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.