Action Research: What Have I Learned & How Can I Use It?

What I have learned about action research this week is that I have already been lucky enough to experience and be a part of this wonderful concept and it has made me improve as a teacher and leader. I just never knew the proper name for this type of work. Being a better teacher and leader has given my students the opportunity to learn in different ways and succeed in my classroom and extra curricular activities. I have been a member of the leadership team at my school throughout my teaching career and it has allowed me to research and make decisions on different programs that our school has wanted to use to improve student achievement.

For the past five years my high school has been a part of the High School Re-Design Program which breaks up our school into small learning communities. We are a large school and having small learning communities has brought our different communities closer because we are a smaller group of teachers concentrating on a smaller group of students. I have been a small learning community coordinator for the past three years and have made sure that all my teachers, together with our assistant principal and counselor, work as a team to accomplish what is best for ourselves and our students. My community meets twice a week and during that time we reflect on the ways that we can lead and teach so that our students can learn in our classrooms. We have researched and learned about the different ways our students learn and how we should teach them. The best thing about using action research is that my teachers are given the power to make decisions using the information they have researched and make changes. They are able to look at their past knowledge and adapt it to the new information, and they are always given the opportunity to ask questions so that they can better understand the research. Once they have determined the issues and/or problems to be researched, they are expected to develop and implement the inquiry.

During this next school year, my goal is to teach them what I have learned about action research and use it as much as possible in my weekly meetings with my teachers in my small learning community. I want them to take ownership of what they do in and out of the classroom and become a stronger team. All administrators and teachers should want to have a hand in action research because to become better educators, we must learn from our mistakes and work as a team to help our students achieve overall success.