Action Research Ideas

I am very interested in doing my action research project about college readiness. The idea came to me in my senior year of college. It was the first time that I was in a group where I had to depend on other people for my grade on this particular assignment. When we met as a group two nights before the project was due, I was in awe of the horrific job my group had done on their parts. I was so prepared for college, that sometimes my "not so good work" was commended by professors. It was not until this moment that I realized why. The next time I encountered this issue was two summers ago, when I taught for the Institute of Reading Development. It was a great program, but I realized very quickly how things that seem like common sense to me are foreign to so many kids today. I know that college is not for everyone, but I believe that some of the same skills are needed to be successful in college and in the workforce.

I believe that this topic is significant because even though Texas has one of the highest high school graduation rates in the U.S., according to the Texas Association of Community Schools, only 21.9% of Texas students complete a postsecondary degree or certificate. Somewhere along the way we are not reaching our students like we should.

In my opinion, the state is putting too much emphasis on mandated tests. Because of this, teachers feel that they do not have enough time to develop creative learners, to have learner-centered classrooms, to increase collaborative and real-world projects, or to make students take ownership of their learning. I know that I will not be able to fix this problem, and I certainly won’t make a difference about the testing procedures, but I would really like research what we are and are not doing to prepare our students for college. I believe that in small, rural towns where money is scarce, there are no programs that are implemented (like AVID) and all of this falls on the teachers.

The long shot is being able to gather data on this research. I had thought about possibly coming up with surveys and having recent high school graduates (some that I know personally…maybe some I don’t) do the surveys, as well as creating a separate survey for teachers at my school. I would like to see what and how they are implementing college readiness standards in their classrooms. The research part of this would be finding the right questions to ask for both teachers and students, as well as learning what kinds of things teachers can do in their classrooms to better prepare students for college and the real world. I would also like to try and compare benchmark test scores for teachers who implement these activities and teachers who do not.

Another part that I have thought about after doing my research, (attending a conference, etc.) is to conduct a teacher staff development on ways to help better prepare students for college. I could then compare test scores on teachers who implement some of the strategies.

I think there are a lot of people who will benefit from this. The students for sure will benefit. I believe that you will see an increase in attitude in reluctant students, you will see better test scores, and I truly believe that you will see a higher interest in students wanting to go to college. Teachers can benefit from this as well. They can evaluate themselves and their teaching and possibly create a classroom environment where students are learning more, having fun, and participating. (This always makes for a happy teacher)

Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.