Focus Areas

I think I have my focus areas set. I found an overwhelming amount of articles that touches upon these areas:

1. Home-School partnership (keeping an open communication)

• this gives me a reason to make the digital presentation
  

2. Setting school-wide expectations (academic, social, & behavioral)

• this gives me idea of what should go on the DVD
  

3. Teacher collaboration (the importance of working together for student achievement)

• this tells me how I am going to do this
  

Good idea for lit review

Hey guys...

I was reading Writing the Winning Thesis or Dissertation and it had great tips when looking for literature on your topic. I really liked the section on how to organize all the articles and books (pp. 31-38), which will be many after so many weeks. A simple number code will help you weed through the literature: #1 "must-have, #2 "maybe", #3 "no" as to how useful that information is going to be.

I've started a big binder with all the articles that I've found information that was useful. I've coded them by number and they are separated under different tabs. This has helped me to stay organized with all my collecting and reading. When it comes time to write, hopefully I'll know where everything is.

Needs Assessment #1

I e-mailed our staff today to get their input for the DVD. They quickly came up with some great ideas. On the e-mail, I gave them some guidelines to follow, thinking about issues that affect our entire school rather than just in their classroom. I'm waiting for more responses, and then I plan to compile the list, and discuss with them at a staff meeting what the final information will be included. Would this be considered a Focus Group?

Pre-Thesis (session 2)

Introduction
A successful school year includes the involvement of those who have a direct connection with the school: school employees, students, and parents or guardians. A relationship between all will help to ensure that the expectations of the school are understood, and that any misinterpretations are addressed immediately. According to Jo-Ann Cipriano Pepperl and Lawrence W. Lezotte, “A welcoming attitude is the single, most critical factor in encouraging parental involvement and partnership with the school, but not every school creates such an atmosphere” (2001, p. 3). This is true for a number of schools. A relationship is not built amongst the community, leading to difficulties throughout the year. That is why a welcoming presentation at the beginning of the year is necessary.
This thesis ties into the need of a partnership between the school and families. Building this home-school relationship will be done within the first week of school through a “Welcome Back” digital presentation for all families attending the school. The development of the project will directly relate to one of the correlates of an effective school, Positive Communication – School, Home, and Community. It will also allow the staff to work as a Professional Learning Community, collaboratively working towards the same goal. Schools can only hope for a successful school year, and open communication at the beginning of the year where expectations are stated is a starting point towards this success.

Preliminary Literature Review/Outline

• Pepperl, J.C., & Lezotte, L.W. (2001) Positive Home-School Relations. Michigan: Effective Schools Products, Ltd.
  

This book shares a number of researchers who discuss the topic of positive home-school relations. A common statement among these researchers was that parent involvement, in almost any form, improves student achievement. This activity improves children’s attitudes toward the school, achievement is increased, and children have a higher self-esteem (Pepperl & Lezotte, 2001).

• Patrikakou, E., & Weissberg, R. (1999, February 3). The Seven P's of School-Family Partnerships. Education Week, 18(21), 34. Retrieved April 18, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.
  

This article focuses on the involvement of parents in their children’s education, and there are seven P’s for this partnership building: partnership as a priority, planned, proactive and persistent, positive, personalized, practical, and involves program monitoring. Addressing the different topics and building this relationship is “integral to the process of learning and successful of schooling” (Patrikakou & Weissberg, 1999. P. 4)

• Bowen, N. (1999, January). A role for school social workers in promoting student success through school-family partnerships. Social Work in Education, 21(1), 34-47. Retrieved April 18, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.

The section in this article that relates directly to the project is the importance of parent-teacher communications. There is a need for better communication to improve student achievement. This leads to further discussion about expectations of the school and for the classroom.

• Laverick, D. (2008, February). Starting School: Welcoming Young Children and Families intoEarly School Experiences. Early Childhood Education Journal, 35(4), 321-326. Retrieved April 18, 2009, doi:10.1007/s10643-007-0201-8
  

This article begins at the earlier years of education, including kindergarten. It states that families anticipate the start of the school years with expectations that may differ from those of the school they are attending. There is a need to welcome the children and their families into a formal school experience (Laverick, 2007). The article continues to discuss the transitions the children go through and what schools can do make the situation more comfortable.


Analysis Plan/Outline
1. Needs Assessment
a. Survey the need of the presentation and the format that is wanted by parents and students (surveymonkey.com, survey will need to be done in both English and Spanish)
i. Students: during computer lab time, have teachers guide students to taking the survey (upper grade individually, primary grades whole class)
ii. Parents: send note home for parents with information for the survey, those who have the Internet available to them at home or keep a computer in the office for parents to take the survey. Allow parents to go to computer lab also to take the survey.
b. Interview with administrator, what information is key for students and parents to know at the beginning of the year
c. E-mail teachers about other ideas and issues that might need to be discussed in the presentation
d. Do a focus group with teachers as to what information is key for students and parents to know at the beginning of the year

2. Analyze data collection
a. After collecting the data, analyze the need for the presentation
b. Make decision to final scenes that are going to be on the presentation

Design Plan/Outline
1. Storyboard the scenes for the presentation

2. Meet with Mr. Arseneau (school site technology support)
a. Issues to discuss
i. Equipment
ii. DVD information
iii. Ideas for an effective presentation

3. Conference Call with subject-matter experts about editing
a. Lloyd Callomay
b. A.J. Callomay
c. Cal State Long Beach professor (name?)

