My husband is a high school science teacher and when taking this class, I got a glimpse at what exactly he studies about in his meetings regarding the TAKS test: Adequate Yearly Process (AYP). As a technology teacher and a new teacher in general, I have not had much exposure to AYP and all that it requires. In week one, I reviewed my campus' AYP as compared to the state standards. I also reflected upon my district's goals. Even though my campus' vision is "Exceeding High Standards", after analyzing all the data, I find that not to be the case. In week two, I dug further into my campus stastics with our AEIS (Academic Excellence Indicator Standard) report. Improvement has been consist at the time of the study except in math and science. Now I see why those departments have so many meetings with our curriculum directors of the district. At this point I was glad to see the technology department isn't broken down like the core classes are. I would hate to be on the losing end of these data reports. Since this class, our principal has had our faculty together as a group to discuss our campus' current status. "Although it takes time and even training to involve the staff in data analysis, group analysis is probably one of the most important actions a school administrator can take toward creating a culture of improvement" (Harris, 2010). We had a lengthy session on our state of AYP and critically took a look at that data. After scrutinizing the data, in week three I had to create goals for our district to address our targeted areas in need. From there I had to create ways to attain those goals when it comes to building our curriculum in week four. This included incorporating math into all subject areas for students. This is something our district's Career and Technology Department actually collaborated about prior to this past school year. We discussed how we could aid in a student's math skills by adding math to our career and technology classes. Each department within our career and technology department (computers, business, auto technology, agriculture) developed example questions to use as warm ups in our questions. This correlates with with what is needed for our district to obtain an excellent AYP. In week five I dove into studying our campus' site based decision team. Prior to this course, I thought that it was just our campus who developed such an idea. The school I worked at before my current location did not have such a thing. From this class and additional information from the past year within our campus, I have thought more about what I can contribute to AYP from my small classroom. Even though I am no mathematics scholar by any means, I do what I can to incorporate additional math into my business related classes. I can see in the future where I would add more to this personal plan of mine to collaborate with other classes such as history.
Ennis Independent School District. (2010, February 28). Ennis Independent School District: Files and Documents. Retrieved February 28, 2010, from 2008-2009 Adequate Yearly Progress Report: http://www.ennis.k12.tx.us/files/filesystem/Title%20I%20AYP07.pdf
Harris, S., Edmonson, S., Combs, J. (2010). Examining What We Do To Improve Our Schools: 8 Steps From Analysis to Action. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education. 22.
Texas Education Agency. (2010, February 28). Ennis Independent School District: Files and Documents. Retrieved February 28, 2010, from 2008-2009 Academic Excellence Indicator System Report: http://www.ennis.k12.tx.us/files/filesystem/AEISglossary08-09.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment