Action+Research+Proposal

Assignment One

My area of study in the College of Education is teacher certification. By having a bachelor's and a master's degree from Marshall University and having years of experience in the retail environment, I believe I can contribute to a complete education in the public arena. There are many areas in which the public school system excels but there are also areas in which it can improve. One of these main areas are the students who comprise the middle ground in between the special needs students and the gifted ones. These students often do not wish to go on to higher education but still need the necessary equipment to contribute to society as a whole. What can we, as educators, give them to succeed? The use of technology will continue to expand so it is integral that students learn how to use technology in the workplace. Along with technology, students must be able to communicate in a method that is more complex than a text or a twitter. They must be able to intelligently correspond to colleages and managers as well as customers and vendors. Effective communication can cover not only writing skills but also oral communcation as well. A student must possess a sense of ethical behavior for the workplace. Trust issues must be practiced in the classroom by the teacher and administration so the student can see a positive working model in action. Critical and creative thinking is another item for the educational environment to foster. Being able to incorporate local businesses into the curriculum can be helpful in creating a real world/application oriented environment. If students can see the benefit of real life application then the lessons will have more staying power. Team building is another business application for education. Working within the framework of a group can add value to all students involved. Real life applications can also improve student initiative and motivation. Initiative can also be linked with creative thinking, but getting students to look ahead and see what needs to be done next is a tremendous benefit to all future employers. Middle-ground students can use initiative to make themselves stand out in a competitive environment. As you can see, I am passionate about equipping students with tools that will enable them to survive and thrive in the real world. Research has been done to examine if schools are meeting the needs of employers in fundamental areas. Some of the findings I read did not indicate that to be the case. If 75% of high school students do not go on to obtain any additional education, then it is imperative that the public schools meet these basic needs. In order to more fully examine this topic, I plan to gather all my resource materials in September; review/discuss my proposed plan with an advisor and issue surveys to be completed in October; assemble data and prepare report in November in order to present in December. All plans are subject to approval/revisal by instructor/advisor. //Research update: My research project has taken a few different turns this semester. I pretty much stayed true to my original theme which I am happy with. However, I did experience a couple of setbacks. I had done some research earlier in the semester to set up my survey. I saved these to my campus email, or so I thought. In any event, they were no longer there and when I tried to go back and locate them I had some difficulty. I enjoy doing research once I get into the groove. It is a bit difficult when the demands of school and life get in the way. I am pretty pleased with the way this turned out, but feel if I had a bit more time I could get it exactly the way I want it.// //The research project began with finding articles, containing research, on how effectively students were able to work and communicate when they finished high school. Mostly what I was able to find were articles featuring college age students and the deficiencies they exhibited. From this start, I developed my plan to do a survey with my clinical II students. I figured I could get some good feedback from them if they would be honest. When I got to my clinical II, I realized that all the classes were computer in nature and none of them dealt with business classes. Because of this, I decided to incorporate a bit of technology into my research in order to justify the use of class time. I then went about the ardent task of collecting a bit more research with this added twist. The basis of my research has been state and govenrment studies that give a great deal of data but not a lot of clues about areas for more research. You will find that part of my project lacking. Overall, once I got down to writing, this past week, it came together rather well.// // Additional comments: // =// I realized that the length of my survey was too long. Although most of the students completed it, about 10% either didn’t complete it or filled in all the same answer so their results had to be voided. Also, if I had this assignment to do over again, I would prefer to use a computerized survey so that I could get a more detailed breakdown of the statistics. If i had to do it differently, I would reduce the length of my survey and try to computerize it so I could manipulate the data a bit more. I would like to find out what exact characteristics were true for the different age groups and genders. //=