Action Research To Me

Before this week, I had no idea what action research was. I knew in most graduate programs, a graduate student must take part in a research project and write a thesis based on his/her research before graduating from the program. However, this is not the case for Lamar University. Lamar University has their graduates take part in action research.

From what I have learned this week, action research is the process in which one takes to improve or change an issue or curiosity on their home campus. There are many steps in order to complete action research. The first step to completing action research is one must find an issue or curiosity that interests them on their campus. For me, my curiosity was AM tutoring and the effectiveness of it. From there, one must read articles and do research on their topic. They must also collect a lot of data on their issue. Again, in my case, I will be collecting data from the beginning, middle, and end of the year on students in Kindergarten who attended and are attending AM tutoring. I will see if the students' benchmark scores and report card grades increased due to the extra learning from AM tutoring. I will also see how many students "test out" of AM tutoring. (In order to "test out" of AM tutoring, a student must be meeting all grade level requirements on the benchmark and report card.) After completing the research and collecting the data, one must share his/her findings with others at his/her school. In my case, I will be sharing my findings with my principal, assistant principals, and grade level team. From there, individually or as a group, a change must be developed if needed and shared with the entire campus. If a change is not needed, one may develop recommendations to share with the entire campus. In other words, if I find that AM tutoring is ineffective during my action research, my administrative team and I will sit down and brainstorms new ideas that may get us the results we want. We will develop a change together. Or, if we find that AM tutoring is effective, I will need to develop some recommendations to improve AM tutoring so we can impact more students in a stronger way. Throughout the entire process of action research, one MUST be self-reflecting the entire time.

In the end, I have learned that action research is a very positive tool to use. The goal for every educator is to do what is best for every student and to help every child achieve all they can in life. Action research is a large step that will help educators reach this goal. Action research helps improve the school setting and the learning of students. Action research is doing what is best for students.