Action Research Defined

I am very fortunate to work on a campus that utilizes action research yearly to improve the education of our students and the motivation of our staff.  I have learned that action research is a process that involves time and effort.  Beginning with posing a question you wish to research and conducting a literature review to gain some background knowledge and insight to your topic.  Creating a plan of action and working through various groups collecting data.  Once data is collected is important to work with the important stakeholders and campus staff to analyze the data and begin to make a plan to facilitate change.  Action research can benefit student achievement, teacher motivation and style, parental and community involvement and basic educational processes.  When conducting action research one needs to make sure to follow each phase and collaborate effectively with those involved.  Our campus is being trained and going to be working as a professional learning community to help to improve student achievement.  We are working towards collaborating and learning from one another to assist in our individual teaching.  On our campus this year we will form a task force to conduct action research in improving intervention on our campus.  Through the use of PLC's we will work with staff to research our current intervention situation and collect data.