My Professional Development Plan. Let me know what you think?

Session Purpose: How to Motivate Reluctant Learners?
Learning Objective to Be Addressed: Why Motivation in the classroom is important?
Collaborator # 1:			Collaborator #2:
Grade Level: Middle School Grades 6-8	Facilitator: Chris McCollough	Location: Belton Middle School Cafeteria		Start Time: 4:10 pm	End-Time: 4:45 pm
Learner-Centered Activity	Purpose	Description		Steps	Estimated Time
Teachers sign in sheet.	Sign in sheet for documentation of attendance.	A spreadsheet that includes all teacher names and location for signature in alphabetical order.		Sign in at the door before entering cafeteria to ensure attendance.	5 minutes.
Sit in teaching groups based on core subject matter.	Teachers sitting in core subject groups to discuss specific ideas relevant to their subject matter.	Mutliple table towers that are standing on tables prior to teachers entering that name all subject areas. Fine Arts will be grouped together.		Have tables aligned with Table Towers that have all subject areas named.  Allow time for teachers to find their subject area and sit.	5 minutes
Begin with an introduction about source of information (How To Motivate Reluctant Learners, by Robyn Jackson)	To inform the teachers of what the objective is.  Also to inform where the basis of the information has come from.	Brief introduction given by Chris Mccollough on background knowledge of the material and book used to create presentation.		Display the book.  Give the Title and arthors name.  have a brief synopsis behind the book.	5 minutes.
Prezi presentation over Motivating Reluctant Learners.	To deliver information about the book and the findings of how to Motivate your students and why it is vital in the classroom.	The use of a Prezi Presentation is to use a more interesting manner of displaying information on session. This will keep faculty engaged and focused on information.		Create Prezi Presentation based on main topics of the book.  Create subgroups in the presentation to expand main topics discussed.	10 minutes.
Question and Answer time after presentation.	Offer question and answer time for anything that might have been missed in the presentation.	Open up the end of the presentation for questions or concerns about what was learned in the presentation.		Offer to the faculty at the end of the presentation if anyone has questions or anything they would like to add from their own experiences?	5 minutes.
Create and display Socrative questionnaire about presentation.	To allow faculty to offer input on presentation and use for improvement on material and delivery.	Response and Assistance requested from faculty on improvement of presentation and what they felt was important information.		During the question and response time display the class number of a Socrative survey created for this presentation.	5 minutes.

EDLD 5397 Week 3 Web Conference

In this weeks web conference for EDLD 5397 we focused on the assignment for week 3.  Dr. Borel started the web conference with discussing the class schedule and what the paths for each student was.  She discussed what the student calendar and explained the timeline for graduation.  Dr. Borel also explained that the PISE emails have been sent out to our site supervisors and she was going to put together a file that will be located on the class google site that would let us know if everything was ok or not.  We discussed the 7 course documents that were needing to uploaded into TK20 and it was made clear to not submit until all the documents were uploaded.  When did go over 4 of the items in the week 3 assignment which was very helpful.  We looked at the Action Research Project and were given a specific guide for what was needed to be turned in and how it should look.  Also, very helpful because I did have a few questions on technical aspects of the Action Research that were ansered. 

My research status

Action Research Project Title:  Math STAAR Intervention Class, effective or not?

Blog URL:  www.chrismccollough.blogspot.com


Number of AR Project Documented Hours: 10 hours


AR Project Summary (at least 250 words):

My action research project is guided towards finding out if an additional Math STAAR Intervention class is effective with increasing the achievement scores of students in all three grade levels of a middle school.  Currently, our campus and district have this additional class set up with our students that score below the passing level of the STAAR test in the previous year.  It is meant to assist with giving extra help and guidance for those students who are below the achievement level required by the state of Texas. I have been communicating regularly with my principal and the three separate grade level intervention class teachers. I have collected the data which includes the STAAR scores and percentages of all students in each grade level that were involved with a STAAR Math class. I am currently developing a visual percentage chart that only shows the scores and percentage of where they are and where they need to be.  I am intending these charts to show the level of increased achievement of Math STAAR scores within a time frame of three years.  I will have to collect the data scores of this year’s students and add these scores to my data charts to show the progress. I will also include information that would possible change or effect my data such as student removal from the class or change of school that would leave me with incomplete data for my final results. My goal is to show that being a proactive district and campus with offering these classes to our students is a positive influence on our students ad it offers them the opportunity to improve their test scores and assist them in being more successful in their educational careers.

Family-School Partnership Project

Here is a copy of the Family-School Partnership Project.  We need more involvement of parents with our schools.  I hope this will prove to be a successful relationship between the two.

