I am in a Masters program and am learning about action research. If you are not familiar with this you’re in luck, because I wasn’t sure about it in the beginning either. Action research is more than just researching something and finding a better way to tell others how to do a task. Action research is about examining one’s own practices in a systematic way. Many times people that don’t work in the education field come in and tell us how we could do things better, what materials work best and how to handle different situations. In most cases these people are removed from the day to day workings of schools or classrooms.

Action research in education provides the opportunity for us as educators to look at things that we may want to improve and work toward through inquiry, data collection, reflection, and finally finding a course of action.  It has to start with you and from there you can try to get others involved in creating the resolution or outcome that you are trying to achieve.  The first step is to think about or “wonder” what you think could use improvement in your school. Collect data about this subject, read different materials, send surveys, ask more questions to understand the issue. Then reflect on what you have learned and work together to find the best solution and continue to reflect and see if what you have implemented worked or if it needs to be adjusted or changed.