Action Research Plan Revision

I have been fortunate to have people comment on my action research plan with some great ideas that I wanted to incorporate into my plan.  The first was an added level of research or an additional group to contact.  The recommendation was for me to talk with the local law enforcement to get suggestions for plan, specifically the exit strategy if one needs to take place in the midst of an intruder in the building. 

The other recommendation was to have a "decoy" intruder (or maybe more) in the building during the day to see if staff and students knew what to do and if they reacted correctly.  I love this idea an think that we could have this happening throughout one day at different parts of the building and then have an assembly to hopefully praise the staff and students that responded correctly.

Here is a revision of my research plan:

Action Plan – Building Intruder Plan
Goal: Creating the best plan possible so that our students, teachers and staff remain safe in the midst of an intruder situation.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Meet with the Safety Committee to come up to speed on what has been done and still needs to be done.	Safety Committee; myself	December 2012 – May 2013	Notes from previous discussions; Internet access	Get a strategy in place to have a Building Intruder Plan in place as soon as possible.
Research other campus plans for intruders within the district and pull from those plans actions that could be incorporated into our campus plan.	Myself	December 2012 – January 2013	Plans from the other campuses within the district. (Mays Elementary, Mays Middle School, Troy High School)	Present to the Safety committee for consensus of ideas to be included in our campus plan.
Meet with the local law enforcement officers to talk about exit strategies as well as to see what is being done correctly and still needs improvement on our campus	Myself	December 2012 – January 2013	Time to visit with officers	Give praise to the staff for doing things “right” already and then talk with them about ways to beef up our efforts in other areas.
Research other district plans for intruders and pull from those plans actions that could be incorporated into our campus plan.	Myself	December 2012 – January 2013	Internet access, contacts from other schools in other districts, and plans from our area as well as schools all over the country.	Present to the Safety committee for consensus of ideas to be included in our campus plan.
Create a plan that will be the best fit and provide the safest place for our students, teachers and staff to be in the midst of an intrusion.	Safety Committee; Myself	February 2013 – May 2013	Research of the steps above.	Discuss with staff at a staff meeting; Have two drills by the end of school to see that the plan is effective and could work, looking for glitches that need to be tweaked in the plan; have a second drill to see if students and staff will notice if an intruder is on our campus and if they do what they should do in that case.
Present the plan to the principal with all the evidence that it will be the most effective plan for our campus.	Safety Committee; Myself and the Principal	April 2013 – May 2013	The plan written out for approval.	Her approval.

My Action Research Plan

After many discussions with my site supervisor, we have decided that I will try and create an effective Building Intruder Plan for our campus.  My principal believes that we have a very unique campus location that needs some well thought out ideas for an intruder plan.  Below is my Action Research Plan:

Action Plan – Building Intruder Plan
Goal: Creating the best plan possible so that our students, teachers and staff remain safe in the midst of an intruder situation.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Meet with the Safety Committee to come up to speed on what has been done and still needs to be done.	Safety Committee; Myself	December 2012 – May 2013	- Notes from previous discussions; - Web access for research	- Get a strategy in place to have a Building Intruder Plan in place as soon as possible.
Research other campus plans for intruders within the district and pull from those plans actions that could be incorporated into our campus plan.	Myself	December 2012 – January 2013	- Plans from the other campuses within the district. (Mays Elementary, Mays Middle School, Troy High School)	- Present to the Safety committee for consensus of ideas to be included in our campus plan.
Research other district plans for intruders and pull from those plans actions that could be incorporated into our campus plan.	Myself	December 2012 – January 2013	- Web access - Contacts from other schools in other districts - Plans from area districts as well as schools all over the country.	- Present to the Safety committee for consensus of ideas to be included in our campus plan.
Create a plan that will be the best fit and provide the safest place for our students, teachers and staff to be in the midst of an intrusion.	Safety Committee; Myself	February 2013 – May 2013	Research of the steps above.	- Discuss with Principal - Discuss with staff at a staff meeting - Have a drill to see that the plan is effective and will work, looking for glitches that need to be tweaked in the final plan
Present the plan to the principal with all the evidence that it will be the most effective plan for our campus.	Safety Committee; Myself and the Principal	April 2013 – May 2013	- The plan written out for approval and publication.	- Her approval.

Adding to the Knowledge of Action Research

Dr. Timothy Chargois shared in the video this week that he had teachers that were asking to do research in his district.  I find it rather refreshing to know that there are school districts that expect and encourage teachers to continue to explore new teaching strategies by using an action research model.  I do not see that happening in the school district that I am teaching in.  I feel like that we are all just trying to stay afloat each week and make it to Friday.  We are always researching, but it seems that the research is always based on getting the school performance goals met.  It feels like we are operating in a "fix it" mode instead of being able to do research that will lead us to build better teaching skills that would benefit our students.  Ultimately our goal is for the students to be successful, not just the school. And I feel that some of our "fix it" strategies are temporary band aids to get our students to the next grade level instead of a strategy that will give our students an understanding of how to conquer what we are trying to fix with confidence.

Educational Leaders Using Blogs

I believe that educational leaders can use blogs in many effective ways.  Administrators can use blogs to communicate with their staffs offering information to be discussed among the group. 

I also think that blogs would be a great tool for teachers to communicate with parents.  There could be a daily or weekly blog about what is going on in class.  The blog could offer links that would support the curriculum being studied.  Notices of importance could also be communicated through a blog.

Blogs could also be used with educational leaders to form Professional Learning Communities.  Small groups of educators could study more effective teaching and learning strategies. 

Action Research and Its Use

Action Research seems to be the way for teachers and administrators to hold themselves accountable for what they are teaching and how they are teaching.  It is a name given to what successful teachers are doing already.  Successful teachers continually evaluate the students by looking at how they are responding to the learning opportunities in their classrooms.  It allows for educators to constantly evaluate whether the way they are teaching is effective with the students.  This research gives them a systematic avenue to explore data, research different ideas, implement ideas that might work and then evaluate with new data as to whether that way of teaching would be beneficial to the success of the students he or she is teaching. 

Action Research is grounded in what is actually happening in the classroom or if you are an administrator in what is happening in your school setting.  This kind of research allows for collaborative decision making and gives participants an ownership in change that might need to happen. 

Principals that use Action Research are setting examples for their teachers and their students.  Principals are setting the stage for best practices to flourish on his or her campus among the teachers, staff and students.  They are also enabling the success for learning through this research on their campus.