Joni's Action Research Plan

Question:  How are 6^th grade student, both general education and special education, academic outcomes in Math impacted by participating in instruction delivered by a co-teach model vs. instruction delivered by a single teacher model over a one year period?

Goals and Objectives/outcomes of the research investigation – The goal of this research is to determine differences in 6^th grade math achievement based on having one teacher or two teachers in a classroom, regardless of being a general education or special education student.

The objective is to use this data in driving our use of faculty, the training of faculty, and our campus scheduling.

Activities designed to achieve the objective – Math common assessment data, Math benchmark data, general education and special education teacher surveys, student surveys, classroom observations.

Resources and research tools needed for data gathering – Case Managers for special education students involved in sampling, access to student common assessments and benchmarks using district software program,  access to special education student accommodations (Case Managers can provide), teacher surveys, student surveys, classroom observation logs.

Draft Timeline –

Since my research plan will include students enrolled continuously from September 1, 2012 through May 15, 2013 my timeline is as follows:

September 2 – September 30 – Gather student/teacher sampling/schedules/accommodations

October 1 – October 31 – Design data collection instrument/Collect all common assessment/benchmark scores to date/Distribute student/teacher surveys

November 1 – November 30 – Collect any new scores/Perform first classroom observations and record data/Collect teacher/student surveys

December 1 – December 20 – Add most recent common assessment/benchmark scores/compile survey information and record

January 5 – January 31 – Perform second classroom observations and record data

February 1 – February 28 – Collect new common assessment/benchmark scores

March 1 – March 31 – Distribute second round of teacher/student surveys/Collect surveys, compile and record data.

April 1 – April 30 – Collect new common assessment/benchmark scores/Perform final classroom observations and record data

May 1 – May 31 – Complete data collection, compile, and record data

Persons Responsible for implementation of the Action Research Plan – Data will be collected by Joni Gricar, but other stakeholders will be general education teachers, special education teachers, case managers, diagnostician, and students.

Process for monitoring the achievement of goals and objectives – A common assessment is typically administered every nine weeks.  Math benchmarks are normally administered three times per year. I will use the district software program, Eduphoria, to achieve scores.  I will use Google Docs for teacher surveys and try to also use this process for student surveys.  If that is not possible, we will do paper surveys for students.

Assessment instrument(s) to evaluate the effectiveness of the action research study – Common Assessments, benchmark tests, teacher and student surveys, classroom observation data.