Even though I feel that I am just beginning my journey into the world of "action research", I feel as though I am already gaining insight into the many ways I can use it in my profession as an educator. Through my studies, I have learned the difference between traditional educational research and action research, and just how the use of action research in a school setting can be beneficial to not only those doing the research, but also to the students or faculty who may be affected through its outcome. Since action research is done by those most closely involved with the design, data collection, and interpretation of the data surrounding their question, it is much more meaningful than research done by an outside source and then implemented on a campus. I have also learned that I have been for years, been doing some type of action research on my campus through my participation in Leadership Teams and PLCs. These past learning and leadership experiences, even though they were not done through actual action research projects, could be considered works of action research in that we formulated inquiries, used took action for change based on what we learned from these inquiries.
I'm actually very excited about beginning an action research project on my campus. When posed the question of finding an action research project to do in an educational setting as part of my internship, my mind began racing with all the possibilities. When I met with my principal, who is my site supervisor, in order to work on my Internship Plan, she proposed several projects I could take on as part of my internship. When I came to her with the question of what to do for an action research project, I mentioned a couple of ideas, and she came up with a brand new one: Assisting the campus leadership team and the PTA in researching the development of a working school garden, and how we could use it as a learning tool on our campus. I'm hoping to pursue this as my action research project over the duration of my internship, but had several other ideas on projects that could be done on my campus with current issues. One was to follow the development and implementation of a new school-wide discipline plan and to monitor its effectiveness. Another was to survey staff on how to better design professional developments to fit their education needs, and how this new, tailored training changed their instruction in the classroom. I had also thought of reviewing current RTI strategies being used, surveying campus needs for RTI, and coming up with new RTI strategies that may further improve student learning and progress. No matter what project is chosen by me or by any of my classmates, I am hoping that through action research, we will all gain first hand insight into inquiries we have concerning our campus' improvement, and will be able to use this knowledge to further growth of not only our own learning, but that of our co-workers and the students we work with every day.
I have to admit, I'm kind of an RtI junkie. I got thrown into a job titled "7th Grade RtI Coordinator" years ago. When I started asking around campus, "What am I supposed to be doing?", no one could really give me a definitive answer. That's when I started reading. A lot. Enough, eventually, to realize that I needed to be trained.
ReplyDeleteI am now, I guess, three years away from that queasy beginning, and our campus is entering the end of the 3-5 year growing period that the experts say it should take a campus to move through the growing pains from no RtI paradigm to a complete one. I still have work to do there. And one thing that I have learned is that it will be a very long time before there is enough good research out there to help people like me, who are wallowing amidst a dearth of solid information about RtI in secondary schools, to start and maintain decent RtI practices on their campuses.
Maybe you're thinking, "What is this lunatic talking about." Maybe you work in a state or in a district where someone with real authority actually cares about RtI. I'm not so lucky. My greatest fortune has been my principal, as she has given me the training and tools and latitude to create something really close to textbook on our campus...for our kids. Now, though, I've been running so long that some deep reflection, time with the literature, analysis of the data we've collected...all of that needs to be done and in an orderly fashion.
I welcome this action research project for that reason among others. It will, I hope, give me a framework for moving toward even more thorough action on our campus.
I'm sorry. It's late and I've gone off a bit. I just got excited at the prospect of RtI being on the table as we move through the course. Whatever you choose, though, I wish you the best of luck.