Developing Consensus and Addressing Challenges in Your Action Research Plan

A comment that affected me in a positive way started out with the thought that perhaps my action project was too large; however, after reading the whole plan, a colleague told me that my action plan was well organized and that the timing is appropriate. “Your plan slowly brings buy-in from each group that makes up the school community." The comments from this colleague gave me confidence that I am on the right track.

Another colleague gave me advice that I should, when finished with my surveys, share the information gleaned with the faculty, the “good, bad, and ugly.” I think this would be beneficial, as all teachers’ perceptions of what is going on, in regards to the school climate, are not always on the same page. If faculty is able to view different perspectives, this may help me achieve my goal of bringing the faculty closer together. So this is one suggestion I will incorporate into my plan.

I met with my site supervisor, Camila Alexander, this past week in order to review my action research plan printed in the Tool 7.1 template. She is impressed with the amount of work involved and said that I am on the right track. The comments she made that were helpful had to do with changing the wording in a few places on my plan in order to clarify what I was attempting to accomplish. For instance, under the category “Action Steps,” in several places I had listed some of the evaluative type tests that students take, such as ThinkLink and end-of-year TCAP. However, I did not describe how this would in any way connect to my action research project. So I’ve added the verbiage that I will evaluate these tests to see if any academic improvements have been made (presumably resulting from the “improved” school climate), because ultimately one of the goals of improving the school climate is to gauge the effect on student morale and academic achievement.

Additionally, Ms. Alexander looked over my first informal survey and made some suggestions. She said that I needed to change the format to have all answers easy to bubble in on a scale because teachers will not like writing answers to questions. I believe she is right, and I will take her advice and change my question and answer format. Additionally, she said I should give the survey to all adult workers in the school, not just the teachers, because everyone should have a say in what they believe the climate is. I will then not only have more input, but I will be able to look at any trends between, say, 8th grade teachers and office personnel, 6th grade teachers and cafeteria workers, etc. She said to also get information on gender and what position they hold at the school. I will take her advice because, as she said, when using a numerical answering system, the data will be easier to compare.