Week 3 Assignment, Part 3

Draft Action Research Project Progress Report

 

·        Using the following eight outline elements, write your paper at the end of this assignment document in the space entitled Draft Action Research Project Report.

a.     Title – Provide a clear, brief title that describes your Action Research Project. This title should describe what you are trying to find out, not what you think you will find. 

 

Necessary Steps to Improve State Standardized Test Scores in Reading for Third and Fourth Grade English Language Learners at Two Different Campuses.

 

b.     Needs Assessment – Indicate how the need for an improvement was determined. Note the data collected to support the need. Present the data in a disaggregated manner in terms of ethnicity, and gender.

 

Determined by poor performance – 69% Passing (Lvl 1 + Lvl 2)

 

 

 

3rd Grade Reading Scores STAAR 2012 (Two Campuses)
Summary	Lvl II Satisfactory %	Lvl III Advanced %	Lvl I Unsatisfactory %
All Students	71	15	29
Grade 3 LEP	58	11	42
Male	69	13	31
Female	74	15	26
Hisp/Latino	64	12	36
Ame. Ind./Als. Nat.
Asian
Blk/Af. American	75	8	25
Nat. Haw/Pac. Isl.
White	79	25	21
Two or More Races

 

 

c.      Objectives and Vision of the action research project. – After completing the needs assessment, develop a vision relating to the improvement needed and develop an action research project that includes measureable objectives in terms of expected results.

 

A steady growth over one, two, three and four years of 5 – 8% would place the LEP percentage at a minimum of 88 % passing in the year 2016.

 

 

 

d.     Review of the Literature and Action Research Strategy – Apply Best Practice to Student Learning – Review recent literature related to the topic of your research project. The research should support why your action research plan would be described as a best practice or possible solution to improving achievement or culture. The review of the literature should be written in APA style with a reference page listing the sources. Explain the decision making process for implementing the action research project. Who was involved? What was considered? What decisions were made?

 

As I reviewed English Language Learners (ELL) performances in Reading, there seemed to be a spike at which poor performance was occurring and that was at third and fourth grades.  I reviewed a study by Thomas and Collier that outlined how our current program, Early Exit was one of the poorest performing ones.  The study also spoke of the top performing model, Dual Language that was being adopted with great success. As Thomas and Collier (Thomas & Collier, 2002) study charts clearly illustrate, the Dual Language Model is the most effective.   From one popular Program, the Gomez and Gomez Dual Language Model is the one we as a district are aiming to adopt. The Gómez & Gómez Dual Language Enrichment (DLE) Model was originally developed in 1995 and first implemented in 1996 in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD in South Texas.  The implementation of this model has since expanded to over 450 schools across 3 states. Today, it continues to demonstrate its effectiveness based on successful short and long-term student achievement (Gomez & Gomez, 2012)

 

(Thomas and Collier, 2002)

Gomez, L., & Gomez, R. (2012). Dual language training institute. Retrieved from http://dlti.us/3.html      

 

Thomas, W., & Collier, V. (2002). Thomas and collier research. Retrieved from http://www.thomasandcollier.com/index.htm

 

 

 

Articulate the Vision – Describe how you communicated the vision of the action research project to staff, parents, students, and community members.

 

As I began to research the data, I was able to reach out to administrators, teachers and parents.  We held parent education meetings in both English and Spanish to help describe the benefits of Dual Language and how it would improve Reading and others academic areas.  Doctors Leo and Richard Gomez were scheduled for an administrative overview that brought our superintendent on board.  Our population of ELL’s were growing and something needed to change.

 

Manage the organization – Describe the strategy used for organizing the implementation of the project noting responsibilities given to self and others and how you managed any monies, time, materials, and people. Give examples of how you put a priority on student learning and safety. (5 points)

 

When I was developing our annual board report to present, the thought crossed my mind that there had to be a better way.  Research and data gathering was somewhat overwhelming, but I was able to use our departmental aide to assist since this was part of a board presentation.  Student learning was the driving force as I want to see Reading scores increase.  Student safe guards were in place, such as securing all data each day, not releasing data that was so small that would easily reveal the students. FERPA was followed.

 

Describe the strategy used to lead the operations of the project and set priorities. Include a brief description of how you used the needs assessment, data, group process skills, built consensus, communicated, and resolved conflict.

 

The data spoke for itself.  I conducted a district and community wide survey that showed 89% were in favor of the change.  Some monolingual teachers were concerned that implementing a Dual Language Program would lead to downsizing.  I was able to explain that the demand for high achieving ESL teachers would be in demand.  We made site visits to other districts that were successfully implementing the model.

 

Respond to Community Interest and Needs – Describe how the action research project will serve the needs of students with special and exceptional needs and students with diverse backgrounds (cultural, ethnic, economic, or special interest groups) Elaborate on methods used to address any specific needs of the school or community.

 

The Dual Language Two – Way Model not only serves the Spanish English Learner, but also serves the native English speakers.  We do not test for access into the program.  All students whose parents sign a consent form at the Kindergarten level are allowed to participate.  This is a long term understanding between the district and parents, that if funds are available to continue the program, it will through the 5^th grade. The cohort DLE group will grow one grade level each year as the class moves.

