I have learned so many things in the past five weeks in EDLD 5301 Research course. The EDLD 5301 Research course gave me an opportunity to examine the difference between action research and traditional research. In this course we took a look at how action research benefits educational leaders and the stakeholders in school and educational settings. Reflection is such an integral part of research and an important skill for leaders to have. We learned that blogging is very beneficial in sharing what we learned from our action research. The readings and tools from Examining What we do to Improve Our School: 8 Steps to Improve Our School (Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010), and from Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher (Dana, 2009) gave us examples of action research in educational settings. These readings and discussions enabled us to choose an action research topic and begin to make a clear purpose in explaining why this action research project is important in our professional development. We had an opportunity to meet with our site mentor and review our internship plan and brainstorm about potential research topics. We identified at least nine areas that are common targets or themes in school-based action research. We took a look at interviews of three school leaders who discussed their action research projects. This gave us an opportunity to reflect on what we learned from these scholars by watching and listening to their interviews. We developed a framework to approach action research and share strategies that would help us to better understand how to conduct an action research project. We gained a better understanding of the time frame and the understanding that it may take months to complete the project. This process would be to develop an effective plan that would guide us through our action research project. We developed our action research plan and included our goals, objectives, resources, tools, persons that will be responsible, and the process of monitoring our achievement of goals and objectives. This allowed us to collaborate with our classmates through the discussion board and through comments on our blogs. We also had an opportunity to focus on some additional strategies to sustain and support our action research. We developed an effective blueprint of how we were going to conduct our effective action research project and utilized our site supervisor, the instructional associates and the Lamar University faculty. This gave us an opportunity to look into some strategies such as the Force Field Analysis, the Delphi Method, and the Nominal Group Technique to provide us with support to sustain our action research project. We utilized the Tool 8.1 CARE Model to provide us with a strong rationale and framework for our Action Research Plan conference with our site supervisor. I firmly believe that the collaboration with my site mentor and my peers really assisted in helping me further develop my Action Research plan. This past week, we had the opportunity to access the quality of our inquiries utilizing the quality indicators of practitioner research.
My Action Research Plan is located on my blog at http://tectrendz.blogspot.com/. My action research inquiry will involve developing a method to help make technology staff development collaborative, job-embedded, and ongoing to enhance professional growth and student success. I hope to use input from my site mentor, other district principals, peers, teachers on my campus, technology leaders from other school districts, and information from previous staff development to help with action research inquiry. We are continuously learning and growing and I feel with the techniques that I have learned in EDLD 5301 Research, I will continue to grow, to inquire, reflect, and the gain insight to my wonderings through analyzing data, collaboration/sharing with others, and utilizing action research as a powerful tool.
Fichman, Nancy Dana (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Harris, S., Edmonson, S., and Combs, J. (2010). Examining what we do to improve our schools: 8 steps to improve our schools. Eye on Education Press.
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