Research Plan

Campus Action Plan

S.M.A.R.T. Goal (long range,3-5 years): Within the next year on our campus, our STAAR science scores will increase above an 85%, this will help us become at least a recognized and if they are higher possibly an exemplary campus.
S.M.A.R.T. Objective (What we can accomplish in one school year): Within the next school year, we will focus harder on getting the 8th grade Hispanic and African American students to score at least an 80% on the Science STAAR test, in doing so this will help our campus overall rating increase to recognized or exemplary, assuming all other scores remain the same or increase.  The trend I have noticed is that the minorities tend to score lower in science, according to the AEIS reports.
Target Population(s): African American and Hispanic 8th grade students.
Activity/ Strategy (Include 3)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline	Resources/Estimated Cost		Formative Evaluation
1 Provide teacher training in the area of using manipulatives in the classroom and the clinical teaching method.  Show and provide many different manipulatives as well as spark ideas for the manipulatives that can be use for the TEKS.  Using manipulatives will allow more students, especially those who struggle with the content to relate to the material, they will allow the material to become more abstract in their brain.  There are levels of learning, they are concrete, pictorial, and abstract (teacher 2012).  Discussing ideas, and manipulatives that work in 8th grade science, this will lead into the introduction of the clinical teaching cycle, which uses formative assessments as tools to increase performance.  A strategy that one article discusses is what’s called the Clinical Teaching Cycle; it has five steps that can be useful in helping our team raise the scores at our school.  The five steps are:  Teach the content, re teach it again for students who are struggling using different strategies, if student’s still struggle, use informal assessments to pinpoint the exact area of weakness, monitor progress, modify instruction based on assessment information (Ritter 2003).  Teaching the clinical teaching cycle to the staff combined with the many different science manipulatives will help increase performance for our targeted areas of weakness.	Science department head will lead the development; the staff involved will be the entire science department at our school (7th and 8th grade teachers). Coach Harris, department head. Attendees, Amy Bowers, Gavin Jones, Austin Eastep, Coach Eurish, and Melanie Sewell.	Three of our beginning staff development days, August 8-11, one hour every morning beginning at 8:00 a.m.	Spending no more than 2,000 dollars on different manipulatives.  Most are in the science magazines and would need to be ordered ahead of time.  Each teacher will receive a book titled, The Body Book, by Scholastic; each cost around 20 dollars apiece.  Can be bought at Amazon.  Many of the TEKS involve the human body systems, and this area is identified as a area of weakness according to the teachers and their formative assessments.		After the manipulatives and the clinical teaching methods have been practiced in the classrooms, teachers will ask a series of questions relating to each TEK, the students will answer the questions and peer grade in class.  This could be substituted by playing a bingo game, baseball review game, or any particular game that reinforces and highlights any area of weakness with the topics.  This allows for the teacher to re teach, or use a different method of instruction to improve the area of weakness.
2 Send all middle school science teachers to the workshop provided by Region 10 titled, “Teaching Science in a Diverse Classroom.” 7/12/12 Spring Valley Site,	Principal Campbell and assistant principal.	Region 10 Teaching science in a diverse classroom 9-4, Ellis Room Spring Valley Site 7/12/12 Enroll by 7/11/12		This event sponsored by Region 10 and has no fee.	The formative assessment idea is called an EXIT TICKET.  At the beginning of class you ask a series of short questions.  Then distribute the exit tickets to the students, one per student.  These questions are the main points, or ideas that you want them to focus on/know in the lesson for that particular day.  After the lesson is over, the students fill out their exit ticket and turn it in to the teacher as they exit the door.  This will be immediate feedback for the teacher on a topic, as well as keep the students focused on what material is extra important (STEM 2012).
3 Each science teacher will examine 3 different articles of information or articles on how science inquiry/hands on labs and activities can improve performance.  Teachers will create a short presentation 2-3 minutes on what they have learned and will share/communicate the findings prior to school starting, as well as different activities that can help promote student success according to the material they have read.  We will begin discussion toward the closing of the meeting by discussing the new book the teachers will receive.  The staff development meeting will be closed with a formative evaluation method called 3-2-1.  I will explain the 3-2-1 process in the last column titled, formative evaluation!	Science department head will lead the development; the staff involved will be the entire science department at our school (7th and 8th grade teachers). Coach Harris, department head. Attendees, Amy Bowers, Gavin Jones, Austin Eastep, Coach Eurish, and Melanie Sewell.	Science planning days, designated by our principal at the beginning of the year.	All teachers will receive a copy the book I have found, it can be bought on Amazon, Teaching Science for All Children: An Inquiry Approach (with MyEducationLab) (5th Edition) by Ralph Martin, Colleen Sexton, Teresa Franklin and Jack Gerlovich (Apr 19, 2008).  The book is about 122.00$ for one, we have six science teachers.		An evaluation for students at the end of day is called the 3-2-1.  “The 3-2-1 Reflection serves as post-instructional activity that helps students to focus their ideas and synthesize large amounts of information.  IMPLEMENTING THIS ACTIVITY Decide what the focus of the reflection will be. Enter this topic into the blank space of the template. Make and distribute enough copies for each of your students. Explain the directions and expectations for this reflection. Students will determine the three big/main ideas from a lesson or assigned reading. Student will specify the two immediate actions they plan to take as a result of what they have learned Students will reveal one major insight that resulted from what they read/learned. Collect the reflections and evaluate the reflection to determine the student’s level of understanding prior to the next lesson or reading (STEM 2012).