Wow. What a stressful week.. I am so tired and I can not cut and paste my Action Plan into my blog so I will work on it tomorrow! This week has been by far the most stressful for me! Thank God I finally finished.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Action Research, Week 2
This week in EDLD 5301 we reviewed nine passions that lead principals to articulate inquiry wondering and the example questions that have emerged for principals within each of the nine categories. Reading the nine passions was very interesting and the examples were fascinating.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
How Leaders can use blogs
Blog? Who has time to blog? Blogging will not help me as an educator. These are just a few things that went through my head a week ago. My attitude is completely different after completing the reading and assignment for week one in EDLD 5301. Blogging is endless. There are so many amazing things you can do with blogging. Blogging is a perfect way to communicate among educators and administrators. Educators of high grades could use blogging as their students journals, use it for writing with their peers responding. Educators could use blogging as a newsletter to keep parents informed with upcoming events and holidays. Blogging is something I will definitely take advantage of. It could be a very valuable tool if used appropriately. All educators should take advantage of this fun piece of technology.
Benefits from Action Research
There
are many benefits from conducting action research. Research tells us that
engagement
in inquiry is an important ingredient for the overall professional
health of an educator (Copland, 2003). Conducting action research gives you l a
greater sense of control over all of the other “line items on the principal’s
ever-growing “To Do” list.” Administrator inquiry or action research is
the improvement of practice, the improvement of understand of practice and the
improvement of the situation in which the practice takes place.
Reference
1. Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge:The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press, a Joint Publicationwith the American Association of School Administrators.
Reflection in Action
It allows one to learn from experiences while acquiring administrative
skills from a combination of theory and practice.” In School Leader Internship,
Martin, et al (p. 105)
Reflection is a process that a leader should take time and be committed for it leads to informed decisions. Dana states that one should schedule time to reflect and do inquiry. (Leading with passion, p.18-19). Reflection is important because it leads to school improvement, curriculum development, and professional development for bothe educators and administrators. Action research is more of a personal growth system which allows the leader to inquiry, collect date, examine and analyze, take action and then reflect of the outcomes and adjust if necessary. Reflection is part of the process.
It is through time that reflection leads to expertise. Reflection is a cognitive process that goes through three stages,. The first stage is declarative (concepts and facts), the second stage is associative (growth in organization and interconnectedness of knowledge), and the last one is the autonomous stage, (making decisions become more automatic or second nature). This process leads to expertise and is acquired overtime. (105-106).
Reflection is a process that a leader should take time and be committed for it leads to informed decisions. Dana states that one should schedule time to reflect and do inquiry. (Leading with passion, p.18-19). Reflection is important because it leads to school improvement, curriculum development, and professional development for bothe educators and administrators. Action research is more of a personal growth system which allows the leader to inquiry, collect date, examine and analyze, take action and then reflect of the outcomes and adjust if necessary. Reflection is part of the process.
It is through time that reflection leads to expertise. Reflection is a cognitive process that goes through three stages,. The first stage is declarative (concepts and facts), the second stage is associative (growth in organization and interconnectedness of knowledge), and the last one is the autonomous stage, (making decisions become more automatic or second nature). This process leads to expertise and is acquired overtime. (105-106).
References
1.
Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with passion
and knowledge:The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks,
California: Corwin Press, a Joint Publicationwith the American Association of
School Administrators.
2. Harris, S., Edmondson, S., & Combs, J.P.
(2010). Examining What We Do To Improve Our
Schools: 8 Steps from Analysis to Action. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.
What I have learned about Action Research
Action research in education is grounded in the
working lives of teachers, as they experience them unlike traditional
educational research. Action research is
about me in the “here and now” understanding and what I can do to ensure my
values and intentions are realised in my teaching situation. If my
deliberations produce an understanding which helps me, then I can offer it to
others to try. In this sense, action research can produce generalisations about
practice, but such generalisations are only part of a wider search for
understanding.
An idea for my Action Research Project/Inquiry
After my son 's back eye incident at school on Friday, I have decided the best action research project for me to do is on rise of bullying over the last decade. Bullying is on the rise thanks to the social media. It has a significant impact on learning, students, and learning culture of school. I am going to go deeper than just bullying and look into how state legislature is affecting school policy on it. I will look into the potential for training faculty on recognizing bullying and the steps to take to support students that are being bullied and even a staff development on the protocol for reporting bullying and the legal ramifications for the teacher.
What is Action Research
Action Research can be used by administrators and teachers for many different purposes.It is is the
improvement of practice, the improvement of understanding practice and the
improvement of the situation in which the practice takes place. Action research can be completed solo, however, it is more productive through the use of collaboration among others. Action research isn't used by only administrators but by teachers as well. An action research will only be successful if the administrator or teacher reflects and makes changes to his or her practices to improve
their job performance and that of the school or district.
As I was reading my classmates blogs, I came across the best description written by David Carrera.
David wrote, " action research kind of reminds me of when I go to the optometrist to get my vision checked. He puts a lens in front of me, asks how the letters look, then turns the lens and asks “better here or better there?”, “sharper here or sharper there?” and the process continues until he gets the optimum performance from my eyes. Granted it will take longer than 15 minutes but the process is similar. You analyze your data, adjust your practices to see if the data gets better and implement what works and revise what is not working."
As I was reading my classmates blogs, I came across the best description written by David Carrera.
David wrote, " action research kind of reminds me of when I go to the optometrist to get my vision checked. He puts a lens in front of me, asks how the letters look, then turns the lens and asks “better here or better there?”, “sharper here or sharper there?” and the process continues until he gets the optimum performance from my eyes. Granted it will take longer than 15 minutes but the process is similar. You analyze your data, adjust your practices to see if the data gets better and implement what works and revise what is not working."
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