Action Research

 Action Research

In the past, I would often shiver at the thought of writing yet another "research" paper. It often meant late nights pouring over boring information that some theorist decided the world needed to know, then being able to regurgitate that same information onto yet another piece of paper just to let everyone know that I could read and understand the musings of a combination of many different theorists at one time. Blah!

However, I think this "action research" project that I am about to embark upon is going to be quite different than any of the research projects that I've done in the past, because I'm able to make inquiries of my peers, students, and the community about my personal educational ideas and thoughts, develop a plan based on the information gathered, then apply or implement the plan of action.  Of course, I'll need to assess the success of the plan of action, then reflect upon both positive and negative aspects of the plan with revision in mind.  This is so much more exciting and collaborative than any research I've ever encountered!

I've learned that action research projects allow administrators to maintain their ability to be a learner and enable themselves to be more of a positive and influential leader of their school.  I suppose being able to pose questions to others, listen carefully to any concerns, research possible avenues for change, develop a plan to succeed, then reflect and revise the plan will not only create a dynamic relationship between myself and my staff, but also between myself and the student body. Like other educators, I have a fear of failing, but my fears have never debilitated me to the point of not acknowledging that change needs to happen for successful growth to occur. 

My first project will most likely consider how best to assist my staff and student body in having an uninterrupted learning environment.  Many times students are unable to attend class due to various situations.  In School Suspension (ISS) is problematic for most teachers. As a result of disciplinary actions, students are not allowed to attend the regular classrooms throughout the day.  They are still to receive the same instruction, just not within the classroom.  This poses problems for the classroom teacher, who is responsible for providing meaningful instruction for every student, as well as posing a problem for the ISS students who now must learn the concepts with limited information from their teacher.  Often times this leads to the ISS student not learning the information as fully as they would have in the regular educational environment.

My idea is to provide instruction for those students through a video tutorial.  Each teacher will be responsible for creating a short video to explain the lesson being taught and uploading the video to his or her teacher web page. The ISS teacher will grant access to a school computer for the ISS student to use to gain instruction.  Now, I do believe that students are able to learn effectively with many courses without the need for a tutorial video.  However, for those more difficult courses, like math or science, students need to be able to listen to the teacher explain the concept as well as manipulate the problem at hand in order to better understand the information.  

I've been playing around with the idea of a "flipped" classroom this school year.  I'm not entirely on board with the idea; however, I can see many positive aspects of using it, this being one. I've recently created several videos and used them to assist my ISS students to learn inverse functions.  After grading their assignments, I have found that they were able to adequately learn the information and have returned to class without missing any instructional time as a result of being in ISS.  Seems like this idea may work, but I need to continue my research to be sure.