Action+Research+Plan

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The purpose of my Action Research plan is to raise the level of alertness among the students at the schools in my district and create a lesson or series of lessons which are actually relevant to today's students. So many of them just tune out when presented with anything on internet safety and cyber bullying. Additionally, there are too many cases of cyber bullying that either go unreported or reported and not dealt with that happen each year, and the consequences are dire. This shows me that the presentations obviously arent very effective, so I have made it my project to research cyber bullying, its effects, and so on in order to create lessons relevant to today's student, aimed at all levels. With sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and even Blogspot open to all ages, the risk of cyber bullying at all ages has increased. Therefore, I think it prudent to conduct this action research project with the aim of educating the student population for the purpose of keeping them safe. I intend to conduct my research with both by student and teacher surveys and imput, as well as looking for information in academia and on sites specifically designed to report this. In completing this project, I intend to create lessons about what cyber bullying is, consequences, and ways they themselves can combat it that are specifically aimed at today's student. My plan may be a little ambitious and/or difficult to complete, but I feel very strongly about the schools being safe places, and the more educated the students are about issues like these, the bigger the step towards making schools and students secure and safe

Goals: The overall goal of this action research plan is to develop a series of lessons which will inform the students of the characteristics, dangers, potential consequences, and ways to prevent cyber bullying. The goal of action portion of the research project will be to gain insight into how others view the subject of cyber bullying. The actual action portion of the action research will center on conducting interviews and surveys among the students and administrators at each level, focusing on views on, opinions of, and information regarding cyber bullying. There will also be a reflection period as I put together the lessons/presentations

Activities: The activities that will be involved in this project will be done with the students and teachers/administrators in their advisory classes. Students and administrators will answer surveys focused on cyber bullying characteristics, consequences, and the like. In addition to the surveys, the action researcher will use cyber bullying web sites, recent newspaper articles, and information on cyber bullying from other districts to compile references. These student surveys and references gathered in passive research will, ostensibly, be used to complete this project.

Resources and research tools needed for data gathering: During the time period of this research, students will be surveyed, and the data gathered will be used in conjunction with information gathered from cyber-bullying awareness web sites, newspaper articles from over the last year regarding cyber bullying incidents and consequences, focusing on the state of Texas. Reflection on answers given by the students and found on the web sites will be a major part of the research for this project, as directed by the various articles assigned by the instructors for the action research class.

Timeline for completion or implementation of activities: This research project will be conducted over a period one calendar year.

Persons responsible for implementation of the action research plan: Colin Shannon is the one responsible for the implementation of the action research plan.

Process for monitoring the achievement of goals and objectives: The process for monitoring achievement of goals and objectives will involve receiving a final result which meets the criteria for EDLD 5301.

Assessment instrument(s) to evaluate the effectiveness of the action research study: Assessment instruments will include a survey to be taken be the selected classes who view the finished lesson, with questions aimed at finding out what percentage of students felt the presentation was relevant to them, affected them, and what could be done to improve the lesson. If a student focused lesson has no input from the students before or after viewing a lesson created specifically for them, one of the most significant aspects of action research has not been fulfilled: that of constructing research with opinions from the people “in the trenches.”