Progress of Action Research

The purpose of this action research is to identify how the school’s new change to departmentalization impacts student performance. The goal is to identify areas of struggle to develop, find means of positively supporting this new change and expand/maintain areas of strength. So far I have interviewed teacher and students from multiple grade levels about the change from self contained classrooms and departmentalized classrooms. I have gotten mixed responses from both parities about this change. It seems like there are both pros and cons of departmentalization. Many teachers explained that departmentalization helped them focus on two subjects instead of five. This helped them have detailed well planned out lesson plans.  Since the quantity of subjects they taught reduced, teachers were able to integrate more technology in the classroom and have more time analyzing the students’ areas of weakness. This enabled them to reach out for professional development that met their needs. On the other hand, many teachers struggled with making schedules and losing teaching time while transitioning between classes. Since some of the team teachers had different classroom management styles, they had difficulty managing some of the students’ behaviors.

       The students had mixed responses about departmentalization. Some of the younger students liked the fact that they had two teachers. They felt that it was exciting to move from one class to another. It also helped them discover the subjects they excelled in and what areas they need to work on. However, some students complained that they had to learn two different set of rules. They explained that though their behavior seemed okay they could not seem to meet their teachers’ expectation in their other class. Furthermore, some of them felt rushed packing up and moving from one class to the next. They hated taking things from place to place because it would fall down and they had to collect it each time and so forth. 

           Based on my interviews, I have discovered the areas of strengths that need to be maintained and the areas of weakness that need to be developed. The areas of strength that need to be preserved are the facts that teachers got to have more concentrated planning due to the reduced subject as well as the fact that students became more aware of their areas of strengths. On the other hand, transitions and management techniques are areas that need development. Therefore, I am currently researching effective strategies for transitions and management in departmentalized classrooms. My next step would be used the research based ideas to propose a plan for teachers to implement in the classroom.