Action Research Update

My action research is going fairly well, though there were more steps added to the process than I could have imagined. For example, I thought that I would just track my students, but instead, all of the other teachers have decided to use the same methods as I am in teaching writing, which is good news. The bad news is that I have to train them and discuss with them the necessary steps. The other bad news is that the kids they teacher are not the same as me, so we have to come up with smaller lessons, more like several mini lessons to achieve what I do in maybe 2 or 3 lessons.
Another thing that has gotten in the way of us getting everything done is the stupid machine we have to use to collect all the data.  It takes FOREVER!  First, we have to print out single documents--one for each students--so roughly 540. Then, we have to bubble in each sheet with the correct score.  Since it's a multiple choice test we can really only give one letter the "correct" answer. The good news is that there is a way to break it down further so we can see how many 1's, 2's, 3's, and 4's we have.  The scanning of all these documents though is what takes the longest.

Some things I have considered: I am focusing on the economically disadvantaged students but it's hard to get this info in the program we use, so it may need to be done by hand.  And the overall data we are using really won't be official until they take the test in April. I know my grading is consistent, as the grading of the other teachers, but we may not be consistent with each other.

I am currently working on an agenda to present to my principal to see if we can get a day out of the classroom where we can go over grading, do some grading together to make sure we have inter-grading reliability, and so we can over plans and do model lessons.

This is hard work and I am feeling like I don't have enough time to get everything done. I have not felt this overwhelmed since my first year of teaching, but I know it will get better. I just need to "find my stride" so to speak and get the other teachers there with me.

Reflection on Web Conferences

I have attended at least one web conference each week, and tonight's (the very last one) has proven to be the most helpful.  I wish, almost, that we could have had this kind of conference (where we shared our ideas for our projects) earlier--maybe during week 2.  I am really impressed by the ideas that people have come up with for their schools. I wonder how many of these are ideas of our own, or improvements on already existing programs.  I enjoy this portion better than what we have been sharing in all the rest of the conferences because it really gives me a lot of great ideas of things that we can do in our school--or in any other school that I work for in the future.
I remember in an earlier course, we watched a video and one of the speakers said, "why reinvent the wheel? Somewhere, in some similar school district, they are having the same problems as you are. Do a little research and see what they are doing.  This will help you because you won't have to go through the same bumps as they did--take their experiences and build upon them." Of course, this isn't word for word, but it just made so much sense to me. It's similar in teaching.  As an English teacher, I am always striving to find ways to present material in a way that is memorable and interesting, but also effective.  I am not the first teacher to ever teach grammar.  And I am certainly not the first teacher to want to do it in a way that is more interesting than diagram-ing sentences! 
This transition we have made from EPIC to blackboard wasn't easy--I feel like our discussion groups are a lot less personal and this class, especially, seems to be a lot less close than our past two were. I think it may be due to how many people are in the class and how there are so many different levels of people in the class.  So, some of the questions that people were asking (people that are nearly finished with the program) were good ones, ones that I should be aware of, but were not ones that I should have been stressing out during the first few weeks of school.  Lesson learned, I suppose.  Someone told all of us during the first few weeks of our first course that it would take us until our 3rd course before we got 'in the groove' so to speak and didn't stay up until 1 am doing work everyday.  I don't feel totally comfortable, but I am not as stressed either. I at least know who to ask when I have a question, and I think that really has helped ease my stress. I have learned that Lamar email never works, so I never use it. And I have learned that Jana Barnett is probably the best IA ever.  Most importantly though, I have learned that the professors want us to succeed and they are there for us, which has really been a comfort.