Using Action Research

Action research is different from traditional educational research in that the administrator/educator is looking at inside issues and attempting to solve them. In traditional research, educators are looking at outside resources and attempting to fit them to the school even though it may not be a top priority. Action research is important because we as educators need to look at what needs to be changed now in our schools, not necessarily what we can take from elsewhere that would merely be a change for changes sake. I have so many amazing ideas for action research floating around in my mind. In my district alone, I feel that a Professional Learning Community (PLC) revolving around discipline would be an excellent action research. This committee could involve parents of behavior issues, administrators and educators coming together to make goals and plans to improve these students’ behavior and learning. I would also like to see more collaborative meetings (tagged as professional development) between educators to discuss ideas and thoughts on improving their ability in the classrooms to improve student engagement and ownership. On this same note, there should be collaborative meetings between educators and administrator sharing ideas on what they believe might improve campus or classroom issues. Administrators should be using their educators to share and implement new ideas.