Nine Passions of Action Research

This week's reading was about the nine passions of action reseach. These passions(or wonderings) include staff development, curriculum development, individual teachers, individual student, school culture/community, leadership, management, school performance, and social justice. The passion that I find all of my ideas for action research come from student interest. I am truly not surprised by this finding since I  feel that if we really  know our students and we put their needs first we will succeed as leaders. Action research is the vehicle to help us to ensure that our goal is being met.

This was an interesting week as I really begin to think about where my action research would lead me. I believe I have settled on How do regular education students perform in a co-teach classroom? This is a topic that is of special interest to me as I am the regular education teacher in a co-teach classroom. I see first hand how kids are effected by this and I am anxious to collect the data.

Uses of Blogs for Educational Resarch

Blogs are great tools for principals to share their ideas with others and to get ideas from other administrators. Principals are often isolated from other administers and do not have time to meet with other peers to bounce ideas off of. Blogs are also a great way for principals to show their staff what they are working on and researching. This helps build collaboration between the principal and their staff.

Action Research

Action Research is a vital part of education. It is a complete process that I believe should be the foundation of education. If we want to reform the current education system then we must find a way to fix the ongoing problem of meeting children’s needs. Inquiry or action research is the vehicle needed to make this happen. Schools should reflect what the needs of the students are and not the needs of the district, board, state, or even sometimes the needs of what a group of parents believe.  Principals need to reflect on the children’s needs and then take action. Action research should be a continuous cycle of posing questions, collecting data, analyzing the data and researching to gain knowledge, and then making changes in practices based on the new understanding. Once the new practices are in place the process should start all over again to ensure that the process is still relevant to student’s learning.

      Action research for leadership comes from what quality teachers have done for years. Many teachers reflect on what they do each day, and what works and doesn’t work. Being a great teacher means you are always adapting your teaching to meet the needs of the students. Principals should use this process on a grander scale. Dana addresses this in her book Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The principal as action Researcher, “In a fashion similar to the ways teachers utilize this process to gain better understanding of themselves and their teaching practice, administrators can use it to gain deeper insights into their leadership role in school improvement efforts.” (Dana, 2009, p. 3) Action research is what makes schools and classrooms successful because it makes the student the focus of the schools.

Dana, N. F. (2009). Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The principal as action Researcher. Thousand Oaks: 2009.