Revised Idea for Action Research

After speaking with my campus site supervisor, head principal, and assistant principal over technology initiative,  we have determined that Flipped Classroom implementation poses major challenges with action research on my campus due to socioeconomic background of many students. We are still going to implement it within the freshman science classrooms, but to a lower degree to account for issues of technology available outside of the classroom and because implementing Flipped classrooms throughout campus would not be best for the entire campus.

On the other hand, there is a real lack of support and training for teachers to develop technological confidence. As a result, most technology usage on campus is by the teacher via PowerPoint, document cameras, and projectors.

I will be targeting all teachers on campus, but primarily focusing on core subject area teachers. All teachers are expected to be proficient in basic technological usages which are critical to data tracking, communication, and resource banks. Each teacher will also be required to select at least one program of which will be utilized to enhance learning through student use. Examples for student use are StudyIsland, Evernote, Twitter, or Glogster.

All teachers will be included due to the campus-wide initiative to drive student used technology for learning. Teachers will be surveyed at the beginning of the year using a Likert scale system regarding proficiency and comfort level with 8 software programs which are considered to be base competency, support for technology, comfort level for implementing student used technology, and access to hardware. They will also be given a menu of student utilized programs, including a brief description of each, to choose the top 2 which they have interest. The choices will be used to set up professional development and mentoring schedule.

At the end of the school year, we will survey teachers again regarding core competency programs, comfort level of student used technology, access to hardware, and support for technology. The goal is to have more teachers being fluent with technology programs and confident in implementing technology usage for students.