ACTION RESEARCH

As adminstrators and educators we have many demands placed upon us. While trying to perform all of our duties and trying to keep up with demands from many different sources, we must always keep an eye on our goal and move towards it. That goal is student success. To make sure that we are continuing on the right path and that our efforts are productive, we must constantly take time to reflect and to evaluate the effectiveness of our actions. We routinely implement new strategies based on traditional research. Many great strategies and approaches for student success have come from traditional research of what works and what doesn't. However, as teachers, we want to help our students become successful, life-long learners, and we must do the same. Using action research is the way to do that. Action research is different from traditional research in that the inquiry and data collection is performed by the practitioner, not theorists. With action research, the administrator or teacher reflects upon his/her actions, poses questions/wonderings, collects data that reflects impact of our acions, assesses that information and plans accordingly to make any necessary changes in action in order to remain effective. Constantly reflecting upon our teaching practices and assessing what is working and what is not helps us to continually learn to become better, more effective educators. While traditional research has provided many beneficial changes in education, it cannot provide the same intimate level of reflection and assessment that action research can.Effective change is more likely to come from a reflective practitioner rather than an educator or administrator that has been given suggestions from a theorists. We are the ones in the classroom working directly with the students and the community. While traditional research is very beneficial, it does not apply to every situation, every campus and every student. With action research, administrators and educators are able to use reflection to take a look at their own actions in relation to their own students.