Title of Family-School-Community Partnership Project

Parent Testing Volunteer Program

I. Data-Evidenced Student Need

The student need is to raise the STAAR state testing scores by assisting students with the emotional and psychological needs of having a family member with them during the test.  This is to assist with the complex emotional need of a middle school student with the feeling of them not being alone.  The goal is to lower the stress levels of the students by having personal resources such as parents and family friends within eye sight to lower the anxiety of taking such an important test.  Psychologically middle school students have comfort knowing there is someone else other than a teacher who is watching them along side them and this assists in lowering stress levels and increasing scores.

II. Benefits for Student Achievement

The benefits for student achievement are lowering stress levels which cause a mental block of remembering the information needed to pass the STAAR state standard test.  This also increases scores from previous years with the psychological comfort of seeing family members or persons that are family friends.  Parents will be apart of the actual testing process and be visible for assistance to students and teachers will different aspects of the process.

III. Proposed Activities/Strategies

First step will be to make sure that TEA and the State Board of Education and District will allow for parent involvement of this testing procedure.  The school will need to decide on the different aspects of the parent involvement for each grade level. The school will determine how will parents can assist in the process and what are the guidelines for this involvement.  The school will then develope the parent letter that will be distributed out by paper mail, district website and email for parents to view for involvement in this process.  Each campus will collect names of parents that are interested in the parent involvement program and set up a parent meeting to discuss process and requirements of parents for this involvement.  Our parents will be advised of requirements of State of Texas guidelines for involvement of state testing procedure.  Parents will be informed how to complete the certification process and will be assisted in completing this here at a campus if they are not able to complete this at home.  Parents will be asked to come to each school for a discussion panel of their views of the process and to collect any information that could be used to improve the process for the following school year.

IV. Proposed Process for Planning and Implementation

The first measurable goal is going to be contacting parents for volunteers for the STAAR test.  This goal will be to have 20 to 25 parents involved with the STAAR Testing process.  This will be about 3% of the student population and will be a good starting point for the partnership.  After the STAAR test is completed we will take the number of parents involved and adjust the goal for the following year. The next measurable goal if to get those parents involved to participate in the State Testing Certification process.  This will make sure that parents know the necessary legal procedures that will make sure that the tests are not invalid per the states guidelines. The last measurable goal will be to take the number of parents that are involved with the current years testing and use this information to develop the next years goal for parent numbers.  This will give the school an opportunity to be able to increase the number of parents involved in the testing process from year to year.  The evaluation process for my school is going to be using data collection from the State Standard Test STAAR.  This data is already being collected from year to year due to being a State Test but the evaluation process is going to look at if there is a significant change in students tests scores at different grade levels with the parent involvement.  The school-family partnership will be increased to the years Benchmark testing as well as Common Assessments throughout the year.  This data will be collected as well to determine if there is a increase in scores throughout the grade levels for students.  This evaluation process will not be an exact determinant for an increase or decrease in progress but it will give an insight for improvement.

V. What You Want from Your Audience

What I want from my audience is to understand the needs of our students. Our students are being asked to take a very important and very exhausting exam that will make a huge impact on their education career.  We need to be able to see how this effects them as developmentally young learners and how or what can be done to assist them in being successful.  The STAAR test has a reputation for being an exam that grades the schools performance but our students are the ones with that have to deal with this mentally and emotionally.  If we as educators can look at the psychological needs of our young students than we can assist them with lowering their stress levels which will then increase their scores and in the end will assist our schools performance on the STAAR state standard test scores. If our students need to carry the heavy load of actually taking this test than this proposed plan can assist in making our students psychologically stronger to carry this load.

