Action Research Update

My intention was to begin my action research project as soon as school began, but then I encountered difficulty as did all of our teachers who are using the IPAD in their classroom. We found out the week before school that while the IPADs and WIFI had been set up, the district would not release the combination for teachers to unlock their case and begin using the IPADs until all of the kids on IPAD achieve campuses in the district, grades 2-5, had completed an electronic survey. The IPADs were finally released last week. I will still have plenty of time to do my documentation and surveys it just didn’t get started as soon as I anticipated. I have been able to meet with the 4th grade Math teachers to discuss my project and their role and have been completing the first survey that I want them to participate in. I also have been gathering research on technology implementation in elementary classrooms and have reviewed our campus improvement plan. As of right now the majority of my hours spent on the project have been spent on research and looking at our campus improvement plan. My meeting with the 4th grade teachers was just to give a brief overview of the surveys that I need them to complete and to talk about my observations. I still need to identify 2-3 math objectives where there has been difficulty in the past in order to analyze any change in data. I think it is important to focus on the same objectives in each classroom for the observations.

Action Research Plan

Week 2 Reflection

This week I feel like I developed an even more in depth understanding of action research topics. I think one of the most difficult things for me so far was to develop a good inquiry that will be something that allows me to collect appropriate data and will ultimately benefit our campus. After watching the videos I understood a little more how these research projects are put in place and the benefits of them for teacher and administrator development. The text was extremely helpful in understanding how to develop inquiries. After identifying needs for my specific campus in each area it became easier to create inquiries that I thought would benefit our campus and student performance. It also helped me narrow down the focus of one of my possible topics. After discussing topics with my site supervisor I have narrowed my topics down to two. I believe that I am going to be examining the outcome of effective technology implementation and professional development on our math scores in our 4th grade class. I decided on this topic because a pilot program using ipad's in math and science classes will be taking place this year on our campus and that lends itself to collecting appropriate data on the technology implementation and its effect on our math scores.

Educational Leaders as Bloggers

Blogging is an excellent communication tool. We are living in a digital age and we have to stay involved. Leaders can use the blogs to provide updates and pertinent information to their staff and communities. Blogs could also use them to communicate with other administrators to trade ideas and get support for their action research plans.

What is action research and how can I use it?

Action research is a powerful tool. When you perform action research the ultimate goal is to implement change that will create improvements in your school. It will allow me to be a lifelong learner and to improve upon practices or problems that I handle on a daily basis. Although it can be time consuming, it is one of the best ways to improve upon your leadership skills and reflect on your practices and your school’s practices. Instead of just handling problems that arise in areas from day to day as a maintenance issue, action research enables you to implement long term changes to increase effectiveness. As an administrator or teacher you know your school’s true weaknesses and there is no one better to address those issues through inquiry, data collection, and analysis than those dealing with the issues daily. After determining the issues and understanding the question at hand, you have to collect pertinent data. After the data is collected it should be analyzed and solutions should be explored. Action research can be extremely effective especially when it becomes a collaborative effort.


As a teacher or an administrator I can use action research to explore numerous issues:

o How can I improve upon the outcomes of the student’s in my co-teach classrooms?

o How can I help those students who were tested for services but did not qualify?

o How can we utilize technology effectively across our campus to improve on student’s learning?