EDLD 5301-Week 5 Reflections

    I have learned so much in this course EDLD 5301- Research For Teachers. I am glad that there was a class specifically designed to help better understand the intricacies of an action research project.

    I feel as though the lectures were informative and I particularly liked the interviews of some of Lamar University’s former doctoral students. I liked their advice and insight on conducting action research.

    The books assigned for this class are excellent tools that will help me within my research project. I particularly liked the readings that I felt were extremely helpful in helping me understand more about action research.

    I liked the readings within Leading With Passion And Knowledge: The Principal As Action Researcher by Nancy Fichtman Dana. It discussed why one conducts action research through finding “wonderings” (Dana, 2009, p.29-70). The readings also explained that you as the researcher should find your questions from different areas within the school such as: staff development, curriculum development, individual teachers, individual students, school culture and community, leadership, management, school performance, and social justice (Dana, 2009, p.30).

    I have found the Tool 7.1 Action Planning Template a wonderful resource as it has helped me examine my steps during my research and construct a timeline (Harris, et al., 2010, p.85). I also enjoyed reading about the strategies for sustaining improvement such as the Force Field Analysis, the Delphi Method, and Nominal Group Technique (Harris et al., 2010, p.94-96).

    The assignments in this class were helpful as they were designed to help the student understand the readings and construct the action research project. The assignments helped me set a good pace for myself while trying to develop my plan for my action research project.

    The discussion boards and blogs were a nice way to communicate with others about action research in general and to see more details about other’s projects. We were able to have discussions and comment on other people’s topics of action research. We were also able to see how people were using their action research planning templates with detailed information about their projects. I found that using the blogs and the discussion boards gave me a better knowledge of how to develop my action research project.

Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Harris, S., Edmonson, S., and Combs, J. (2010). Examining what we do to improve our schools: 8 steps to improve our schools. Eye on Education Press.