Week 5 reflections

When I first started this course, I was thinking “Oh great!”  “We are going to discuss some leading researchers in the field of education and they have no clue about the kids in my school, but they will tell us this works and that works.” Then I get my week one assignment and start reading Leading with Passion and Knowledge by Nancy Fichtman Dana.  I start thinking why in the world have we, schools, not been using this philosophy?  Asking questions, collecting data, analyzing data, and making changes based on their findings to better “our own” students/staff.  This makes sense.  I think the biggest impact for week one was the fact that administrators are doing their own research on their campus and making the necessary changes so that the students and staff are always challenged and successful at school.  Dana states that action research is so beneficial because theories and knowledge are generated from research grounded in the realities of educational practice, practitioners investigate their own problems and practitioners play a part in the research process, which makes them more likely to facilitate change based on the knowledge they generate.  For week one the most intriguing point was that principals and school districts are starting to conduct their own action research plans instead of relying on “outside” researchers. Week two was very interesting as well.  We were able to listen to three different administrators from three different districts that have been using action research on their campus or in their district.  Even though each administrator used action research for different reasons there was a common theme amongst them.  Each one of them stated that action research was done to increase student success in their school or in their district.  It was all about the students.  For our reading this week we moved on to Chapter 2 in Leading with Passion and Knowledge.  This chapter covered the first step in the action research plan:  finding a wondering.  Dana gave us nine areas where we may find our first wondering.  The area that I focused on the most was curriculum development.   Newberry Elementary School principal had a great plan for developing writing.  Her goal was to increase writing in her school.  Her plan involved many people in the school.  She provided professional development about the teaching of writing.  Her school collaborated across grade levels so the curriculum would stair step from one grade level to the next.  She wanted the writing to be aligned with ideas from leading experts.  I think the most important part of her plan was including multiple grade levels and using ideas from multiple experts.  Often we get consumed by one philosophy and tend to only do that philosophy.  She was very smart taking different ideas from different writing experts and making a plan for her school.  Once again it goes back to making the action research relevant to your campus. For week 3 we were able to create a plan for our action research project.  The first thing we needed to do was create a wondering.  The phrases that were given to us in the Dana text were great starters:  “I wonder…….,”   “I think…..,” and “What if……”  I had talked to our campus math coach and our campus language arts coach.  Our campus language arts coach wanted some data on our tutoring program.  The past few years we have done a few different things.  Three years ago teachers taught tutoring.  Last year we hired a tutoring teacher to pull groups during the day and let teachers teach tutoring.  This year teachers are teaching tutoring and they created their own groups and own schedule.  So our goal was to collect data to see how effective out tutoring program is twice a week for the students who scored below level on our reading benchmark in October/November. The interesting part is each grade level is tutoring at different times, using different strategies, some are using incentives, and some have mixed groups and some kept their own students.  So we are hoping we can collect some data so we can make our tutoring program more structured in the future. During week 4 we discussed the force field analysis, the Delphi method, and the nominal group technique for sustaining improvement for the future.  These strategies came from the Examining What We Do To Improve Our Schools by Harris, Edmonson, and Combs.  I thought all three strategies had valid points.  I like the force field analysis because it looks at the pros/cons of the action plans and creates a plan that addresses the cons.  I liked the nominal group technique because it takes place with small groups.  However, my favorite is the Delphi method.  I really liked the Delphi method because it consists of a panel of people who would be affected by the change.  It also provides confidentiality, so I feel people would express their concerns/needs more openly.   I like reproducing everyone’s comments, sending it back out to create a synthesized list, and then ranking everyone’s comments/concerns in order to narrow down our ideas to form a consensus.  The Care Model was another example for sustaining improvement.  I like that it focused on good things we are doing now, but it also focuses on identifying future concerns.  So far this course has had the biggest impact because the research plan is RELEVANT to our campus/students.  We are the researchers.  We create the wondering.  We collect the data and we make the appropriate changes. References: Dana, Fichtman Nancy. (2009). Leading with Passion and Knowledge.  The Principal as Action Researcher.  Thousands Oaks, CA: Corwin. Harris, Sandra, Edmonson, Stacey, Combs, Julie.  (2010).  Examining What We Do To Improve Our Schools.  8 Steps From Analysis to Action.  Larchmount, NY: Eye on Education.