Draft Action Research Plan

 

Action Research: How can we increase teacher adoption of available campus technology resources?
Goal: The goal of this action inquiry is to investigate how we can effectively increase technology utilization by teachers in the classroom to facilitate greater learner engagement and achievement.  Technology resources are becoming increasingly available on campus however many technology resources are underutilized.  We hope to find ways to motivate teachers to effectively increase their technology use in the classroom.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Investigate research on theories of change and adoption in teacher practice.	Gregory Gedeon	December 5th 2010- December 19th 2010	Lamar University Library, Professional Journals, Internet Searches	Interview teachers to get informal data on personal motivators of practice change to compare to formal research findings.
Investigate current level of classroom technology utilization.  Baseline usage statistics will be assessed in order to measure technology implementation change at plan termination.	Gregory Gedeon, Sarah Sanchez, Classroom teachers	December 12th 2010- December 18th 2010	SurveyMonkey, Professional Staff, ITS personnel, personal computer	First SurveyMonkey will set baseline campus statistics to compare future survey with to evaluate action plan effectiveness.
Create inventory management system for campus technology resources to monitor check-out of hardware.  Usage statistics will be monitored throughout action plan and changes will be noted.	Gregory Gedeon, Sarah Sanchez	December 19th 2010- December 30th 2010	ITS personnel, Professional Staff, personal computer	ITS will be responsible for checkout monitoring.  Field interviews will be conducted with teachers to verify hardware integration into instruction practices.
Start employing strategies learned from research to target changes in perception and technology use.  Some expected findings include staff development on technology use and extrinsic motivators.   *strategies will be updated here as they are learned through research	Gregory Gedeon, Sarah Sanchez, Classroom Teachers	December 19th 2010- May 1st 2010	Previous research from first action step, information from surveys, laptops, classrooms for staff development or PLC’s	Learned strategies will be evaluated for effectiveness based on final survey outcome.
Determine change in technology use through comparisons in new survey with baseline survey and data gained through inventory management program.	Gregory Gedeon, Sarah Sanchez, Classroom teachers	May 2nd- May 15th, 2011	SurveyMonkey, laptop, spreadsheet software,	Final survey will attempt to account for any change in teacher practice with relation to technology integration.  Data from management system will also be compiled to determine final effectiveness of action plan.

 

Format based on Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)