Thinking Through Course Two

Wow! What an interesting course this has been. I, like many of my classmates instantly made judgments on this course just because of the name, Research. But like the saying says, you can’t judge a book by its cover. This class has taught me that research is not just sitting amongst stacks of books and resources. Learning about Action research has been eye opening to me. There are several situations and times in my educational career that I have thought, “this could be done better” or “what if we did this a different way?” What I have been doing all along is action research without the paperwork. As teachers we come up with improvements to our school, and experiment to find the best solution to our problem. After completing Course 5 I now understand how to make these improvements effectively, and research based.

Three tools helped me to develop a better sense of action research throughout Course 5. The first tool that I found beneficial is the assigned readings from the Dana text, Leading with Passion and Knowledge. I found this book to be a key resource during my action research journey because it defined action research. It showed me that action research has a purpose because “inquiring professionals seek out change and reflect on their practice by posing questions or wonderings” (Dana, 2009, p.2). This was something that was an obvious point for me, I knew that school leaders and teachers alike both have to seek out change in order to be effective educators. I understand that changes are made, but I had no rationale for how or why certain areas are addressed. This resource taught me about how to identify topics for research, and how to outline my research in order to gain momentum and make a change.

Another element of this class that I found beneficial during this course was the discussion board. I loved reading other people’s thoughts and ideas, and what topics they were addressing through their research. I found that many teachers across grade levels fight the same battles no matter the age or personalities they teach. This was important. I also benefitted from the suggestions and words of encouragement from my peers about my action research project. At first, I worried that my area of concern was not deep enough, and focused on academics. The more my peers shared though, I felt validated that my topic was necessary and I was not alone in my hope for change in this matter. Each week the discussion board was my favorite area to explore and learn.

Along with the discussion board, I also found the action research blog to be helpful in this course. Like the discussion board, I liked that the blog allowed for collaboration between classmates. I loved the interaction, compliments, and suggestions that were given as a result of the blog. The advantage of the blog was that it allowed us to gain insight from more peers than just those in our assigned section, although at times it felt overwhelming to have so many blogs and people to follow.

To sum it all up, this class turned out to be useful to me as a teacher, and as a future administrator. I hope that as I continue my action research project that I am able to incorporate what I learned in this class, and work to initiate positive change on my campus and in my classroom.

Reference:

Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.