4. Plan with teachers/students for taping
a. Find teacher to do Spanish component of taping
b. Use before, during, and after school for taping times
c. Tape all the different issues to be included for presentation

5. Use iMovie for presentation
a. Use iMovie tutorials for extra support
b. Sort all editing issues (English and Spanish voices)
c. If using audio (songs) give credit
d. Check all the legal issues before burning the DVD

Testing Plan/Outline
1. Alpha Testing
a. Ms. King (administrators)
b. 3-4 Teachers

2. Beta Testing
a. Current Parents
b. One incoming parent

Implementation Plan/Outline
1. Implementation to occur the first week of school
a. Send notices home to parents about viewing the presentation at school
b. Each grade level will have a different viewing time during the week
c. Separate viewing for first-time families

2. Evaluation
a. Parents will fill out a survey about effectiveness of presentation
b. Personally interview teachers and the effectiveness of the building the relationship
between families and school
c. Interview principal about the effectiveness of presentation and overall feel from
parents

Informal Focus Group

I've discussed with my administrator my ideas for the project today, and she wanted me to share it at our staff meeting that day. Once the ideas were shared, it turned into a mini informal focus group session. Teachers began to give their input on what they wanted to see on the "Welcome Back" DVD.

Knowing their excited about the project gets me excited about it also. In the future, I will need to invite teachers from all grade levels to discuss the possibilities of this presentation in a more organized session. After gathering their information and ideas, I will share it with the administrators and ask for more input before making the final decisions.

ETEC 644 Session 2

THINKING ABOUT THE THESIS:

After looking over the parent handbook (in which I originally planned to turn that into a digital presentation), I found that the handbook included numerous education codes and policies. It is a lot of wording that would be difficult to put into a digital presentation. Let's face it, who wants to talk about or demonstrate examples of suspension, expulsion, harassment, etc. on DVD or on the Internet. I think it's better to keep that information on paper.

I think overall, I want the parents and students to connect with our school and staff right at the beginning of the year. I want them to hear expectations from the principal and all grade levels, so they get an understanding of how serious we are about their education and discipline.

With this in mind, I am thinking now of putting together a welcome digital presentation for parents and students to watch the first week of school. I want these families to be familiar, comfortable, and ready for a tough year ahead. With most issues being discussed on the presentation, there shouldn't be too many surprises throughout the year.

***I also picked up some theses at the library to get an idea of what's ahead of me. It's been helpful in beginning the introduction to the thesis.

Thesis Timeline

Design and Development Thesis
Timeline to Graduation: Spring 2010

April 26, 2009 - First Draft of Thesis to Dr. Newberry
May 10, 2009 - Full Literature Review to Dr. Newberry
May 24, 2009 - MA Proposal Draft to Dr. Newberry
May 31, 2009 - IRB Application to Dr. Newberry
June 5, 2009 - Finish Conducting Project Survey
June 14, 2009 - Project Prototype Available to Dr. Newberry
August 3, 2009 - Pilot Test Project
Mid August 2009 - Grad Check and Apply to Graduate (Petition to Walk)
August 24-28, 2009 - Implement Project
October 2, 2009 - Conclude Implementation and Analyze Data on Results
November 6, 2009 - Modify Chapter 3 Based on Results of Implementation
December 4, 2009 - Final Version of Literature Review Complete
January 8, 2010 - Final Version of Introduction complete
January 26, 2010 - Final Version of Chapter 4 Complete
February 26, 2010 - Final Draft of Thesis Complete and Sent to Editor
March 5, 2010 - Final Draft of These Back from Editor
April 2010 - Enroll in ETEC 699
Mid April 2010 - Thesis and Project complete and Available to First Reader for Review
Mid May 2010 - Thesis Approved by First Reader and Available to Second Reader for Review June 2010 - Format Review

ETEC 644 Session 1

Hello ETEC 644...

Well, it's hard to believe that we are finally going to start working on this thesis after talking about it back from ETEC 500. Although I am excited about it because we are halfway through the program, I am nervous about all the work that is ahead of us.

For my thesis, I plan to do design and development. I wanted to do something for the school I am at that would be meaningful for me as well as all those who attend our school. Our school has really been striving to be a technology school, and we have made leaps and bounds to get there. I was thinking of something that the families of our school need, is used every year, but is not in digital form.

With this in mind, I am planning on turning our "Parent Handbook" into a digital format presentation. The parent handbook is given out at the beginning of each year, listing all the rules, regulations, and expectations of our school. It is a long book that is supposed to be read by the parents and then shared with the students. Who knows if they read the book, but if it was put in digital form (whether on DVD or on the Internet), maybe parents would take that time to watch it with their children, and the information of our school and district will be better understood.

I've already discussed it with my principal, and she loves the idea. I have a lot of ideas with the design and development of it. What I'm most nervous about is finding the right literature to back it up.

Well that's it for session 1.

Heidi :)