week 5 reflection

Honestly, up until this class, the word “research” had a very different meaning to me.  I envisioned being knee deep in professional case studies and leather bound books and the only product coming from the work would be a well cited report style paper that would undoubtedly be filed away, and never affect anyone.  Clearly, I was wrong.  An Action research project is a “systematic, intentional study of one’s own professional practice.” (Dana, 2009, p9)  An action research project requires action, hence the name.  One must find some question or dilemma on a campus or district that needs further investigation to ultimately make positive change.  The simple idea of this sounds exciting doesn’t it?  Honestly, anyone who’s longed to or actually been in a leadership position has an intrinsic need to be better and make improvements. 

            Leading an action research project should be an extension of your everyday life at school.  I don’t know many teachers who do things exactly the same way every year because new needs arise, new children bring new challenges, and of course standards and state expectations are ever changing.  So with each new year comes a new set of goals, problems and general wonderings; and a project is born.  Good teachers may not have officially planned out all of their action steps on paper, but they’ve surely researched an idea, put it into action and evaluated the effectiveness of the new strategy. 

            As we all embarked on this journey together, many of us in class have wondered: How will I ever have time for all of the work this year.  According to Dana, “Another way to create time for inquiry by making it a part of your normal administrative practice is to formulate a study based on something you must do anyway.” (Dana, 2009, p16)  I took this to heart when formulating my plan.  Not necessarily for ease, but out of common sense.  Increasing the 4^th graders Math STAAR scores must be a primary focus for my team of 8 teachers this year, in order to erase the blemish on our previous outstanding record.  It’s a goal that my principal and I had been discussing before I even began my classes here at Lamar.  It alone is a daunting task that took me a bit to even formulate a plan; and I’m sure my plan will be adjusted as I go.  Any good action research project is going to initially have flaws and need to be changed to accommodate both the environment and the situations that will surely arise. 

            One of the most eye opening aspects of starting an action research project is how critical self-reflection can be to guiding your plan.  According to Harris, “Leaders cannot accurately examine the work to improve schools without following Step 4, Engaging in Self-reflection.” (Harris, 2010, p 55)  In order to decide to focus on flexible grouping on my team for my project I really had to look within to my teacher practices.  If you ask most district officials and teachers they would probably say that flexible grouping is the norm in their district.  Yes, we do have changing groups for small group instruction, the question is: are the groupings done in a meaningful, purpose driven way, or simply on “gut” feeling.  We’ve often used test scores that are only measured 2 times a year to group students, but it still doesn’t mean that every student in each group is starting at the same academic starting point.  Using a pre-assessment model may hopefully make groupings more deliberate and result in higher student performance. 

            Overall, this class has made me reevaluate how I will think about wanting to affect change on my team, my campus or even my district.  Action Research is much like conducting a scientific experiment in order to prove or disprove a theory designed to improve campus/student climate.   However, where this varies from a simple science experiment is that based the results you must continue to implement variations of your plan; one that is ever changing.