EDLD5301 Week 3--Action Plan

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Action Research--Week 2

This week I found it very helpful to listen to the educational leaders whose videos were in our video lectures. Their experience with action research and their tips to those of us who are making efforts to move into areas of leadership as well are things that can help us grow in our practice. The readings this week were helpful to inform the decisions being made about specific action research topics for us to study. I took this information with me to my meeting with my site supervisor. We looked at multiple possibilities for my action research project together. We discussed each in turn before making our decision on which idea I would move forward with. We looked at the ideas of how the use of technology (such as the use of interactive white boards) aids the motivation of students in the classroom, how the training of teachers on the development of personal web pages can effect the quality of those pages and how well they are maintained throughout the school year, and we looked at how effective our school's mentorship program can be because of special demographic of emotionally and behaviorally disturbed students. After looking at all of these, we decided that I would use the last of these for my action research project. There is a lot less existing research on this topic, so we are looking forward to the results of this study. This makes it challenging in one way, but I also believe it makes it a very helpful and rewarding topic to research and study as well.

EDLD5301 Week 1

Action research is something that I think is (at least for me) fairly intuitive. When you look at your instruction in light of your student's learning, you want to constantly be improving. When you notice a challenge for you, your students, or both, it is natural to want to look at ways to make things better. It makes sense to start by posing a question, so that you know where to begin. After doing this, it is helpful to me to follow the next step of action research, which is to look at research done by others on the topic you are trying to address in your classroom. After doing this the "true" action research begins. You look at your instructional methods in a particular area, whether it be content, behavior, classroom management, classroom arrangement, et al, and see the effects of those methods on the learning of students. After gathering this data through journaling or other methods of data collection, you the analyze the data you have gathered. What worked better? What should be discontinued? What do other teachers do in a similar situation? After analyzing the data, you then are ready to make decisions and plans based on what you learned. The goal end result of action research is a change in educational practice. This change is based on the analysis of data performed by the teacher after the data collection is complete. This can be done alone or in collaboration with others, even up to an entire campus looking at campus-wide improvement. The benefits of actions research are many. They include improved instruction, increased student learning, improved relationships among faculty members after staff collaboration, among other benefits that stem from action research.

Educational leaders can use blogs in order to do many different things. They can use their blog to communicate to different groups, including parents, students, the community, and their faculty and staff. They can use their blog to discuss challenges, sharing ideas for solutions as well as asking others to respond with new ideas for solutions. An educational leader can use their blog for motivating. This could be used to benefit students or to benefit teachers on their campuses.