Conference with My Site Supervisor

My conference with my site supervisor went very well. Mary Dawn, my site supervisor, talked over my action research plan with me and provided me with some very helpful insight. One of the things Mary Dawn wanted clarified was which Kindergarten and 3^rd grade teacher would I be interviewing. Together, we chose three Kindergarten teachers for me to interview this year. When it came to which 3^rd grade teachers I would interview, we were uncertain at this time due to the fact that I do not know what subject I will be teaching and with who I will be teaching with next year. The next topic Mary Dawn and I discussed was which parents I would be interviewing. We decided that I would take a sampling of parents. In other words, I will choose two random parents from each teacher’s homeroom to interview. In total, I will interview 8 Kindergarten parents and 8 3^rd grade parents. Next, Mary Dawn and I got to the data collecting part of my action research plan. While Mary Dawn was reading over my plan, she asked me how I was going to determine if AM tutoring is truly effective. In other words, Mary Dawn wanted to know what was I going to compare my data that I collect from the struggling students who attend AM tutoring to. From there, Mary Dawn mentioned some possible groups to compare my data to.  The two possibilities were comparing the AM tutoring students to students who were not invited to AM tutoring or comparing the AM tutoring students to students who were invited to AM tutoring but were not attending. After brainstorming together, we decided to compare the data I collect from the struggling students who do attend AM tutoring to the struggling students who were invited to AM tutoring but do not attend. We also decided that I will be collecting data from two struggling students who attend AM tutoring and two struggling students who do not attend AM tutoring from each classroom. As a result of these numbers, I will have a total of 16 Kindergarten students and 16 3^rd grade students that I will be collecting data on; 8 students who attend AM tutoring and 8 students who do not attend AM tutoring. This part of our conversation really helped me clarify my desired outcomes of my action research study. I am hoping to see that the gap between struggling students who attend AM tutoring and non-struggling students decreases due to extra help from AM tutoring. My prediction is that the gap between the struggling students who do not attend AM tutoring and the struggling students who do attend AM tutoring will grow because the whose who attend are getting that extra help and becoming more successful. The final topic Mary Dawn and I discussed was my idea of presenting my findings to the parents. Mary Dawn felt like this was not needed in my action research plan. Mary Dawn felt this way due to the fact that I am only looking at two grade levels and only at 16 students from those grade levels. In other words, I am only looking at a small amount of students. These 16 students do not represent every student in the school. Therefore, my data and findings does not need to be shared with every parent. Mary Dawn did say that I could share my findings with those parents that I interview due to the fact that they were involved in my study. As a result, I have decided to take out the action step “present findings to the parents” from my action research plan. All in all, my conference with Mary Dawn went extremely well. Mary Dawn helped me narrow in on my data numbers and she reassured me that I was researching a topic that was very meaningful to the administrative team. Mary Dawn even said that she was looking forward to hearing my results.