Thursday, January 24, 2013

Week 2 Reflections

After further reading about action research, I am convinced that it is definitely something I want to put into practice now, as a classroom teacher, and if I am ever in a leadership position. I can see so many areas around my campus that I would like to investigate. One thing from the reading that grabbed my attention was the following quote: "It's the people, not the programs, that determine the quality of the school." (Whitaker, 2003) I feel that we jump on every bandwagon that comes along and are almost as quick to jump off again. I want to get my campus in the habit of researching and committing to something before we decide we want to do something else. Action research is a great tool to do just that. I feel that if people had to truly research to know the ins and outs of a program before they asked for it, we might see a decline in the bandwagon effect. I also feel that professional developments is an area that I would address first. I want my teachers training teachers. I see a lot of teachers that go to workshops and gain nothing. They aren't interested in changing what they are doing and don't care to learn anything new. They feel that the presenters are out of touch and live in a fantasy world. If we had teachers from our campus training teachers on our campus, it could take away a lot of those preconceived notions. I need to start making a list of all the areas I would like to possibly research before I'm deep in the trenches just trying to survive :)

5 comments:

  1. Definitely loved this post! I agree with you that we all like to jump on the bandwagon. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed because we say yes to everything for pure excitement that we fail to realize how much is on our plate which in turn causes many to retract and jump off the bandwagon. I also know what you mean in regards to the professional development. As a first year teacher, I am very eager to learn from others and those presenting. However, I have noticed that the "veteran" teachers despise the professional development sessions and are stubborn to change their teaching ways or add on to what they are already good at.

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  2. I totally agree with you about jumping on the newest trends and then quickly dumping them for something else. It seems that the wonderful world of education seems to operate that way...so inefficient! I think by researching programs BEFORE implementing would help limit schools from jumping in too early and then realizing that the program is not the right fit for the school.

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  3. Good point about starting to use the action research approach now as a classroom teacher. When I began reading about it a couple of weeks ago, all of my ideas and thoughts were classroom oriented. Maybe because that's my current environment. Also, you make a good point about sitting through workshops and gaining nothing. While some of this has to do with not taking the time to apply the workshop information to their classroom, I have definitely seen a much better response when information is presented by a co-worker. A lot of that has to do with already having a relationship with that co-worker and knowing that they are in your same work environment.

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  4. You make some great points. I agree that it is people that make the schools, not the programs. This seems to suggest that as administrator we need to put more time investing in our staff and paying close attention to their needs rather than investing in some program that we might forget about in a week.

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  5. I enjoyed reading about your topics. I have learned some of my most valuable teaching ideas from other teachers. I think your research on teachers training teachers is a great idea! Their influence is invaluable!!

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