Action Planning Template
Goal: Improve students written communication through examination of the writing process
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1.Research current trends in improving student’s writing	-myself -site supervisor	June 1, 2012- July 31, 2012	-internet -time -research	-choose strategies we want to implement
2. Create staff development to introduce implementation	-myself -site supervisor -teachers -learning coaches	August 1- start of school	-time -collected research -staff -materials	-meeting agenda -staff feedback -staff implementation
3. Implement writing strategies	-learning coaches -teachers across curriculum	-start of school -on going	-time -student samples	-evaluation student samples -are they improving
4. Analyze the data	-learning coaches -teachers -academic director	-start of school -on going	-time -student samples -rubric	-are the samples continuing to improve -is more intervention needed

Here are my three ideas for my action research project. Help me out and tell me what you think!

1. Would better lines of communication lead to stakeholder satisfaction, parental involvement in student success and parental involvement in school activities?  My plan is to start with a basic survey with parent feedback in regards to communication thus far.  I would then like to implement an electronic newsletter collecting data on the number of times the newsletter is viewed. Additionally data can be collected through the number of parent/teacher conferences that are attended. Surveys could be done periodically to track our progress.

 2. An overall dilemma I have heard from the teachers is the quality of students written responses. My concern is that because the school is an online curriculum the art of written communication may be lacking.  The school currently has a communications component in place with the study of public speaking.  I would like to further their communication efforts through writing. My question would be, Will student examination of the writing process improve the student's efforts of written communication?  Data collection could begin by proposing a question in which students must respond.  The teachers would then begin the review or teaching of the writing process. Student writing samples will continue to be collected to monitor student progress.  At some point the students will be introduced to a writing response rubric in which they will be expected to write to the standard of the rubric.

 3. The high school curriculum at this time does not incorporate any live lessons other than Spanish class.  My question would be, would student success improve with the incorporation of at least a weekly live lesson in the core subjects?  The data that could be taken into consideration is students’ grades from the 2012-2013 school year where no live lessons were included, verses student grades for the 2013-2014 school year in which live lessons would be done weekly.

How can educational leaders use blogs?


Blogs are another tool for collaboration.  Administrators can use them to post their own findings from their action research or simply get ideas from others regarding implementations. 
 

Administrators use action research as a means to solve a problem or better a situation.  The implementations they choose to tackle the problem are based on collaboration from their colleagues, peer groups or stakeholders. With action research, administrators continuously collect data to determine the effectiveness of their implementations.  The data that is collected is environment specific which differs from traditional research.  With traditional research, the outcomes are generally based on a controlled environment and do not always have the same effectiveness for every environment.  Action research is environment specific. With that being said, the administrator becomes more in tune with the needs of their students, their staff and they continue to grow as a leader.

 The school that I am currently working with is less than two years old.  As a stakeholder, it is my opinion that they biggest issue with the school is the lack of communication.  My intent for my action research project is to question how I can help the school become better communicators.  Through my research, I want to question others parents as to their opinions on this topic, and how they feel the school can improve.  I further want to collaborate with the current administrators as well as the teachers to see what implementations we can set in place to resolve or at least make progress with this problems.