Action Research Plan - 1st Draft (sort-of)

Ok - here is the first draft of my plan that I am willing to let anyone see.  I have been trying to do things the hard way on this blog and now I am frustrated.  Please give me some feedback and make some suggestions so I can do the revision.  I will post the final draft later this evening.  Thanks in advance for your help!

Question:  “Do students who are enrolled in CTE courses perform better on state and local assessments than their peers who are not enrolled in any of these courses?”
Goal:  To show proof that CTE courses enhance the learning experience in core classes and help student performance on state and local assessments.  Study will focus on freshmen and sophomores and their performance on EOC.  Juniors and Seniors and TAKS testing will not be considered for this inquiry.
Action Steps:	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources:	Evaluation:
Meet with counselor(s) to get list of 9th and 10th grade students enrolled in CTE courses.  Will look at students enrolled in one or more CTE courses for the fall and spring semesters for the current school year.  May be necessary to pull sophomore schedules from previous year as well.	B. Brandon School counselors	April 2013	Infinite Campus and counselor access to schedules.	Create database of students to be followed.
Meet with all CTE instructors and explain inquiry.  Ask for cooperation and assistance in gathering data.	B. Brandon Site Supervisor	April 2013	List of students; copy of TEKS from each CTE course and from each Core class.	Meeting notes
Meet with 9th and 10th grade core curriculum teachers and explain inquiry.  Ask for assistance and cooperation in gathering data.	B. Brandon Site Supervisor Campus Principal	April 2013	List of students; copy of TEKS from each CTE course and from each Core class.	Meeting notes
Obtain state assessment data for 2011-2012 school year. (10th grade only)	B. Brandon Counselor(s)	April 2013	Access to all CTE students in Aware (Eduphoria testing data)	Enter findings in database created for inquiry
Create control group of 10th grade students not enrolled in CTE courses for 2011-2012 and record state assessment results	B. Brandon Counselor(s)	April-May 2013	Access to student data in Aware	Create another table in database for control group
Create and distribute survey to CTE students about CTE courses and what they like/dislike about course.	B. Brandon CTE Instructors	April-May 2013	Access to student schedules	Record results in database
Read professional articles about CTE courses and benefits to student education.	B. Brandon	June-August 2013	Journals and online resources	Find and record thoughts about 5 articles pertaining to CTE and benefits of the program.
Look at scores from 2012-2013 EOC exams for focus and control groups.  Compare to previous year’s results.	B. Brandon Counselor(s) Site supervisor	This depends on when score are available…maybe during summer 2013 or September/October 2013.	Test results	Enter data into database.  Compare to previous year and control group of non CTE students.
Share results with other CTE and core curriculum instructors at faculty meeting or special meeting.	B. Brandon Site Supervisor Campus Principal	Once again, depends on score availability.  I will amend after talking to counselors.	Meeting time, test scores	Create database report to share with faculty.
Inquiry will probably change at this point and will develop into something else pertaining to curriculum and CTE courses.

Format for template provided by Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)