Week 5 Reflections

This course started out as being my most dreaded course because I had a preconceived notion of research. Though this course has certainly not been easy as I have had to stretch myself and my abilities to new levels, I have learned so much. My schema of research has been forever altered. I have gained a wealth of knowledge from this course that will not only affect me in this program but will affect my leadership ability in future positions. I have incorporated so much from all aspects of this course because the lessons blended so well together and built on each other. I am always looking for relevance in what I do and ask myself how I will apply what I am learning to my career. This course has significant importance to my current position as a teacher as well as my future position as an administrator.

Final Draft of My Action Research Plan - A Work in Progress

First of all I'd like to say thanks to all of my peers that offered suggestions last week. What a help! I actually took the comments to my site supervisor and we talked about ways to improve my Action Research Plan with those in mind. Some suggestions we talked about and weren't able to change anything on my plan due to his restrictions for the PLC. Below is my corrected Action Research Plan...keeping in mind that it's a living document and will most certainly be changed throughout this process:

Goals and Objectives:

• Implement Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) at Cater Elementary for the first time, by first having a voluntary PLC
• Grow Professionally as individuals and as a campus
• From the PLCs realize an increase in testing scores

Activities:

• Research other schools that use PLCs. Decide how my school can utilize research findings to fit our needs for a PLC.
• Create a small PLC of volunteers the first year on a trial run basis.
• Create and implement a PLC of volunteers for year 1, to explore the researched plan.
• Pending successful implemtation of the voluntary PLC, see PLCs required all over campus.

Resources/Research Tools Needed:

• Computer and in-person research of other distircts that employ use of PLCs.
• Interviews with teachers and administrators of selected PLC districts to ascertain the effectiveness of their PLCs and to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their PLCs.

Timeline:

• 1 school year voluntary PLC
• Meetings once a week in the beginning, to be dropped to once every two weeks or once a month as deemed necessary by the PLC and principal.
• Meetings will be after school, or during conference periods as available.
• Principal will only be at meetings once a month at first, then backing off and becoming available to us if we request him or come to him. This way it is more staff led instead of principal led.
• 2nd school year (pending success of voluntary PLC) implementing PLCs campus wide.

Persons Responsible for Implementation:

• Lindy Welborn and other volunteer members of the 1st PLC
• Our principal, administrator guide to the 1st PLC

Process for Monitoring Achievement:

• Our principal will be our guide for the first voluntary PLC. We will discuss our findings, thoughts, and wonderings with him.
• Various assessments will be given to monitor student growth as a result of the teacher's participation in a PLC.
• Also during the year the teacher will be able to note their growth on their informal and formal evaluations from the previous to current years.

Assessment Instruments to Evaluate Effectiveness:

• Our principal will guide the effectiveness of the 1st voluntary PLC on campus. He will guide us to make changes, and challenge us and direct us in a manner to improve our PLC. After our trial run, our principal will make necessary changes and evaluate the whole process for a potential campus wide implementation.
• Visibly see teachers constantly evolving their teaching strategies to demonstrate best practices. Improvement in teachers' PDAS scores. Greater teacher interaction as evidenced by group participation and vertical alignment.
• Test data - local benchmarks and state tests several times a year as a checkpoint.