Action Research Course

I must admit at the commencement of this course I had my doubts about whether or not I would like it and if it would be insightful but this action research course has taken me by surprise and has been my favorite course thus far. I think this course did a great job of providing us with a variety of resources and aligning the lectures, course readings, and course assignments. Deciding what to do my action research on was a great adventure and I am glad that we got to pick the area that interest us and that we felt our campus would benefit from. I am just about half way through with my administration internship program and this class helped me see that I can make a positive impact on my school by using inquiry as a part of my daily practice rather than a separate part of it (Dana, 2009). This course made me reach out to others on my campus and forced me to ask questions that were deeper than what the data showed. Creating my blog was a good way to integrate technology into this course and it opened my eyes to see that there is a world of teachers and administrators out there to share my ideas with and get feedback from. I enjoyed watching the course lectures that had the three interviews from people that had experience using action research. I love the idea that action research is a way of leading my own learning and that it is quite different from my past experiences of which most have been “sit and get” or “spray and pray” (Dana, 2009). Because of my action research topic and my desire to truly make an impact, I worked with my site supervisor and came up with a slogan that we will be using this year, “Everyday Counts.” I think this slogan will help remind students, parents, and teachers that everyday really does matter and everyday that a student is out of the classroom they are missing out on learning valuable knowledge. Thus far I have worked with my site supervisor on various advertisements that will be used, flier information, attendance probation notice, and assisted with our high school’s prep days this week. I know that my action research is developed but it is more important for me to revisit it periodically and to assess the quality of my plan. I will communicate information, updates, and results of my action research to my site supervisor, SBDM committee, and our staff as whole. After learning the importance of sharing my findings and suggestions with others I plan on coordinating it with my principal so that I can be allowed to give a presentation of my action research to our entire faculty when my action research is complete.

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

Taking The Next Step

The meeting with my site supervisor was very effective. My site supervisor is the assistant principal in charge of attendance at our campus so she was thrilled with my interest in doing action research on improving our average daily attendance percentage. We have been communicating back and forth over the summer and I feel like she values my suggestions and truly feels that my action plan will make a difference. I have helped her prepare documents that will be used in upcoming presentations and she has already warned me to be ready to present in case she is needed in two places at one time. We touched on a few things that we might consider implementing or refining at our campus and I think at our next meeting we will have our five items decided and ready to plan out fully. At our most recent meeting I was able to see how planning one thing can actually entail piecing together the loose ends of other items before you are ready to move on. I expressed to her how important it is for me to achieve the buy in from others so she sent an email and invited members of our Attendance Advisor team to attend a morning planning session on campus tomorrow. My action research is already becoming an incredibly enlightening experience and its only just began. My action research remains the same and my site supervisor has been involved since early on so she did not see any changes that she felt needed to be made.