Action Research Course Reflections

Going in this research course I was expecting that I would be inundated by typical research and stuck in the library trying to find out about and assigned research topic.  I was glad to find out that this was more about putting ourselves in the position of asking a question that can make a difference in our own positions as administrators that could possibly have a positive effect on our campus environment or workplace. The course was not difficult but the timing of it could not have been worse.  With all the holiday season and school milestones for this time of year, it proved a little arduous to meet with my site mentor or spend adequate time actually completing my assignments on time.  Thankfully, I did succeed in completing the course.

The lecture videos were typically short and to the point.  They did help in getting some understanding in how to setup and action research plan.  And this may sound arbitrary, but it seemed that the professors in the video were reading straight from a teleprompter.  Although there is nothing wrong with that, it just seem fairly obvious that is what was happening.  I do appreciate their guidance through the course and they provided great insight into the use of action research and how to set it up to achieve our own "wonderings".  The videos from week 2 of the administrators that explained how action research has helped them was a great real world example to work from.  I really took to heart from the video by Johnny Briseno that it isn't really necessary to "reinvent the wheel" to develop an action research plan and just google and modify to your own wonderings. Also the fact that he stressed that none of his decisions are made without data to represent what changes should be made. That is important in backing your research and decisions.

I am glad that there were templates available to structure the action research plan.  I found that to be a skeleton to setup my work and also make new or different changes within my research plan.  My mentor and I found both the Action Research template and the CARE model helpful in developing my action plan.  My mentor is excited about what I have come up with and cannot wait to see the finished product.

Working my colleagues via the discussion board and through their blogs and wikis is great.  But somehow I feel like I am cheating.  I am not copying their work or anything but I guess I am not used to working with others to do my own work.  I do understand the concept and like the fact that we can constructively criticize each others work, but when I am working on my assignments, I feel like I am peeking over someone else's work to help myself out.

All in all, I am excited as much as my site mentor and am eager to find out how my plan will develop or what kind of changes I will have to make along the way.  I am normally a patient person, but now I am like a kid a Christmas and I cannot wait to see the results.