Action Research

After reading the book, Leading With Passion and Knowledge, The Principal as Action Researcher by Nancy Fichtman Dana, I learned a great deal about action research.  I learned that action research is done when a principal or  leader reflects on their practice and decides on an issue that they need to improve on in their practice.  After self-reflecting, the principal or leader has to come up with a plan on how they are going to address that issue they want to improve.  They will collaborate with their peers on that issue to get ideas, they will collect data and analyze that data they collected, and then they will implement a plan based on their studies.  Action research is not a quick process, but it allows the principal or leader to take control of their practice and make a change and it allows for them to continue to grow and learn in their practice because it forces them to be actively involved in the implementation of the research rather than just listening and trying to implement tools from what other people have found in their research.  In action research, the principal or leader is able to focus on just their concerns that they are having in their practice and allows them to address their concerns hands on.

I know that if I was a principal, I could be an action researcher and choose an issue at my school that we might be weak at and collect and analyze data to implement a change to help the school improve on that issue.  For example, if my school struggles with communication between the staff and the parents, I could conduct a survey  that asks multiple questions in regards to communication for the teachers and the parents to fill out so that I could have data as to what might be the reason why communication barriers are occurring.  After looking at that data and analyzing it, I could develop a plan that would help improve or eliminate the problem of poor communication.  If I had that data, I would know exactly what we would need to focus on as a school to improve our communication for the next year.

Educational leaders might use blogs so that they can capture their own thinking when they are reflecting about a certain issue. The use of blogs also allows them to to receive feedback from anyone around the world or from their peers in the same field.  It allows the leader to grow because they are constantly hearing different perspectives on issues and reflecting on their own thinking.