What is Action Research? (week 1)

To be honest, when I first started reading the assignments for this class, the words action research was not something I was familiar with.  It sounded like a lot of work to me and didn’t sound like fun to me at all.  But after I have read through the books and realized what exactly action research is, I am not nearly as concerned about it.  I am realizing that action research is happening quite often in the school I was at and just never called it that.

Action research is basically just taking situations that are happening at your campus/district and looking into those things (research) much more.  An important part of this process is the reflection piece so that you can determine if what you are doing is actually working or not and making the proper adjustments in order to make your research the most beneficial for your campus/district.    Action research is done within your school and not from the outside looking in.  This makes it much more meaningful to all the people involved since you are not having an outsider looking at what you are doing and telling you how to fix it.

My district has really utilized this method of research this past year with us implementing the iPads in our high schools.  Every high school student now has an iPad.  At the beginning, I would say that my district did do their research but didn’t really follow the action research model to the extent it needed to in how to implement this enormous initiative.  During the year the district realized this mistake and started actively using the action research model in making better decisions about the use of the iPads.  We now follow this process in almost everything we do with the iPads moving forward now. 

Since my position in the district is now in the technology department and not in the classroom directly, I am going to be following the action research model in much of my work.  There are going to be many new projects and programs that we will be starting up this year and I am going to have to make sure to follow the action research model in order for me to be an effective leader in technology. 

I am glad I have learned what I have so far about action research.  I can see how important it is and why we need to do it constantly in our schools.  I am not as afraid of those words “action research” like I was before starting this class.