Measuring the outcome(s) of implementing innovative ideas in our schools is an important part of the work. The measurement strategy commonly used in education is action research. Action research is “any systematic inquiry conducted by teachers, administrators, counselors or other with a vested interest in the teaching and learning process or environment for the purpose of gathering information about how their particular schools operate, how they teach and how their student learn” (Mills, 2011, as cited in Mertler, 2019, p. 5). In Mertler’s Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators, I learned that there are very intentional stages and steps that go into doing action research. The idea of having local research that can give us immediate and informative knowledge of our initiatives, to improve the educational experience in our district, is very exciting!
Throughout this course, I learned that there are four stages to conducting action research, including planning, acting, developing and reflecting that are broken down even further into nine specific steps. Following the action research framework, this course guided and focused my action research through the planning stage to develop a plan that is ready to use to support my blended learning innovation plan in the fall.
Planning Stage
Step1️⃣: Identify & limit the topic
Blended learning/station rotation/first grade/literacy block
Step 2️⃣: Gather Information
Collect, read, and review literature on blended learning for literature review
Step 3️⃣: Review literature
Step 4️⃣: Develop a Plan
In the panning stage I learned how to identify an essential research question that identifies and limits the topic of my research, select data sources to measure the implications fo this work. I had the opportunity to continue looking through the literature related to blended learning, review my findings, write a literature review, and then use that information to develop an action research plan outline that led to a detailed action research plan. Reviewing the research and literature published about blended learning influence my plan. The literature review helped me to refine my essential question and intentionally plan for measuring the implications of blended learning in first grade during the literacy block over a three month period of time. The plan will measure the implications of implementing my blended learning innovation plan in first grade classrooms in our district over a three month period of time. I have completed the planning stage of my action research plan, and will continue this work when I implement my innovation plan in the fall of 2023.
Acting Stage
Step 5️⃣: Implement plan & Collect data
Step 6️⃣: Analyze data
Coming soon in capstone course…
Developing Stage
Step 7️⃣: Develop an action plan
Coming soon in capstone course…
Reflecting Stage
Step 8️⃣: Share & Communicate results
Step 9️⃣: Reflect on the process
Coming soon in capstone course…
Developing and conducting a comprehensive action research plan to capture the implications of my blended learning innovation plan is a vital step to providing relevant local learning evidence to share the implementation story and document the journey of my innovation plan. Action research is a best practice to learn what works and doesn’t work at a local level so that adjustments can be made. This action research is aligned to my blended learning innovation plan and I am interested to see how larger data samplings from my literature review and local data samplings from this study compare.