FPXEDD8030_Wasinger.Samantha.assessmnet_2.2
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Apr 3, 2024
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Assessment 2: Frame Your Issue and Collect Your Data
Samantha Wasinger School of Public Service and Education, Capella University
EDD-FPX8030: Investigating Problems of Practice
Frances Dolley
January 20
th
2024
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Framing an Organizational Issue
LeMay Elementary is a school located in Bellevue Nebraska who served students from preschool to sixth grade. The preschool program at LeMay serves children aged 3-5 years old who have a disability or are at risk for developing a disability. This program is a play-based, half-day program. The preschool program is part of the Early-Childhood Program in Bellevue Public Schools (BPS) serving over 300 families. In May of each year, BPS sends out a survey to families in the preschool program. The survey is set-up for caregivers to provide feedback on their experience in the program. The survey contains questions regarding curriculum, student’s growth, communication, and teacher interactions. The results of this survey provide administrators with a list of potential professional development opportunities to ensure growth and satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to define the research details as Maxwell (2012) states that research problems are the most important elements in a research study. Based on the survey results from parents, the number one problem is parental concern with the current curriculum. The dissatisfaction and the results of the last four years show there is a need for further research and discover of the underlying problem. Significant Problem of Practice
Based on the results of the survey, LeMay preschool program tries to improve their quality of operations and education. The results of this survey show a low level of parental satisfaction with the programs pre-academic curriculum. Nearly 75% of parents were dissatisfied
with the curriculum. The expected performance is to implement a curriculum that prepares children for kindergarten. The current program utilizes a play-based curriculum with a heavy focus on social-emotional learning and a small focus on pre-academic skills. The program does
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not explicitly teach pre-academic skills such as letters and numbers. Parents report concern with their children transitioning to kindergarten without learning those skills. For the last ten years, BPS has utilized the Creative Curriculum for their preschool programs. The Creative Curriculum utilizes a child’s natural environment to teach social-
emotional skills. The units in this curriculum include things like clothing, buildings, trees, and pets. The gap between current performance and expected performance is affecting students and
their parents. When students go into kindergarten they are supposed to be able to write their name, identify ten uppercase letters, count to ten, and identify at least five shapes. Teachers are finding it difficult to reach these achievements before kindergarten since it is not part of the current curriculum. If preschool teachers cannot teach this then it is setting them up for failure as they enter kindergarten. This is a significant problem as they state standards are increasing in difficulty each year. If students do not have a b
Guiding Research Questions
How do school staff feel about the current curriculum?
How do school staff use interventions and supports to affect preschool students’ academic skills? How can the curriculum for preschool students be improved? Guiding Research Questions Justification
The guiding research questions above will help the research process go smoother and be more effective. Each question serves a purpose to help guide the research to ensure the questions asked are going to benefit the study.
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The first question is: How do school staff feel about the current curriculum? This question will allow researchers to see what current staff members opinions on the current curriculum are. The data from this question will tell researchers whether or not the staff members
think the curriculum is effective. The second question is: How do school staff use interventions and supports to affect preschool students’ academic skills? This question will allow researchers to see what interventions are currently being utilized and to what degree they are helping. For example, a teacher might be utilizing small groups as an intervention and find that it is not working for them. The researchers will know that this was an attempted strategy. The third question is: How can the curriculum for preschool students be improved? This question helps provide possible solutions to improving the curriculum.
Data Collection Plan
The following section will discuss the plan to collect data regarding how well the Creative Curriculum prepares children for kindergarten in the areas of literacy and mathematics. The Sample and Interview Plan
The problem being researched is how effective the Creative Curriculum is at preparing children for kindergarten pre-academically in the Bellevue Public Schools district. Preschool students should go into kindergarten prepared socially and academically. The Creative Curriculum does not teach reading and mathematics directly. Parents have reported concerns regarding their child’s pre-academic schools. Based on the survey results from last year 50% of parents feel that their child who participated in BPS preschool programs went into kindergarten unprepared.
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Stringer suggests the look, think, and act method is the best for researchers (2021). Look, think, and act is a strategy that researchers can use to plan research. Researchers can look at the problem, think about it, and act on their findings (Stringer, 2021). Three stakeholders will be interviewed for this research study. The first stakeholder will be a current preschool teacher who utilizes the Creative Curriculum and does not supplement additional material. The second stakeholder will be a current preschool teacher who utilizes the Creative Curriculum and supplements additional materials for pre-academic skills. The third stakeholder will be a current kindergarten teacher who has previously received students from both preschool teachers. Interviews will be conducted individually for this study. Each interviewee will be asked a
series of questions to help the researcher. The interview questions will be derived from the guiding research questions. All interviews will be collected over the phone or through Zoom. Teachers are busy during this time and allowing for a remote interview will ensure each teacher has time to participate in the interview. Interviews will record their phone call or their zoom meeting so they can go back and listen again as needed. Interviews will ask participants a question and wait for a response. Adequate time should be allowed between each question to allow participants to respond and reflect on the question. Interviewers will take notes regarding the participants response. Three participants were selected to ensure quality data. The current participants should be able to provide all necessary data. The researcher will then take the interview responses and analyze them. These interview results will help researchers to determine how effective the curriculum is.
The only limitation for this study is that it might need more participants to change the curriculum completely. The district may require more widespread data from across all ten elementary schools in order to select a different curriculum.
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Interview Questions
Gillham suggests interviews must be set up with structure and purpose to be successful (2005). The following questions will be used to create structure during the interview and to guide
the conversations. Each question is designed to give the researcher information regarding the Creative Curriculum and its effectiveness. The interview will be conducted one-on-one rather than as focus group. The interviews should last no more one hour each. How do you use current curriculum?
When a student is struggling with the curriculum what interventions do you use to support their learning? What changes, if any, would you make to the current curriculum? In what ways does the curriculum help prepare students for kindergarten? In what ways does the curriculum teach pre-academic skills such as reading and mathematics?
What solutions do you believe might improve getting children ready for kindergarten in the preschool classroom? Would you support a new curriculum or adding supplemental curriculum to the current curriculum?
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References
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5
th
ed.). Sage. Gillham, B. (2005).
Research interviewing: The range of techniques.
Open University Press.
Maxwell, J. A. (2013).
Qualitative research design: An interactive approach
(3rd ed.). Sage
Stringer, E. T., & Aragon, A. O. (2021).
Action research
(5th ed.). Sage