Action Research, although not new to the education world, is certainly new to me. I must admit that when I saw the title of this class, the word "research" did not instill excitement and inspiration! From what I know of research, I was looking at hours on the internet trying to decipher facts and charts about this test score or that demographic. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the last few weeks before school starts up again. While completing the reading assignments however, I am actually intrigued at how this "action research" is going to play out.

So far, this is what I know about action research.... It certainly has the potential to be tremendously more effective than traditional research because it is motivated by, conducted by and implemented by those that have a direct interest in the research topic. This is not the traditional research conducted by an outsider who is looking at someone else's problem, finding their solution to that problem and then getting paid to cram that research down their throat, while getting paid and doing so in an incredibly boring staff development session during which, the person with the problem could have been doing many more productive things!!

Action research comes from self reflection and identification of an area of need. In our case, identified by the principal, this research activity seeks to find a useful, practical, effective solution to the area of need utilizing all of the local stakeholders so that implementation has a chance to be more successful.

More to come in the weeks ahead!