To be honest I had never heard the term action
research until this class. So, I guess
you can say I have learned a lot!
Action research “focuses on the concerns of practitioners (not outside
researchers) and engages practitioners in the design, data collection, and
interpretation of data around their question” (Dana, 2009, p.5). Action research allows people directly
involved with a problem to be the ones that are a part of forming a
solution. The reflective part of action
research allows for restructuring of the solution based on continual
observation. The educational research
that I was familiar with was process-product or qualitative research. These types of research do not include input
from those directly involved with the day-to-day business of education (Dana,
2009, p. 5). Many times a teacher will
be told to change the curriculum or discipline plan based on studies and data
that were not from their school or district.
As a teacher, I would sometimes question the changes being made. Something that is good for one campus in our
district might not be the best fit for the other sixteen. If action research was put into place and
changes were being made based off of the findings and concerns of teachers and administrators, I believe those changes would be met with less hesitation.
I plan to use it in my own classroom to help
with parent communication. I am going to
be a digital classroom and am interested to see if there are any changes in
parent perception about communication. I
have always used a communication folder, phone calls, AlertNow, a calendar and
written notes to help communicate.
However, each year there are parents that feel like I don’t communicate
well based off of the end of the year survey.
Not many feel this way, but enough that it bothers me. This will not be my big action research
project. I simply want to use the cyclical method of action research to try and
meet the communication needs of all my parents.
Dana, N. F. (2009). Leading
with passion and knowledge: The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
My goal this year is to go digital in my classroom. I want to be 95% digital by the end of this year. I've got my site up and running and I'm adding to it daily. Good luck.
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