Week 2 Reflection

I definitely learned a lot through our readings from the Dana text and through the 3 videos we were to watch from fellow graduates of the program whom are now excelling within the education system. One of them being my superintendent for the district I work for, Dr. Timothy Chagois. One thing he did mention that caught my attention was learning to be data driven and being able to quantify qualitative data. In addition, he also mentioned that in order to become a better teacher, you must never stop growing and learning. This definitely hits home because it answers the question as to "what am I doing here?". Like I tell my family, I am "hungry" to learn anything I can. With that said, I have decided I want to look into the way the tutoring program is structured within my school. As mentioned in my discussion, I feel that our tutoring program is more of a social gathering for our students and an extra source of income for our teachers. If I could restructure the way its set up into a more organized and less chaotic program, we could possibly see an increase in our student's academics. In addition, it would also not require for many teachers to stay after school which would in turn reduce the amount of money the school spends on paying teachers.

Use of Blogs with Educational Leaders

I find that the use of blogs, especially with educational leaders, is a great way of networking globally. It helps us view different points of views from various different leaders throughout the world. Perhaps even get ideas from the current top country in education (which I do not know at the moment). Likewise, many third world countries may use many ideas from educational leaders to use a "template" to assist them with their educational system. With technology on the rise day by day, I feel that we are more comfortable with each other via the world wide web. Just think about it, the majority of us text message, Skype, webcam. Even in this program, we have web conferences, do various assignments involving technology and communicate with my cohort via Facebook. Blogging, I feel, is a great way to share information, thoughts and opinions before making something official within your campus. Think of it as a "rough draft" to your action research.

Action Research

Throughout my high school years, and even in college, I despised hearing the term "research paper". All I knew was that it consisted of me reading/skimming a plethora of articles, books, and internet sources to analyze a piece of literature. In addition, it had to include a certain amount of resources, be a set number of pages, and spend countless hours in the library. It is the dreadful paper that everyone dreads in the English Comp classes while in college, but know they must do it in order to pass the course. However, action research is a different approach to doing research. One identifies the problem that exists on their campus. After identifying the problem, one must be willing to be a part of the experiment/investigation, thus the term "action research". As Dana states, action research refers to "research intended to bring about change of some kind". We as teachers/administrators must identify the problems, implement a plan, and execute it. In addition, gathering and calculating data prior and after is also a part of the research. All of these characteristics encompasses the true meaning of action research. Furthermore, being able to include yourself in the research with your colleagues, students and community will provide that "action" and, in my opinion, make your journey to research more enticing.