When I look back on this course, I realize I have learned a lot about action research. Before this course began, I had never really heard of action research. Due to the assignments, lectures, readings, electronic searches, discussion boards, and blogs, I have walked away feeling pretty confident in action research.
Although I found a lot of things useful in this course, I would have to say the most useful highlight had to be the discussion boards. Unlike the previous course, the discussion board was not just a place to post answers. The discussion boards allowed you to see what other people were attempting, and it was very motivating to encourage them as they were encouraging you. After reading the posts, I found myself walking away refreshed and ready to keep pushing on through the planning of the action research.
Even though the videos were definitely scripted, I found myself enjoying the videos during this class. I found the advice of Dr. Arterbury and Dr. Jenkins very useful in this class. I specifically enjoyed listening to Johnny Briseno and Dr. Lewis. They both had wonderful examples of how action research had worked in their schools. Without this application of how we would use this as an administrator, I am not sure how many of the class would have bought into action research. The videos that were provided in this class were very beneficial to me.
The electronic searches I did on Lamar’s web-site was probably my least favorite portion of this class. I found the system to be a bit slow and not as user friendly as I would have liked. After I had completed my searches, I found myself preferring to go to Google Scholar and finding my professional articles there. This I understand has no reflection on the teachers of this class or the class that was provided. I think the web-site just needs to be modified and more user friendly. I also found the TK20 to also not be as user friendly as I would prefer. I was given very quick replies to all of my questions, but the handout did not resemble the TK20 screens and I found this to be cumbersome. Because of these issues, the electronic searches and user friendliness of both Lamar’s library and the TK20 program, I did not enjoy that portion of the class.
Because I felt I was a bit pessimistic in the last paragraph, I wanted to end my reflection with a positive aspect of the course, that positive of course being the blogs. I hadn’t used a blog in quite a while, but I found myself checking my blog responses frequently and examining the blogs of the people who had posted on my blog. Although this was a relatively simple task of the class, I found it to be very important in stimulating my thoughts on the class. For example, Suzanne Steckly asked me questions about possible solutions to videos we upload (Steckly, 2011). These questions reinforced my beliefs that numerous schools are trying to incorporate technology into their curriculums and that training our teachers is vital. I found myself again being refreshed just as I had with the discussion boards. However, unlike the discussion boards, I can look back on my blog well after the course is over and read about where I was at the beginning of this action research journey.
This course has taught me a lot of wonderful ideas and has prepared me in many ways for the future of my career. There have been numerous enjoyable aspects of this class, and there have been a lot of inspirational moments of seeing your classmates delve into their own research with inspiration from others. I have a fundamental understanding of the tools it takes to be successful with action research, and I have the support of classmates to put those tools into action.
Reference
Steckly, S. (2011). Scott Hagedorn Blog. Retrieved from
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