Course Thoughts

I really enjoyed this course very much. I was a little worried at first because I see the word research in the title of the course, and I immediately think lots of research papers about issues that don’t relate to me. It’s funny because in the course, they actually bring that up when talking about why they use the word inquiry instead of research because of all the bad connections with the word research. Obviously, the class turned out to be a lot different than I thought it was going to be. I’ve never heard of the word action research or inquiry before, but as I started reading about what it was, it was answering questions that I had been thinking about before while teaching.
For example, I’ve always wondered about how a teacher goes about trying to improve things for next year or find solutions for different problems. I have always wondered about how to get my students to turn in their work. As a teacher before grad school, I never knew where to begin or where to start looking except to reflect and think about my “wondering.” It was neat to see that this class revealed all that information to me, and it opened my eyes to ways that my campus encourages action research whereas before, I didn’t realize or understand why my campus was having us do all these things. One example was PLC groups. At first, I thought it was a waste of time and pointless. After taking this class and learning about the reasons for it, I’ve enjoyed my PLC meetings at my school a lot more.
I have really enjoyed the readings for this class. I usually am not a textbook reader, but these books were great. The Dana text was probably my favorite book. It does an excellent job of taking you, in detail, step by step through action research. It gives you great real-world examples to follow and learn from and possible research questions that deal with common research topics.
The thing about this class that stood out the most was one of the videos that interviewed several people about action research. The video I liked was with Dr. Lewis when he gave the advice to research something that’s practical to you. I think sometimes I can do a project that’s assigned to me by a teacher or principal and get it done with just to get it over with without thinking about the content of my project. This may because I’m too busy and don’t have enough time or I’m not interested in the project itself. During this class, I did take his advice, and I am doing my research about something I’m interested in and something that benefits students. I believe Dr. Lewis is right that when you research something that you’re interested in, you will put more time and effort into the research.
I also like how we had to create blogs for this class. I think it’s beneficial when we can learn from each other and grow professionally. With blogs we are able to write down our thoughts, progress, questions, or anything for others to view and comment on. For action research, I think it’s a great tool to receive feedback. I’ve already started my research project and lots of minor issues and concerns have come up. It’s those concerns that you don’t know will happen until you start the project. These concerns or issues that arise are the things you want to post and share with people so that they can learn from you. If you have found a solution to these concerns, you can share that, or if you have not found the best way to fix a problem, you can solicit for ideas. It’s definitely a great way to collaborate with others.
Even though at first I was dreading this course because of the word research, it definitely has turned out to be a great course. The course taught me how to grow professionally and how to make student learning better.