EDLD 5301 Action Research Refelection: Week 2

Week Two of Action Research had me reading Chapter Two of Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher by Nancy Dana.  The chapter discussed nine different passions (or areas) for action research.  All of the passions (or areas) play a crucial role in the efficient running of a district.  If I were an administrator, I would make sure that my employees were using action research, not only for themselves, but for the campus. 

Curriculum is among one of the most important of the passions.  A district has to make sure that it has the most updated curriculum that is meeting all of the TEKS and preparing for the state tests TAKS.  Action research would allow a district to make sure that it was getting the best curriculum if the research was done before selecting a curriculum versus having a curriculum that does not meet all the needs and having to work twice as hard to compensate for that.

After learning about action research, I will always refer back to this class and try to always remember how effective it can be for teachers and administrators.  Whenever a need arises, I will use action research.

Blogging and Administrator's EDLD 5301

Blogs are a very useful tool for many reasons.  Administrators can use blogs to communicate with other administrators and teachers.  For teachers, this would be ideal to communicate with an administrator because it would reduce the anxiety with meeting in person.  They may feel more freedom to speak open and passionately.  For administrators, it could be used as a sounding board for ideas and would reduce the need for meetings that waste time and can become unproductive.  Blogs allow you to get right to the point.  You can post links to other websites, use pictures and graphs along with text and it can be updated regularly.

Wikispaces are a lot like blogs with the exception that each person can alter what someone has written.  Wiki's would also be useful for action research in that once the inquiry is started it can be updated and added to by different people, not just the original writer of the post.  With a blog, the followers can make comments but not add to the original post.  With either a blog or a wiki, anyone with internet access can become part of the conversation and can do it from work or home so that inquiry can be done at anytime.

Action Research EDLD 5301

In this week's assignment I learned about administrative inquiry and action research.  Both of these terms refers to an individual or team delving head first into a situation or problem that they feel affects them directly and needs further research to improve upon.  This is a new idea that I feel would have enormous, positive impact for administrators.  Often, I see administrators rely on consultants to come in and fix a problem that they do not have direct impact on.  After the consultants do their inquiry and give a plan, it is often useless then discarded.  Many times, the teachers then have had to work on inservice days to formulate the plan that the consultant could not do.  The reason for this dilemma is that the consultant was an outsider. Action research is conducted by the ones who will actually benefit from the results so that the ones conducting it often are more careful and deliberate with their study.