Week 2 EDLD 5301

I have spent awhile this week doing my reading. I have learned through this reading that there are nine practices that drive our journey. These are staff development, curriculum development, individual teacher, individual students, school culture, leadership, management, school performance, and social justice. We need to make sure that we try to participate in action research on all of these subjects. They are all very important.
I have also spent this week trying to determine what my action research project would be. I have emailed my mentor and we have decided on using laptops in the classroom. Our schools started giving fifth graders laptops for use in the classroom a couple of years ago. This is very interesting to me. I look forward to looking at how well this is working. I think that it is important for student to use technology so I am very interested in how this initative is working.

Action Research

Action Research is very important in the education field. Some may wonder what action research is. Action research is when someone systematically and intentionally studies their own activities (Dana, 2009). This means that a teacher or principal will evaluate her own actions in hopes of finding any aspects that may need changing. There are many ways in which schools can participate in action research. One way is by teachers going back to school. Many teachers go back to college to get a master’s degree. Sometimes for these degrees the teachers have to do a paper or dissertation. Dana also says that school districts sometimes have principals engage in interactive activities that require they find an area of study about their own practices (2009). Teachers are also able to do this their self. They can evaluate how their teaching is working. They can determine if the methods they are using are helping the students. If they are not then they will need to change their method of teaching. Teachers then can share the knowledge they have attained from their research with other teachers. This allows them to give other teachers valuable information which may help them with their teaching methods. PLC groups are also used in an educational setting. These groups are usually small. They meet regularly to discuss more effective learning and technology strategies (Dana, 2009). Action research can be very valuable in an educational setting. It allows teachers to have a personal growth that I do not believe they would have just from doing what an outside person has told them to do. Action research has benefits such as allowing a teacher to build their problem solving skills. It also allows them to become analytical and critical of their teaching (Briscoe and Wells, 2002: 429). It also improves teaching when it focuses on student achievement (Ringler, 2007).

References
Briscoe, C. and Wells, E. (2002). Reforming Primary Science Assessment Practices: A Case Study of One Teacher's Professional Development through Action Research. Science Education, 86, 417-435.
Dana, N. (2009). Leading with Passion and Knowledge The Principal as Action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Ringler, M. (2007). Action Research an Effective Instructional Leadership Skill for Future Public School Leaders. AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice 4(1), 27-42.