Week 5 Discussion

Please share the following with your classmates for this week’s discussion:

As you look back on what you learned during the past five weeks in our action research course:

• Please share one specific topic of your greatest insight or new learning – what really caught your interest.
• Please share one specific area where you still want to learn more.
• For the area/topic you identified in Part (b), please state what you will do to continue to build your applied knowledge in this area.

I really enjoyed learning about the different strategies that support and sustain action research. I found many of them to be enlightening.  I think that  these will prove to be very beneficial when I am an administrator in the future and in need of initiating change for overall school improvement.
Specifically, I would like to learn more about ways to effectively collect data for various research projects.  We've learned about how to select a good topic and how to start to implement it, but I think that I need a little more guidance on various ways to select important data-collecting methods. 
I will continue to build my learning on the previously discussed topic by continuously talking to my site supervisor, classmates, peer teachers, professors, by researching, etc. 

Updated Action Research Plan

Action Planning Template
Goal: My goal is to discover if extrinsic or intrinsic motivational techniques work more effectively at the student level.  I plan to also discover if motivation at the student level and teacher level affect one another’s performance.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Initially poll sample size of students regarding what motivates them	Shawna Walker Site supervisor	Start: August 2013	Created polls	Look for patterns among students
Review polls	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	August 2013	Gathered polls	summarize what technique is the most commonly desired among the students-analyze data by comparing it to outside research-are there any patterns in found results?
Introduce involved parties to a system that will implement an extrinsic motivation technique (rewarding with candy, etc)	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	September 2013	Outside articles focusing on extrinsic motivation techniques	Complete observations, focus groups, etc. periodically
Note progress among individual levels or lack there of periodically by interviewing, observing, etc	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	October 2013	Increase in attendance records, behavior improvements	Interviewing
Introduce involved parties to a system that will implement an intrinsic motivation technique (focusing on self-improvement, etc)	Shawna Walker	Mid October 2013	Outside articles focusing on intrinsic  motivation techniques	Complete observations, focus groups, etc. periodically
Note progress among individual levels or lack there of periodically by interviewing, observing, etc	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	Mid November 2013	Increase in attendance records, behavior improvements	Interviewing
Poll students and teachers regarding how  motivation levels affect them (how does a teacher’s motivation affect students and vs)	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	December 2013	Created polls	Look for patterns within results
Analyze data to determine which motivational techniques were the most effective Share findings with peer teachers, classmates, and administrators	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	January 2014	All data (observations, polls, etc)	Self-assess am I actually finding my desired information? What can I do to increase the productivity of this plan? Are my planned activities working or do I need to make adjustments? Am I asking the appropriate questions?

My student sample will come from my homeroom class.  As far as the teachers portion of my study, I will randomly select 15 teachers to poll.

Action Research Plan

Action Planning Template
Goal: To discover which motivation strategies work most effectively at the student, teacher, and administrator level and determine the relationship that they play towards one another-because everyone is motivated differently, meeting the needs of all becomes very difficult-this study will provide insight as to which motivation techniques are the most effective as a whole at the 3 different levels of individuals found in a school system
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Initially poll sample size of students, teachers, and administrators regarding what motivates them and examine schools’ overall climate	Shawna Walker Site supervisor	Realistically, I believe that this project could be completed within a six month span but as I learn more and progress with my research, I know that it may be subject to change,  I believe that I will spend about a month developing each of my activities in my plan Start: August 2013	Created polls	Look for patterns among students, teachers, and administrators (Do individuals seem to want to be there at all levels?)
Review polls	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	August 2013	Gathered polls	summarize what technique is the most commonly desired among the students, teachers, and administrators-analyze data by comparing it to outside research-are there any patterns in found results?
Introduce involved parties to a system that will implement desired motivational strategies (for example, the administrator will implement what techniques teachers said that they find to be the most motivating and teachers will implement a system applying the approaches that the students find to be the most motivating)	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	September 2013	Information gathered from initial polls	Complete observations, focus groups, etc. periodically
Note progress among individual levels or lack there of periodically by interviewing, observing, etc	Shawna Walker	October 2013	Increase in attendance records, behavior improvements	Interviewing
If progress has not occurred, introduce motivational strategies found in outside research that prove to be successful (this step is included because most people THINK that they know what will motivate them but in reality, they are just considering a in the moment, extrinsic motivational technique such as rewards that provide no life-long changes)	Shawna Walker	November 2013	Articles found focusing on effective motivational strategies, previous textbooks that discuss motivation	Poll involved parties about changes in strategies, complete observations, actively listen and observe
Note overall school climate again (if the principal is more motivated, does that trickle down to the teachers? If teachers are  motivated, does that affect the students? )	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	December 2013		Self-assess am I actually finding my desired information? What can I do to increase the productivity of this plan? Are my planned activities working or do I need to make adjustments? Am I asking the appropriate questions?
Analyze data to determine which motivational techniques were the most effective? (strategies that individuals desired vs export research techniques) Share findings with peer teachers, classmates, and administrators	Shawna Walker Site Supervisor	January-February 2014	All data (observations, polls, etc)	Analyze/ compare all data

Week 2

From this week, I was able to learn about the nine passions that drive our journey.  I found this reading to be very enlightening and beneficial.  I really loved that after each passion it gave possible examples to further develop those topics.  These exercises really helped with my assignment also. 

discussion 1

Through this first week of 5301, I have learned a considerable amount regarding action research.  I have learned the difference between action research and traditional education research.  Traditional action research revolves around the administrator basing change off of others that have no interaction with our actual schools.  Those that participate in a traditional research method, do not like or want to initiate change and be actively involved in this process.  Action research is a systematic process in which the principal, aspiring principal, or any involved parties are actively engaged in.  The action researcher poses questions, collects data, analyzes data, requests additional data, reflects, and seeks solutions. This type of research is an ongoing and continual process with many steps.  The researcher is directly involved.  I learned about the benefits of action research from our Dana text and it really put it into perspective for me how beneficial this process really is. I read and thought about the different contexts that action research can be used in an education setting which introduced potential possibilities that I had not yet thought of.  I know that being an action researcher will help to make me the best administrator that I am capable of being. Action research proves to be the most effective style of research for anyone in an education setting.  

Education leaders could use blogs in many ways.  I think that one great idea would be to have all teachers follow the educational leaders blogs and that way discussions regarding upcoming decisions and ideas could be discussed when time permitted.  It would allow those who want to participate to do so in a relaxed fashion.