Week 5 Reflection

This course has been an eye-opener for many of us. To be honest, I was afraid of the topic. But now, I have a clear understanding of what it means to be an action researcher. We have to look at issues that affect our schools and find ways that those issues can be resolved.
Action research can be used to investigate practical, everyday issues. It can be used so that we can understand our own practices. What are we doing to impact our student learning? It’s a useful way for individuals to investigate the nature of their practice and to improve it. This way of research encourages us to become the researcher, rather than reading about someone else’s work. When conducting your research, it’s all based on your “action” as a means of research. You identify your wondering and act upon that. You have to plan on what changes you want to implement. Then you monitor and analyze those changes.

Week 4 Revisions

I did have a minor revision to my action research after my conference with my site supervisor. She suggested that I add another benchmark. So, instead of having only two benchmarks to compare, I will be having three since we are going to administer three during the first semester. Also, another change that I might make to my action research is to clarify the goal. Instead of stating my goal "Evaluate the effects of recess time in an elementary school setting", I might change it to "Does recess time, 10-15 minutes a day, decrease the number of referrals given, compared to the prior year, and does it increase student performance?" This was a suggestion made by one of my peers and I totally agree with her.