The Action Research Plan

This week's lesson was a very long but interesting. It is important to realize and appreciate the time an action research project can take when done right. Laying the ground work necessary to get started on the project is no simple task. It requires a degree of research in itself if a project is going to be meaningful. Of course this week was daunting as we try to eliminate possible project topics in our journey to select an interesting and practical topic. From Dr. Kirk Lewis we learned the importance of making a research project practical. By this he means, from the plethora of data available today, you must learn to take what applies to your situation so that it is relevant and practical to implement. Dr. Lewis intended to help teachers and administrators learn to use data and research together to make their findings more applicable and/or practical for their school. Translating research to make it practical makes it more interesting to you and therefore more beneficial to the students for which your findings apply. Dr. Chargois mentions the importance of using data to influence instruction of students. With the technology available today, data is available more readily and teachers should use this data to better their instruction and increase the success of all students they meet. Dr. Chargois places increasing student performance at the top of his criteria for evaluating all projects or programs presented to him. Before starting, you must have a goal in mind and a method to evaluate any plan formulated when performing an action research project. Remember, the focus must always be geared toward producing positive results in the classroom that improves student achievement.