week 2 action research

Reflection or comment regarding lessons learned from Week Two.

When I commenced the Research course, I was a little overwhelmed but as I read and familiarize with the true meaning of action research I began to feel comfortable with the topic. Action research will allow me to focus on an area that I am passionate about and see it through to the end. I have watched principals that I have worked for in the past become so occupied with their duties that not all things end up being completed.   At my first campus our focus was on maintaining student performance on the TAKS as an exemplary campus. Although this was a reacheable endeavor, as a campus the time was never taken to research the true reason students were performing well or not even look at instructional strategies being implemented by teachers who had experienced success with students. It wasn't until the scores decreased that we began searching for answers. In a period of three years the campus fell from Exemplary to unnacepatable status and teachers started to leave what once was a family of teachers.  I believe action research could have helped this campus out tremendously. By simply asking a few questions, the school could have maintained exemplary status. Some of the questions could have been: What are effective instructional strategies that are being utilized in classrooms to maintain achievement? Are there certain groups of students showing signs of decreasing scores? What strategies or interventions do we have in place to help these students? I am a firm believer that action research will allow me to focus on what might start out as a big idea, but ultimately it will be broken into smaller pieces of information. Action research will become my reinforced vessel as I sail to become an educational leader.