Action Research Update

My action research project, Effectiveness of Pull-Outs at the High School Level, is moving along quite well.  I am focused mainly on pull-outs for mathematics, but have also received data on pull-outs that occurred in English and Science leading up to students that took the EOC retest in December.  For the action research project, my focus will be on the students that are retesting EOC and TAKS tests during the fall of 2012.  The first thing that I had to do was identify all the students that would be retaking these tests.  After identification, a schedule of when pull-outs would occur and what teacher would conduct the pull-outs needed to occur.  Once the teacher was identified, we worked together to develop a curriculum that could be used during the pull-outs.   Not all students would receive pull-out intervention.  We have a TAKS class and a support class for our math classes.  Students that were in these classes were not scheduled for pull-out as they would be receiving intervention during that class period.  In addition, we offered an after school tutorial open to all students.  A flyer was sent out to all students regarding the after school tutorials.  Besides the TAKS students that would be pulled-out, we only focused on Algebra 1 students that needed to retake the Algebra 1 EOC that were not in the supplemental class.  I individually spoke to all of the students that were going to be pulled-out of a class and spoke with them about the importance of passing the Algebra 1 EOC in regards to graduation as well as let them know that they will need to keep up with their class work in the classes that they were pulled from.  In the design of the pull-out, we only pulled students from elective classes.  I sent an email to all of the teachers that would have a student pulled from their class and explained the process.  We pulled the students for half a class period, every other class period, for approximately 6 pull-outs.  We have received all of the data and have a basic knowledge of how effective pull-outs were compared to other interventions.  I look forward to looking at the data and seeing what kind of increase the students that did not pass.  Passing the test is the ultimate goal, but growth is also an important piece of this as well.