Revised Action Research Plan

Action Research Plan

Action Research Plan Process Overview

1. SETTING THE FOUNDATION
Through careful examination of my internship plan and discussions with my site mentor, technology integration in the classroom emerged as an important and critical theme.  From this vantage point, I looked into my experiences as a classroom teacher and reflected on factors that prevented me from furthering my knowledge on educational technology and using technology in the classroom.  After reflecting, I formulated the wondering of how can I facilitate professional developments to aid in the integration of educational technology?

2. ANALYZING DATA

I anticipate using literature, self-reflection, surveys, field notes from interviews and classroom observations, and quantitative measures of student performance in technology rich environments.

Through these data collection measures, I hope identify best practices for developing professional developments, to identify easily accessible web tools for educational use, as well as to identify ways to align the unique features of educational technology with continuing education efforts.

3. DEVELOPING DEEPER UNDERSTANDING

As I begin data collection through literature and self education, I anticipate developing more questions.  These inquires will facilitate the development of other data collection endeavors, such as interview questions, survey questions, and classroom observations.  For example, my understanding of web tools and other easy to use technologies will definitely affect the types of questions I pose in a technology knowledge and use survey.

 4. ENGAGE IN SELF-REFLECTION

Reflective questions that I may ask myself include:

• Have I gathered sufficient information to facilitate a professional development in educational technology that is specific to the needs of my campus?

• Do the questions I developed for survey and interview purposes have any biases?

• Have I explored and/or recognized all obstacles to the goal of increased classroom technology integration in my project?

5. EXPLORING PROGRAMMATIC PATTERNS

In exploring programmatic patterns, I plan to discuss my reflective questions with my site mentor, campus technology specialist and principal.  It is very important to the success of my action research that all issues and obstacles regarding the implementation of educational technology are addressed.

6. DETERMINING DIRECTION

This step demands that I take a step back from my research and review and revise my plan.  Here is where I will prioritize my goals.  I anticipate having to revert back to collecting more data in areas of my research that are lacking or that I have identified as a bigger priority.

7. TAKING ACTION FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

In order to implement my action research findings, I will need to lead an educational technology professional development of my own or in the very least, help facilitate.  After initial permission to lead a professional development of this type, I plan to systematically carry out the action steps I identified as necessary for success.

8. SUSTAIN IMPROVEMENT

Sustaining improvement will come from modeling the desired behavior in my classroom as well as carrying out the last two steps identified in my action research plan.  Through the encouragement of participation in teacher reflective blogs, ongoing tutorial sessions on web tools and other available technologies, as well as tiered professional developments, self-growth on behalf of the teacher will continue beyond the confines of the school.

Developing an Action Research Plan

This week, we were asked to develop an action research plan based upon the wondering identified in last week's assignment. After reading the Dana text, Leading with Passion and Knowledge and looking back at my internship plan, I realized that I had already created an action research plan without even knowing! The data collection means will essentially be the same as many of the activities I identified through my draft internship plan. The fact that these two documents coincide, make me feel much more confident about the strength and actuality of my action research project.

I am also very excited about my ability to embed my action research chart! I remembered the instructions from a previous course on how to embed a power point presentation and surmised that I could do the same for a chart in a word document. After converting my document to a PDF file, I uploaded it onto a free software program that converts pdf and text documents to html and was able to embed it properly into my blog posting! It’s a great feeling when you’re able to apply what you’ve learned!

Educational Technology Action Research Plan

Action Planning Template

Discovering Wonderings that Drive Teacher Inquiry

I found this week’s assignment to be a bit frustrating.  After reading about the different areas where teachers and administrators find their wonderings that lead to action research, I found it extremely difficult to settle on one topic of interest for my particular action research project.  I did rely on some insight from my site mentor and decided to investigate best practices for leading technology themed staff developments.  I feel very strongly about this topic because it has a two pronged approach.  It gives me the opportunity to exercise leadership ability through the possibility of conducting a staff development session, but also enables me to research a subject matter that I am just beginning to explore.