This week I have learned that action research or
administrative inquiry is a style of research that can be used at an individual
campus as an active approach for a faculty to collaboratively work to solve
issues. When action research is implemented faculty members work together to take
action on a specific problem that is affecting the school climate. When a groups
of people work together to solve issues, there is a sense of ownership among
all of the members to work toward a common goal. Basically, action research is
where you pose a question about an issue, gather and analyze data to solve the
issue, and then use your findings to change your teaching to work to resolve
the issue. One of the many benefits of action research is that you can make the
research specific to your campus' needs. This differs to traditional research
that relies on outside sources to solve problems within a school. Action
research also allows for reflection and evaluation of effective practices and
programs.
After learning about action research, I am ready
to apply this approach to my campus. One area that I would like to use action
research is to resolve the issue of our first grade students not meeting expectations
on the end of the year TPRI testing results in comprehension and fluency. I am
very interested in researching ways to improve the scores. My administrators
have decided to implement a new spelling curriculum as a support to our current
reading curriculum in hopes that this will help to increase reading scores in first
grade and spelling scores in second grade. I think this would be a great way to
implement an action research since this was a change that was already taking place
within my school. Overall, action research provides more support for teachers
and strives for success for all students.
References:
Dana,
N.F. (2009). Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Ringler, M.C. (2007). Action Research an Effective Instructional Leadership Skill for Future
Public School Leaders. American
Association of School Administrators: Journal of
Scholarship & Practice, 4 (1),
27-42.
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI am interested to know more about your new spelling program. I also teach first grade. I am planning to research increasing fluency on our campus. Angelica Okamoto
I am intrested to find out what we will be using too. I was in a training today and asked but it still hasn't been delivered to our school. They are currently moving all of the teachers to two new campuses and everything is a mess! We made a plan to meet in two weeks to learn about the new program. I'll let you know as soon as I get the details!
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