Week 4 Reflection

As I wrote up my detailed plan of my research project I could not help but get excited. I am anxious to see how the project turns out and what the data that I collect tells me about the new discipline program we are planning on putting into place. I really hope that all stakeholder's can benefit from the program we are going to put in place. At the same time I know that this is probably not likely and there will be some involved party that will not be in agreement with what we decide to put in place. If the students do not like the idea of having to stay after-school on Friday to serve their consequence for not following the rules I can live with that. On the other hand I hope to hear good things from the teachers and how this current discipline program allows for more fluid classroom time. Only time will tell, but I am prepararing myself for either outcome. I know that many ideas sound good in theory, but sometimes need to be revised in practice. The good thing about our situation is that we are goign to begin with the new discipline program from the first day of school, which gives us the whole year to make changes and hopefully get it right for the following school year.

Week 3 Reflection

So I have my action research topic prepared and am ready to figure out the details of what my project is going to look like. I am looking to implement a new discipline program that would take students who have repeatedly violated the tardy and dress-code policies and have them attend an additonal class period on Friday afternoon. My initial wondering is whether this consequence will hold more water over the traditional ISS consequence we have had in the past. I also would like to see whether teachers value this system over the old one because it will allow the student to stay in their class instead of having to be removed and miss intructional time. The funny thing about this whole procress is that just when I think I have thought about every issue and question that people might have (be it parents, students or other teachers), another one comes up! I can tell that this is going to be a fun journey that will require paying attention to the finer details. And in case you were wondering, the idea of students attending school on Friday afternoon is nothing new. I am not saying I came up with the idea, I am simply "borrowing" it.

Week 2 Reflection

It's only Tuesday, but from watching this weeks interviews and beginning my assignment, I have learned what I think is a very valuable principal about action research...slow down! What I mean by this is that it looks to be an all too easy thing to do to begin looking at several topics you'd like to research and want to start working on all of them. One of the things Dr. Jenkins said is that your research will contribute to the whole puzzle, which is education. We need to recognize that doing research on one thing at a time is probably wisest. It could get very complicated and frustrating to have multiple projects going at once. This would cause us to lose focus easily and risk the findings of the research lacking relevance to our particular campus. Keeping this in mind, I am glad that there have been so many good ideas for research presented as part of this class, because we can all share our findings! Have a great week!

Week 1 Blogpost

What I have learned about action research is that it is extremely useful for many reasons. The first is that it allows many members of a school's faculty to take ownership of their school and contribute to the betterment of it. Action research has the ability to bring a faculty together in order to accomplish some of the school's goals. Action research is also very specific in that the ideas for the research come from the adminstrators and faculty of the school itself instead of having research imported from an outside source. I will be able to use action research to try to further understand why some members of our school's faculty choose to be non-compliant when it comes to the school's rules and policies. I think that that the idea of educational leaders using blogs is a great one. It will provide faculty members and other educational leaders quick and easy access to information and issues affecting other schools/districts. Educators would be able to look through blogs to find relevant topics and findings that they can apply to their schools or districts.