing as well as they have in the past. Recognizing this need leads to the second step.
The second step is asking questions. This could be done as a survey or a questionnaire. The principal can ask the teachers to respond to a set of questions. If the inquiry is being done by a teacher, then the questions can be asked of the students and/or the parents. The questions need to be pertinent to the need the principal/teacher identified.
Third, the principal/teacher will take the results of the survey and analyze them. The surveyor needs to prepared for the answers to the questions if the students/faculty have been honest. After analyzing the data the practitioner should reflect on the results.
After reflecting on the results the principal/teacher will make a plan for the changes. This plan should address the problem that was identified in the beginning.
Last the principal/teacher will communicate the action plan to those actively involved in implementing the plan.
The outcome of the inquiry should be that improvement in student achievement has taken place on the campus. It could be the result of a change in the classroom, a change in rules and regulations, a change in the way evaluations are done or maybe even something as simple as a change in the cafeteria menus.
I can see how I could use action research to determine how I can improve the use of technology in the classroom. Both teachers and students can be questioned about their uses of technology in the classroom. From the results of the questions I can design a plan and implement the plan in the classrooms.
First, you must recognize there is a need for improvement. Maybe you hear grumblings from the faculty about a procedure you have been implementing or you hear from unhappy parents about something the teachers are doing in the classroom, or maybe your students are not performing as well as they have in the past. Recognizing this need leads to the second step.
The second step is asking questions. This could be done as a survey or a questionnaire. The principal can ask the teachers to respond to a set of questions. If the inquiry is being done by a teacher, then the questions can be asked of the students and/or the parents. The questions need to be pertinent to the need the principal/teacher identified.
Third, the principal/teacher will take the results of the survey and analyze them. The surveyor needs to prepared for the answers to the questions if the students/faculty have been honest. After analyzing the data the practitioner should reflect on the results.
After reflecting on the results the principal/teacher will make a plan for the changes. This plan should address the problem that was identified in the beginning.
Last the principal/teacher will communicate the action plan to those actively involved in implementing the plan.
The outcome of the inquiry should be that improvement in student achievement has taken place on the campus. It could be the result of a change in the classroom, a change in rules and regulations, a change in the way evaluations are done or maybe even something as simple as a change in the cafeteria menus.
I can see how I could use action research to determine how I can improve the use of technology in the classroom. Both teachers and students can be questioned about their uses of technology in the classroom. From the results of the questions I can design a plan and implement the plan in the classrooms.
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