Action Research Underway

This week was my first week on my new job as Gifted and Talented Academic Coordinator.  Good news is I know I am right where God wants me to be.  That is such a blessed feeling.  I am also very excited because I was given ample opportunity to dicuss my action research plan with other administrators and how we are going to implement it.  This year our district will be conducting administrator walk-throughs that allow us to be in the classrooms seeing what the teachers are doing to enhance student performance.  One of the walk-throughs we will be conducting is one on rigor.  This will allow us to give teachers the tools to enhance the rigor in their classroom.  By conducting these walkthroughs, it will allow me and other administrators to help the teachers that need assistance and praise those that are right on target.  I hope to possibly video short spurts of the teaching styles of the teachers that are practicicing elevated rigor and differentiated instruction to show other teachers that differentiated instruction works and helps the students become more successful learners.  If teachers  are resistant to the changes we are trying to implement, can see first hand that the strategies we are stressing work, they will be more likely to use them in their own classrooms.  For the teachers that do struggle with rigor and differentiated instruction, we will gie them more training on the subjects in Job Embedded Professional Development sessions (JEPD).  These sessions will be short courses to better elaborate on the needed topics and give the teacher more tools to use in the classroom.  I will be conducting my first JEPD on September 16 on the subject of rigor.  I hope to give teachers a better idea of what rigor should look, feel, and sound like in the classroom.  This will be one of my steps in my action research journey.