Update on Action Research Plan

I began working on my action research plan in August of 2012.  I identified five students of low socioeconomic status from diverse backgrounds to assist in this project.  The students we ESL students with one of the students no longer receiving services from the ESL teacher, and two of the students being diagnosed with dyslexic tendencies.  We began by taking authentic writing samples from each student to use as a baseline for each student.  I rated the students writing based on their ability to communicate effectively by spelling, word choice, and subject/verb agreement.  The one of the two students with dyslexic tendencies rated lower than the other students by a substantial margin.  The rest of the students showed many struggle areas in communicating their ideas effectively in written form with exception of the student who was exited from the ESL program.

I setup my students with an account on My Big Campus.  We discussed how we were going to use this tool to help us in the classroom instead of paper/pencil for communicating.  We began using My Big Campus in September 2012.  The students began using My Big Campus to communicate their understanding of what we had learned in class.  When I gave the students a sentence stem to write from, they were not able to effectively enough for me to understand what they were trying to tell me.  I then reformatted the way that I assessed the students to short written answers with little room for them to elaborate.  I also posted idea stems on the discussion board for the students to respond to.  This stems were content based, but allowed the students to write about what they felt learned from the material covered in class.

In January, I took a midpoint writing assessment to see how the students were improving.  I was disappointed in the lack of grow demonstrated by the students at this point.  They had shown some improved spelling, but their word choice and subject/verb agreement was not improving at the same rate.  The students began using My big Campus after the January writing assessment.  I increased the amount of conversational writing and academic writing since the midpoint assessment.  I have spent forty-eight hours so far working on my action research plan.  I plan to spend another twenty to thirty hours to complete my project.

              

Updated Action Research Plan

Action Research Plan
Goal: To use blogging to increase communication skills of students of low socioeconomic status across different ethnic backgrounds, thus increase their scores on standardized writing tests.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1. Identify 4 to 8 students with low socioeconomic backgrounds to assist in research project.	Donna McManus Angelee Morales Brett Murrey	August 2012	School documentation for free or reduced lunches and low socioeconomic status report.	Use the information from the school to determine students who have a low SES from diverse cultural backgrounds.
2. Obtain students’ authentic writing samples for baseline evaluation.	Brett Murrey Students	September 2012	Spreadsheet for tracking the student’s communication effectiveness.	Ensure that enough data has been collected to judge the effectiveness of student communications.
3. Setup account for students and begin having them communicate through technological communication tools each week.  The students will respond to questions being asked in formal assessments and informal posting on various subjects in class.	Brett Murrey Students	September – December 2012	Mybigcampus.com Create log for tracking when students are accessing the blog site.	Monitoring postings from the students every week and provide responses to how they are communicating their ideas to others.
4. Obtain students’ authentic writing samples for mid-year evaluation.	Brett Murrey Students	January 2013	Spreadsheet for tracking the student’s communication effectiveness.	Compare baseline data to mid-year data.

Action Research Plan
Goal: To use blogging to increase communication skills of students of low socioeconomic status across different ethnic backgrounds, thus increase their scores on standardized writing tests.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
5. Continue with students’ communicating through technological communication tools each week.  The students will respond to questions being asked in formal assessments and informal posting on various subjects in class	Brett Murrey Students	January - April 2013	Use log for tracking when students are accessing the site.	Students should become more comfortable with discussing topics through the use of technology.
6. Obtain students’ authentic writing samples for end of the year evaluation.	Brett Murrey Students	April – May 2013	Spreadsheet for tracking the student’s communication effectiveness.	Compare mid-year data to end of the year data.
7. Obtain data from action plan data and standardized writing test data to evaluate the effectiveness of students communication with the use of technology.	Brett Murrey Students	April – May 2013	Spreadsheet for tracking the student’s communication effectiveness and standardized writing test scores from the previous year and present year.	Compare data from similar students from the previous year’s standardized writing test scores with current standardized writing test scores.
8. Compile all data into the action research plan and create an informal oral presentation of the results.	Brett Murrey Donna McManus Angelee Morales Cynthia Pense	May 2013	Baseline data Mid-year data End of year data STAAR Writing Scores	Use all data collected and analyze to determine if the use technology to increase low SES student communication skills was successful.