AR Update 9/29/2012

Action Plan Update:

 

Saturday, September 29, 2012

 

Progress towards my AR Research is moving slow.   This school year, the business of educating students seems to have climbed to new highs.  My goal, to outline action steps necessary to improve Reading scores for 3^rd and 4^th grade ELL’s has slow to develop.  Just this past week, I have begun to put the necessary reports together as mentioned in my plan.  For some reason, our Eduphoria-Aware data information isn’t communicating with our PEIMS program.  This causes problems in the area of gathering accurate data for the groups my plan is targeted for.

I do have Oral Language Proficiency Test data gathered as well as years in US schools.   The same program used to pull TELPAS and STAAR data will be used for Tejas Lee with the communication of the PEIMS system is worked out.  Our Director of Testing and Accountability is in contact with the vendor to work out the communication issues and hope to have them resolved within the next two weeks.  When this is corrected, it will be my baseline report.   I will pull the data, move it to a CSV Spreadsheet and then create additional categories mentioned in my AR outline.  From there, I will be able to see correlates and begin to formulate plans for suggestions. I hope to use the data tables to show our Kinder and 1^st grade bilingual reading interventionists so they can make suggestions for improvement and aid me in setting some goals for sustained improvement.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

My peers have made three recommendations for my current Action Research Model.  The first two involve projects that I have researched and will consider implementing these as my results from data are compiled, disaggregated and reviewed.

The third however is most interesting to me because it makes the most sense right now.  I will be changing my project to reflect only Tier II students to further tighten the results and make the study more manageable.

1       Project G.L.A.D.  http://www.projectglad.com/

2       Grand Central Station

3       Limit study to Tier II students.

Action Research Plan

Action Planning Template Greg Bridges
Goal: What action steps are necessary to improve ELL state standardized test scores in Reading for 3rd and 4th grade students at two campuses? Posted on discussion board. Operational definition of target population: The target population is third and fourth grade ELL students at two different campuses with each campus housing third – sixth grades. The ELL target population at each campus is 78 – 85 students.  How will you select your sample? Evaluation of ELL 3rd and 4th grade student performance on state standardized reading scores that fall below the state average. Brief rationale for your sample size: These are the initial grade levels when state reading achievement is measured and it will include all ELL’s within our district that are entering fourth and fifth grades for the 2012-2013 school year. Briefly describe how you will conduct your research: I will use state STAAR scores (Raw), OLPT, Tejas Lee, DRA, TELPAS, teacher interviews, teacher resources, LPAC placement, district benchmark tests and grades to form categories to help gain insight based on data.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Develop Spreadsheet with all 3rd and 4th grade ELL’s along with corresponding category headers	Bilingual/ESL Program Facilitator	July/August	Infinite Campus, a PEIMS program our district uses. Develop an Ad-Hoc Report that will extract the necessary data to begin the spreadsheet and transfer to an excel spreadsheet	Compare to LPAC records and fall PEMS submission to ensure all students have been included.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Compile raw STAAR Reading scores of all 3rd and 4th grade students in a spreadsheet and align from highest to lowest.	BE/ESL Program Facilitator BE/ESL-F), Director of Accountability and Testing	July/August 2012	Eduphoria-AWARE, student CSR from TEA, Excel,	Since TEA is only providing raw scores, I will need to decide along with our testing director the lowest third of students based on state cut points.
Gather latest Oral Language Proficiency Testing data and post next to students name	BE/ESL-F, two campus LPAC representatives, Bilingual LPAC Aide	August/September	District LPAC Records	Does a low OLPT correlate to low STARR scores?
Gather Tejas Lee scores and post on chart	BE/ESL-F, Campus LPAC Reps., bilingual and ESL teachers, LPAC Aide, Assistant Principals	August/Sept	Reading data submitted at EOY 2012	Do Tejas Lee scores correlate to low performance on STAAR?
Gather DRA scores and post on chart	BE/ESL-F, Campus LPAC Reps., bilingual and ESL teachers, LPAC Aide, Assistant Principals	August/Sept	Scores submitted at EOY 2012	Do DRA scores correlate to low performance on STAAR?
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Gather TELPAS data including all four domains (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing)	BE/ESL-F, Campus Test Coordinators, Director of Testing	August/Oct	District and individual TELPAS results	How does TELPAS progression along all four domains affect or correlate to STAAR Reading scores?
Assign a column to student rows on spreadsheet that lists Years in US Schools.	BE/ESL-F, LPAC records	August-November	LPAC Reps., BE/ESL-F	Does years in US schools correlate to performance on STAAR Reading scores?
District benchmark scores on reading assessments	BE/ESL-F,	August-Nov.	Eduphoria-AWARE	How does benchmark scores relate to STARR results?
What are the main resources used by teachers for Reading education throughout the school year	Teachers, BE/ESL-F, Assistant Principals	August-Nov	Teacher questioning	How does resources compare from teacher to teacher campus to campus?  Is there a correlation between scores and resources used?
Based on all of above spreadsheet and comparable research, what will be the exact recommendations to principals, and district administration personnel to improve reading scores for 3rd and 4th grade ELL’s?	BE/ESL-F, District Testing Director, Assistant Superintendant of Curriculum, Executive Director of Special Programs, Principals	December 2012 –February 2013	Completed Spreadsheet with several recommendation	Based on results of disaggregation, what areas or specific TEKS were identified to be the strongest areas of growth?  What are the intervention options?