Campus Action Plan and PDAS

Campus Action Plan

S.M.A.R.T. Goal (long range,3-5 years): By 2016, Belton Middle School will increase their STAAR Test results percentage to 90% which is an Exemplary Rating.
S.M.A.R.T. Objective (What we can accomplish in one school year): In the next school year Belton Middle School will recognize areas that are scored lower than the Recognized Rating level.  Those areas will be documented and Professional Development will be attended to improve on those areas.  By the STAAR Test in 2014, Belton Middle School will have raised their 6th grade Math scores by 2% to a rating of 82%.  We will break down each area tested and determine those parts of our curriculum is effective and which areas need to have the curriculum needs to be adjusted.  Once we have this information determined, we can look for specific training in those areas needing improvement and use this training in our PDAS for bettering our classroom.
Target Population(s): All 5th grade students, including special education students.
Activity/ Strategy (Include 3)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline	Resources/Estimated Cost	Formative Evaluation
1.Provide 6th Grade Math Teachers with additional hands-on materials for classroom instruction.	6th Grade Math Teachers and Principal.	September 2013	General Fund $4,500 for both 6th Grade Math Classrooms.  $2,250 per teacher.	Follow up walkthrough’s by Assistant Principals to observe materials are used in all classes. Weekly Math Planning meeting facilitated by Assistant Principal to discuss optional and additional ways to incorporate materials with Core Curriculum.
2. How will Journaling improve my students' STAAR scores?	6th Grade Math Teachers	July 2013	No cost to Campus, District will pay for Instructors of training through district funds. This will be summer PDAS training provided by school district.	Journals and Foldables instruction for Grades 6-8. Teachers will create their own journals to take with them when they leave the training session. Follow up walkthrough’s by Assistant Principals to observe materials are used in all classes. Weekly Math Planning meeting facilitated by Assistant Principal to discuss optional and additional ways to incorporate materials with Core Curriculum.
3. TEKSas Target Wall for Grades 6-8	6th Math Teachers	July 2013	No cost to campus.  District will pay for Instructors through district funds. This will be summer PDAS training provided by school district.	TEKSas Target Practice™ is a supplemental math bulletin board program aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and provides review for TEKS-Based Assessment (STAAR). Color-coding allows for a ten-day rotation schedule and makes exercises visually clear for students. The program’s organization makes teacher effort minimal. Texas teachers thoroughly familiar with the demands of the classroom created TEKSas Target Practice™. It is one of the most effective math preparation programs for TEKS-Based Assessment available today. Teachers will learn delivery methods, varied differentiations for both whole group and independent practice, and how it can be correlated with our BISD current math units of study.

Summative Evaluation: Use the “objective” as evaluation statement. (This allows you to determine if you achieved what you said you would achieve in one school year.)

Summative Evaluation statement: By the end of the next school year Belton Middle School will monitor and collect the STAAR test scores aligned with the Common Assessment scores to recognize an increase of the STAAR Test scores.  By the STAAR Test in 2014, Belton Middle School will have raised their 6th grade Math scores by 2% to a rating of 82%.  We will break down each area tested and determine how those parts of our curriculum were affected and not affected by the additional training and supplies offered to the6th Grade Math Teachers.  Once we have this information determined, we can look for additional specific training in those areas not affected to our specific increase of STAAR Test scores. Professional Development Agenda Action Plan Goal (same as in action plan): 6th Grade Math Teachers will learn new concept of teaching from Flipped Learning Workshop. Action Plan Objective (same as in action plan): By end of 2013/2014 school year 6th grade Math teachers will develop and begin incorporating the Flipped Classroom learning into the 6th Grade Classroom to assist with improving the STAAR test scores through more rigorous learning.  Topic of professional development: 6th Grade Math Instruction Subtopics (if applicable): Developing new classroom instruction for more rigorous learning by students. Grade Level: 6th Grade Math Facilitator: Math Facilitator, Assistant Principal, 6th Grade Math Teachers Location: BISD Administration Start Time: 8:30 a.m. End-Time: 3:30 p.m. Strategy/ Activity Purpose Description Steps Estimated Time Flipped Classroom Instruction Middle school and high school teachers will have the opportunity to devise a flipped content lesson while experiencing flipped learning in the workshop environment. Tech support and teachers who have successfully flipped lessons will be on hand to help teachers navigate this new learning strategy. 6th Grade Math Teachers will Learn and review that process of developing Flipped Classroom Instruction.  Teachers will listen to the experiences of teachers using the Flipped classroom instruction.  Teachers will then create and develop ideas using the current curriculum for implementation towards the following school year. 8 hrs Professional Development Follow-up Explain in a paragraph how you would follow up your professional development agenda to insure successful implementation of the strategies/program/activities. Include the strategy/activity and a timeline.  Remember that effective professional development is not a one time event. As a principal I would have my 6th grade math teachers spend the beginning months working together to develop ideas and instruction for the Flipped Classroom Instruction using the current curriculum at BISD for the Spring Semester of school.  I would have them report once weekly with status updates of what instruction will be used and how.  By the end of the Fall Semester I will have my 6th grade Math teachers begin using the Flipped Classroom Instruction with a small sample group of students.  The number of students will be up to 10 students per teacher.  Parents will be asked for permission and letters will be asked to be signed for the sample of students involved.  A running record will be kept for both teachers with daily grades and Common Assessment scores throughout the Spring Semester.   With the results being finalized at the end of the school year, 6th Grade Math teachers will be developing Flipped Classroom Instruction for the following school year and this will be implemented to all students in 6th Grade for Belton Middle School.