Week 2 Reflections

This week allowed me to learn more about Action Research and to pinpoint a project that would work best for my school and best for me.  The most meaningful part of this week for me was Part 2 - Common Action Research Topics in School Settings.  This was meaningful for me because it required me to really focus and think about the nine areas that are considered major wonderings for school leaders.  At first this task seemed daunting, but once I became involved in reading about each area I quickly became hooked on looking at each area and creating a personalized inquiry for my school.  This activity helped me realize that there are so many options available for action research and that instead of having to come up with one I am now having to decide on one.  I am definitely excited about beginning my action research, but I am now stuck between two possible topics for research: improving reading or improving parental involvement.  My site supervisor mentioned parental involvement at the beginning of my first course, but I have been reading numerous books and articles about Reading instruction and I am interested to try out this new framework I have discovered to see if it will improve our Reading benchmark scores.  What do you think?  I would really appreciate comments about your thoughts on this!   

An Educational Leaders Practical Outlook on Blogging

Blogging is something that is new to me.  I was aware of what they were and I was aware that there were tons of them available on a vast number of topics, but I had never envisioned myself creating and using a blog.  After learning about blogs and creating my own I have come to the conclusion that they can be very useful, professional, creative ways to share your ideas and thoughts, tell others about your experiences, ask questions you might have, and communicate with a much wider variety of  people than you normally would.  The type of blog that I have created is one that documents my journey through my action research plan.  I believe that this is an extremely useful way to go about blogging by allowing myself to organize my thoughts and reflect on the progress and effectiveness of my action research plan.  This type of blog also allows others to learn from my experiences with this project and to decide based on the evidence and result if this is something that they would be interested in embarking on.  So with that said I hope you join me on this journey through my action research plan and whether it has positive results or not, I hope we all learn from it.

My View of Action Research

Action research is one of the most exciting and positive aspects of being a school leader.  Action research allows principals to work with teachers and other school leaders to create a plan that is unique and customized for the school and their classrooms.  Unlike more traditional methods of research, action research greatly involves the actual practitioners’ in the process of creating and planning, deciding what to use as data and how to gather it, and interpreting the results of their inquiry to decide if the result was effective.  I believe that action research allows the practitioners’ to have ownership of the project and that this will allow them to fully invest their time and efforts into their research. I believe that by empowering the practitioners' in the inquiry process that they will be more willing and motivated to go through with the change that needs to be made.  I also believe that allowing the practitioners’ to lead the action research will allow for flexibility with the design and with the implementation of change according to the schools needs.  After much investigation about what action research is and how it is an effective tool for school leaders and educators I have developed an idea for how I can use it in my current career as an educator.  I am currently a second grade teacher in a self-contained classroom and have discovered that many of my students' as well as the students' within the school struggle greatly with reading.  I have decided that an appropriate action research plan that would benefit my classroom, as well as many others if my plan succeeds, would be one that involves the revision of my Reading instruction.  I would like to completely reorganize and restructure my Reading instruction.  I plan to read a variety of literary work on best practices for teaching reading and how to help my students read in a way that is authentic and natural for them.  I believe that by using action research for this need in my classroom and school that I can learn and initiate a change in the way Reading instruction is taught in my classroom and for struggling classrooms throughout the school.