Action Research Project

My Action Research project began in the Spring semester of 2013 and was completed at the end of that semester. I monitored student progress on a weekly basis with the principal and grade level teachers.  Using data from the online resources IXL and ReadingPlus, classroom observations, grade reports and testing scores the principal and myself identified at risk students and created a tutorial program to address each student’s needs.  The monitoring of the students and creating adjustments as the semester progressed proved to be successful as all test scores improved by at least 5% in every tested area and as much as 25% in some areas.  We only retained one student for the 2013 school year and it was not related to academic achievement. 

Tracking the 60 at risk students using various data at each grade level was time consuming originally until I was able to create tracking documents that provided an easy visual to better understand each student’s progress.  Challenging aspects of the project were tracking the students who were right on the edge and either had low scores from a previous year but where successful in the class or vice versa.  Despite the success of the program overall we had two students fail a state mandated test and they were students that we never identified as at risk through any of the methods we were implementing.

            During this time there were significant hours spent on this research project monitoring student progress, analyzing weekly data produced from online educational websites and interviewing students and teachers.  Throughout this project over 90 hours were spent working on and developing this plan that due to its success will be implemented again this spring.