It's the end of Week 2: Real Life Research Action Examples

So, week two is winding down and coming to a close. The assignment is due tomorrow. Upon reflection of action research and it's purpose as well as the teachings of the fundamentals of leadership, I have had a chance to hypothetically link good fundamentals to good future, research based inquiries.

This week, part of the assignment was to take 9 wonderings school leaders have and link them to hypothetical action research topics and identify the significance. For me, I can never not think of my special babies, and all types of scenarios were running through my head.

 

Here are a few:

1.    Curriculum development: A lack of Social Skills curriculum. How can I implement a social skills curriculum within Special Education? What does the social skills curriculum need to entail? What would implementation look like? How will I chart the information I receive into clean, usable data? Who would I go to for support in resources, implementation, and development? What special education students would need to be targeted for social skills instruction? What would staffing numbers look like? Will budget need to be factored into resources, implementation, and development, as well as possible staffing?

       With more students entering campuses as being diagnosed with Autism, a neurological disorder directly affecting social aspects of life, social skills needs to be a prominent aspect of learning for these students. Not only do students with Autism benefit from direct social skills instruction, but students within the gamut of special education utilize social skills models.

2.      Individual teacher(s): Self contained teachers in primary schools and their impact on post secondary outcomes. What is being implemented to ensure teachers in a self contained program are successfully implementing strategies and instruction to gear their students for post secondary success? Many students who come from elementary school settings do not have adequate vocational or behavior modification in their arsenal when they reach secondary campuses. That then translates into challenges that middle school teachers face, and with the new law changed in that eighth grade students in a self contained program no longer stay in middle school a fourth year, that limits the modification and training time a teacher may have. It then becomes a domino effect.

3. Individual student(s): The correlation between vocational implementation, social skills, daily living and functional skills as well as behavior modification and post secondary success for self contained students. When life/ applied skills/ speech communication disorder/ structured learning/ community based instruction/ adaptive behavior/ behavior training institution students reach 22 years of age, the government no longer affords them a free, public education. What is the success of these students as they have usually had instruction in these core areas from early childhood? Most students who complete these programs at 22 don’t retain employment or self sustainability. Where is the missing link in instruction and post graduation success (which in turn leads to a question of curriculum)?