Action research, or inquiry as Nancy Fichtman Dana describes it, is something very new to me. I had never heard of action research until reading the first chapter of "Leading with Passion and Knowledge".
From my introduction to this topic I have learned that it is an ongoing, cylical process designed to continually evaluate and solve a specific problem until an optimum solution is reached. Action research is designed to meld academic research with experience from the field to provide a solution that effectively incorporates the best of both worlds. One of the biggest benefits of using experience from the field, particularly information from stakeholders, is to ensure maximum buy-in by all stakeholders.
As a classroom teacher I definitely see action research as a useful tool to me not only in the long term as a potential administrator, but also in the short term as a classroom teacher. I really like the idea of writing down my "wonderings" and then using them to develop specific inquiries that will help make me more effective as a classroom teacher. Specifically, I would like to use the process to analyze my students' formative testing data in conjunction with analyzing how and what I teach in order to look for gaps in my teaching, the curriculum, and the pacing of specific TEKS.
No comments:
Post a Comment