Sharing Action Research Plan from Week 3

Foundation
The goal of this action research study is to examine the results of implementing technology into classroom instruction and in the student’s independent work in literary skills. As stated in the campus improvement plan, our students need to become effective 21st century learners. Lack of effort in the class has increased and the desired outcome is to stop this trend by implementing a new ways of learning with the use of technology.

Analyzing the data and gaining deeper understanding
This action research will compare the use of Expert 21 Curriculum vs. the use of novel/video units typically used in classroom currently. Expert 21 Curriculum is a pilot program consisting of the use of technology in literature.
Activities: Expert 21: Group 1
There are eight different workshops or study units that students will work through. Units of study start off with anchor videos which focus on prior knowledge providing a focus before reading. Students will actively read excerpts from six different stories correlated to a main theme or topic. The reading skills are embedded and activities are structured in such a way that the student can either write on regular paper or use interactive computer software to post their responses. The students are then able to use different strategies or personal learning styles for independent work. After the workshop is completed, each student will then take a uniform standardized test assessing the skills set taught.

Activities: English Classes not using Expert 21: Group 2
English classes using “traditional” instruction will use novel units for each nine weeks period. These novels have the basic questions and response activities. Each 3 weeks students will be given an informal assessment on the reading skills being covered to evaluate their level of knowledge. Towards the end of the nine weeks, the classes will watch a media version of the book and will do a compare/contrast project. At the conclusion of the nine week grading period, a comprehensive assessment will be given.
All English Classes:
At the end of Spring Semester, the students will take TAKS

Reflection and Exploring Patterns
The group using the novel units will gather data from 3 weeks progress monitoring assessments. The teachers will collaborate and reflect after each reporting period to discuss the action research progress, which is how technology is implemented in literature to raise test scores.

Taking steps for improvement: Use of other technology
After careful reflection and collaboration, teachers will begin to integrate different technology applications to help improve the students’ academic levels and attitudes toward literature.

One major resource will be the Scholastic Expert 21 Curriculum. This program is a computer based program that will evaluate the effectiveness of technology with literature and the student’s ability to use their own personal learning style to guide their learning using multimedia format. (Group 1) Another resource will be novel/video units that include a movie of the story with the added use of applied graphic organizers. (Group 2) This group will gather data from progress monitoring assessments every three weeks to determine the effectiveness of the learning. Teachers will collaborate and reflect upon the data collected from each assessment period. This will reflect how technology implemented in the classroom will help raise test scores.
Sustained improvement
The final assessment will be the comparison of TAKS results from Group 1 and Group 2.