Updated Action Research Plan

Wording that is highlighed in bold is a revision to the original plan. Some action steps of the original plan have been deleted to narrow the focus of the study.

Goal: The goal of this action research is to help at-risk stduents who are behind in their graduation credits, achieve academic success, recover credits and return to being at grade level. This goal will be accomplished by employing mentoring strategies that will answer the question:
How does a low ration teacher-to-student mentoring program for at-risk students, who are lacking enough credits to be on grade level, affect the student's grades, credits and TAKS scores?

Action Steps-- 1. Identify the students that are not at garde level due to lacking credits.
2. Assign each teacher one or two students, matching as much as possible a
teacher's co-teaching time to the subject in which their mentor student(s)
is having trouble.
3. Address the faculty and explain how the mentoring program will work.
4. Call all mentor students to an assembly, explain how the program will
work, and give each of them the name of their teacher mentor.
5. Teachers will meet with their mentor students once a week during their
co-teaching time and implement mentoring strategies.
6. Research and develop mentoring strategies for use in the program.
7. Collect and analyze mentor student grades at the end of each six
weeks.
8. All mentor teachers will conference with the parents of their
mentor student(s) at either an open house, scheduled conference or by phone during the first six weeks of school..
9. Collect and analyze mentor student grades and credits earned at the end of
the first semester, looking for patterns and trends of improvement.
10. Mentor teachers will adjust strategies as needed and indicated by the results of the 1st semester grades.
11. All mentor teachers will conference with the parents of their mentor
student(s) at either an open house, scheduled conference or by phone during the 4th six weeks of school.
11. Anaylze mentor student TAKS results, 2nd semster grades, and total credis earned for the year.
12. Prepare a final report on the effectiveness of the student mentoring program.

Person (s) Responsible--I (Robert Gomez) will be primarily responsible for implementing the steps of the action research. The head counselor will assist me in determining the names of the students who are behind on credits and as a result will be part of this program. The principal will assist me in explaining and selling the program to the faculty. The teacher mentors will be responsible for meeting with their students and adjusting or maintaining strategies as a need is indicated by student grades and credits being earned and recovered. The parents will be responsible for conferencing with the mentor teacher of their child during the first and fourth six weeks of school. I (Robert Gomez)will prepare a final report on the effectiveness of the project.

Timeline--This action research project will start on Monday, August 2, 2010 with the gathering of data on student credits. Teacher mentoring of students will begin during the 2nd week of school. The action research and strategies will continue throughout the school year and culminate on Friday, May 17, 2011. The final analysis report will be turned in to the principal by the end of June 2011.

Needed Resources: Student transcripts, mentor student grades per six weeks, mentor student grades per semester, mentor student credits earned per semester, mentor student TAKS results.

Evaluation--the evaluation of most of the action research steps are simply a check of whether or not the task was accomplished. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the action research and the effects of the project on student grades, credits earned, credits recovered,and TAKS scores, will be determined by what the data indicates.