Shirin Omidvar’s Action Research Plan
Goal: To determine the relationship between 7th grade math students who receive SOAR tutorials during the school day because of low performance on in-class benchmarks and their STAAR test scores at the end of 7th grade. If there is not a strong enough positive relationship, what changes need to be made to the SOAR tutorial program?
| Action Step(s) | Person(s) Responsible | Timeline: Start/End | Needed Resources | Evaluation |
| Meet with site mentor (principal) for final tweaks or revisions to the action research plan | Shirin Omidvar | August 2012 | Action research plan | Shirin Omidvar, Principal |
| Conduct a literature review on the benefits of during-school tutorial programs | Shirin Omidvar | Sept 2012 – Oct 2012 | Internet resources, Lamar Library, books written tbd | Shirin Omidvar |
| Collect and separate data from students’ 3-week benchmark tests | Shirin Omidvar | Ongoing every 3 weeks Sept 2012 – April 2013 | Access to Aware may need to be provided by principal or department head | Shirin Omidvar, Department Head, Principal |
| Collect the names of students who are receiving during-school SOAR tutorials due to low benchmark performance | Shirin Omidvar | Ongoing every 3 weeks Sept 2012 – April 2013 | SOAR tutorial sign-in logs | Shirin Omidvar, Department Head, Principal |
| Conduct student surveys about their opinions of the effectiveness of the SOAR tutorial program | Shirin Omidvar | November 2012 | Survey Monkey | Shirin Omidvar |
| Conduct staff surveys about their opinions of the effectiveness of the SOAR tutorial program | Shirin Omidvar | November 2012 | Survey Monkey | Shirin Omidvar |
| Reflect on the data results received thus far, including survey results | Shirin Omidvar | December 2012 | Tutorial sign-in logs, previous state test scores, benchmark results, survey results | Shirin Omidvar |
| Obtain 5th grade TAKS and 6th grade STAAR scores for every student who received during-school SOAR tutorials due to low benchmark performance | Shirin Omidvar | April 2013 | Access to Aware may need to be provided by principal or department head | Shirin Omidvar, Department Head, Principal |
| Obtain 7th grade STAAR scores for every student who received during-school SOAR tutorials due to low benchmark performance | Shirin Omidvar | June 2013 | Access to Aware may need to be provided by principal or department head | Shirin Omidvar, Department Head, Principal |
| Build a spreadsheet by student name that includes the number of weeks of SOAR tutorials received, 5th grade TAKS score, 6th grade STAAR score, 7th grade score | Shirin Omidvar | July 2013 | Previously obtained and recorded data, Excel software, laptop | Shirin Omidvar, Department Head, Principal |
| Analyze the results and report findings in a final paper | Shirin Omidvar | July 2013 | Excel spreadsheet | Shirin Omidvar, Department Head, Principal, School Board, Course professor |
WOW, Shirin, looks really good! I like how you included the meeting with your site supervisor as your first step! Good luck with your action research!
ReplyDeleteWhat does SOAR stand for or is it a particular program? If so how long have yall been doing the program?
ReplyDeleteYour plan looks very similar to mine. What does SOAR stand for?
ReplyDeleteA piece of advice my principal gave me was to not use progress reports or report cards for data to determine the effectiveness of tutoring. In our case, the suggestion was made because our tutoring is going to be focused on identified isolated objectives. He suggested only using data that can measure those isolated objectives as opposed to progress reports/report cards which are all inclusive. This would produce skewed results. For example if a student is low in Objective 1 and we tutor in Objective 1, and he improves on Objective 1 questions, but they are buried in a test with Objectives 2, 3, & 4. If he scores low in Objectives 2-4, it would look like he did not improve. However, if we give a test and only look at the data for Objective 1, the improvement would show. So, use the objective score, not the test score. Does this make sense?
Anyway, not sure if this relates to your situation, it was just something that was given to me as advice so thought I would pass it along to you. Food for thought. Maybe you can use it, maybe not. :-)
You have a well thought out plan. I look forward to following this since we have the same idea.
Good luck!
Your plan looks great! It is very comprehensive and well thought out. I like how you are looking back as far as two years to track student achievement. This research will be beneficial for the 5th and 6th grade teachers as well. You may want to think about presenting your findings to them. These findings will be valuable in making changes in the future. Best of luck with your research!
ReplyDeleteThis looks great! Very detailed and well planned out. Your student survey is a great idea in assessing their opinions on the effectiveness. Sometimes we can learn so much from using techniques like this more often. Is your tutorial program only offered to a certain grade level? Which grade will you be focusing your research and data collection on?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting idea and approach on assessing the progress quickly on the scores for the STAAR, being a new test. Everything is well planned out and detailed. I like the organization of the spreadsheet of the previous scores. Is the research geared toward bettering the starting point for incoming 8th graders? Also, side question. Is the SOAR program happening during the school day, is time allotted at the end of the day for the program to take place? All and all, great stuff!
ReplyDeleteGod Bless,
-Mr. D. Mikell