Action Research Summaries
Principal Priorities for School Improvement
The importance of teacher effectiveness on student achievement has been well-documented. School leadership is second only to teaching among schoolrelated factors influencing student achievement. However, the job of a principal is arguably one of the most interrupted jobs anywhere. Principals are continually bombarded by students, parents, staff, and the mini-crises that occur each day.Although manyread more
Shifting from Assumptions to Actions: Building Students’ Confidence in Reading!
“Reading the word and learning how to write the word so one can later read if are preceded by learning how to write the world, that is having the experience of changing the world and touching the world.”-Paulo Freire It has been embedded in us that we need know learn how to read to surviveread more
Improving Goal Setting and Curriculum Development in Response to Intervention (RtI): Guided Collaboration Between General Education Teachers and Academic Intervention Specialists.
Response to intervention (RtI) is intended to support educational institutions and classroom educators in providing additional, targeted instruction to struggling students. Many schools across the country have adopted this framework as a means to close the achievement gap (Hernandez Finch, 2012; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2007). However, if interventions are not planned according to individual studentread more
Decreasing Student Problem Behavior: Paraprofessional Training and Coaching for Effective Behavioral Intervention
Behavior problems are a significant obstacle to student learning, and schools have a responsibility to effectively intervene and manage student behavior. The school staff who are responsible for dealing with student behavior require training to be effective in their roles. The purpose of this action research project was to investigate the impact of professional developmentread more
Increasing Novice Teachers’ Planning Capacity Using Co-planning, Master Teacher Observation, and Video Reflection
Novice teachers enter the classroom after pre-‐service programs with expectations to perform the same duties as veteran teachers. Among the demands on all teachers is the nuanced skill of lesson planning. Improving novice teachers’ planning capacity is an overlooked component of most professional development. The purpose of this action research was to improve novice teachers’read more
Improving Writing Instruction Through Professional Learning Communities
Proficiency in written communication is an essential skill for achieving success in post-secondary education, as well as in professional work in most occupations and organizational structures. Therefore, young people with low levels of proficiency in writing face an insidious, invisible barrier to entry to successful college and career pathways. A More Perfect Union High Schoolread more
Making Meaning of Mathematics
High quality instruction is an critical element to the success of all students, but particularly essential in schools working with high needs population due to low- socioeconomic impacts and a higher number of English Language Learners. Beacon Academy in Furschtein School District is one of these high needs schools. Research has shown that improvements inread more
Professional Learning Communities & Instructional Coaching
In order to increase student achievement, for students who are consistently not meeting the standards, and for those exceeding the assessed standards, the school utilized the Professional Learning Community (PLC) protocol to develop capacity in teachers to use student data to inform instruction. Additionally, Instructional coaching was implemented to support three teachers in designing differentiatedread more
Developing Independent Learners Through Metacognition
Students must be able to direct their own learning to succeed in college, career, and life. As have many researchers studying high school and college populations, I found this capacity lacking in my 11th and 12th grade AP Psychology students. One recurring piece of evidence was that students regularly construct incomplete mental models, often distractedread more
Utilizing PLC and Coaching to Support Students in Purposeful Academic Conversations
Costano, a K-8 school located in East Palo Alto, serves a low –socio economic and ethnically diverse community, of which 65% are English-language learners. After conducting several rounds of classroom observations at Costano it became apparent that while teachers delivered instruction that was of high quality and mostly engaging, they were not providing enough meaningfulread more
