Yeah!! We met AYP this year.

My action research project was over my campus not meeting AYP for 2010-2011, but we did meet it for 2011-2012. Therefore, my action research project was a success.  I'm so proud of our students and teachers.  

Raw Data

Well, we have raw data to look at.  I'm wondering how high the standards will be set for these test.  Well, I've looked at my targeted group, and I can guess that 3 probably failed out of 22 students after looking at the scores. I wonder what date our AYP rating will be available for us to view I think it will be around June 15, 2012 or in August.  I found two different articles that had listed different dates.    

Bridge Study

Well, the fourth-grade students have taken the STARR, but first we were told we wouldn't know students test scores until January 2013.  I received an email this week that stated that the state is going to use a  Bridge Study, and we will know if we made AYP in June, but we still won't know about individual student's scores until January.  I know that my group of students did their best and worked really hard, so all I can do is hope that it's enough.    

Poetry

This past week we've been working on poetry with my fourth-grade  group.  They seemed to catch on quickly.  I received help on teaching poetry from our ESL reading specialist whom used to teach fourth grade.  This week we are going to start on Drama.  Then the next week they will take the STARR test in reading.  I'm disappointed that we might not know how our students preformed until January 2013.  Since I'm comparing TAKS data to STARR data, I'm starting to believe that my research project will be invalid.

Personal Narrative Writing

We've been working on personal narrative writing this week, which was easier for them.  This week the biggest issue was they weren't writing enough.  I know they must narrow down their thoughts because they only have one page, but they wrote five sentences total.  They are still struggling with transition words and forgot them last week.  Next week, I going to demonstrate a personal narrative and stop and have them use a list of transition words and tell me what to use. I hope this is helpful for the students.  I can't believe that they take the writing test on Tuesday.

School Community Relations 5326 Post-Web Conference

I was assigned to reflect over my web conference experience for my School Community Relations course.  I learned that I need to take the ILD test and found out when region 10 offers training, which I was unaware of this test and didn't know what this was until this web-conference. I also find out the name of a good book to buy before taking the principals exam it's called "Passing the  Principal TEXES Exam" by Elaine Wilmore.   It was helpful having students at different levels in their programs, because they were great at giving us information about whats to come. 

Aftermath for the Mock STARR reading

Well, are students took a Mock STARR test and after reviewing the data we have to throw out 12 out of 42 questions because the questions were bad and most didn't offer a correct answer choice.  We got the tests from region 10 or Scope, but it was horrible and the students felt really defeated.  I've been working on writing these last few weeks because that test is coming up. We started off by cutting up an expository story and placing the center idea on the top, after that the translation words went over the boxes that we drew and then the main idea of the paragraph was next.  Finally, we glued the closing down, and we talked about how the closing needs to restate the prompt. The students are much faster now on using the one-sided  flow map which we are using on the Expository writing to brainstorm.  We've been talking about which type of transition words to use with the different types of writing.  I will continue to work on writing after spring break.