Action Research Project: Online Collaboration for Teachers

My action research plan centers around the use of technology to improve a process within the school, specifically, ongoing collaboration among teachers. Technology is a very important subject for me. I enjoy working in those areas that can provide simple answers to help improve teacher and student success through the use of a system.

My project allows me to research existing technologies that may improve the collaboration process for teachers, allowing them to work asynchronously and at a distance to accomplish the same types of collaborative planning and communication that have been done through traditional methods. After a thorough documentation of current processes and needs, several online tools will be selected and evaluated, then compared to the current method.

My hope is to determine ways in which teachers can benefit from online collaboration via connected systems. Additionally, I would like to provide a detailed comparison of time and cost to the district, so that an informed decision can be made on the feasibility of implementing an online collaboration structure as described above.

I believe that this project, and similar innovations will be highly beneficial to our organization due to its tremendous strength in technology equipment and infrastructure, and may help to increase the overall adoption of technology use as an administrative tool within the district.

Action Research, Week 2

In this week's assignments, I discovered that there is no shortage of topics from which to choose when conducting action research. Many areas ranging from staff development to the individual needs and processes of students and teachers, to the principal's own leadership and management practices can provide "wonderings" which become research projects.

The interviews within the course provided insightful looks at how action research can drive the function of a program, school, or district and the dissertations allowed me to see what that research may become. I hope to see more examples like these in the future.

Action Research as a Tool for Professional Development

Administrative inquiry, action research, or practitioner inquiry are terms used to describe an organized and deliberate study of the administrator’s practice, then taking action based on the results of that reflection (Dana, 2009). The benefits of self-reflection on the practice of the administrator stems from the success of the same type of practitioner inquiry performed by teachers (Oberg, 1990).

This type of research, as compared to process-product, qualitative or interpretive data, differs because of its focus on the researcher’s insight into his own practice in an effort to make changes and to improve the school. Additionally, this process is cyclical, having the inquirer re-analyze the same portion of his methodology to determine how it can be further improved or modified (Dana, 2009).

I believe that action research can be conducted by communities of learners within the school via blogs and other forms of online communication and collaboration, such as learning management systems, discussion boards, and wikis, in order to provide an environment conducive to the learning of teams, which Senge (1990) defines as the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations.

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

Oberg, A. (1990). Methods and meanings in action research: The action research journal. Theory into practice, 29(3), 214-221.

Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday/Currency.

Leaders and Blogging

There are many ways that principals or other educators can use blogs. Communicating with school faculty and staff, as well as parents and students is one common use. A blog is an excellent tool for this because it provides the opportunity for feedback.

I really like the idea of using the blog as a log for action research projects, and I believe this may tie in well with my inquiry into how technology can be used for professional development within the school and/or district environment.