EDLD 5301 Week 2 Reflection

I was very surprised by the interview with Dr. Timothy Chargois as a model of action research.  His comments and findings seem counter to the design model of action research in that they rely on district and education reform foundations to dictate what happens at the campus level.  He spoke of using data to drive decisions, but then looking outside the campus to things such as the Dell foundation to provide solutions.  These foundations, so called based in education reform, or more about the privatization of education and the adoption of the corporate model.  I feel such foundations do far more harm than good and deceptively misinform, deliberately, the public as a whole as to the needs and realities of public education.

In the second interview, Dr. Timothy Chargois, the Director of Research from Planning and Development in Beaumont ISD, discussed his work in action research in the topic of instructional strategies.  Right away Dr. Chargois spoke to the idea of data drive decision making and the use of data in instructional decisions.  These programs and paradigms are being brought in from the outside and Dr. Chargois spoke about them coming from district level or from educational research foundations.  In the traditional model of data driven decision making, the data is often not timely and it requires the whole faculty and significant time and resources to make sense of it.  Dr. Chargois spoke of using data to “make decisions today” so that the analysis of the data and its implication for pedagogy and content are very close in time.  To accomplish this, Dr. Chargois spoke of new software that helps teachers make sense of data more quickly and to enable them to use software to generate, gather and analyze their own data.  This puts teachers in almost an action research paradigm and cannot help but encourage reflection upon their instruction and instructional content. 

Dr. Chargois is modeling this by having people come in and administer a Survey Monkey instrument to teachers that discusses their ethical responsibilities to instruction.  By showing teachers the model in action, teachers can see the benefits of action research and how they may themselves use it in their classroom.

Dr. Chargois spoke of taking all of the data streams and using it to systemically effect change by looking at all of the background material on teachers and their instruction to come up with a quantitative number.  This is being done in partnership with the Dell Foundation.

I disagree with most of Dr. Chargois’ approach.  Top level administration and outside so called educational reform foundations are far removed from the individual campus and even further from the classroom.  Technology and programs never replace good teaching and his attempt to integrate such programs into campuses is quite the opposite of the principal level intent of action research.

Swope's Action Research Blog to fulfill the requirements of EDLD 5301

What I've learned about action research and how I might use it in my campus leadership role:

At its core, action research is rooted in a single administrator’s practices, reflections and the needs of their individual campus.  It is a cyclical process, one designed to never end but instead to become a thoughtful habit of evaluating an administrator’s actions and thought process in order to effect successful school change.  Administrators identify their own needs as a leader and the needs of their campus rather than having those needs dictated from above or from an outside source.  Administrators choose how to investigate their issues, what type of data to gather and how, and are focused on improving themselves and their campus.  Because they are now heavily invested in the process, the practitioners of action research are far more likely to implement change with fidelity and with a long term approach to sustaining that change.

Traditional education research assumes that the entities best able to diagnose a problem and prescribe remedies are external.  Central Administration, university researchers, consultants all are allowed and encouraged to give their guidance to individual administrators and campuses.  This leads to a one size fits all approach which ignores that campuses are fundamentally different in every area from demographics to social concerns and school culture.  In action research, the problems are identified in house and the solutions are developed internally, only using external sources as the administrator feels they are necessary to accomplish the administrator’s own personally set goal.  Action research is focused on an administrator becoming proficient with reflecting on their own practices.  Traditional research is about the bottom line and disregards the crucial personal leadership and unique insight an administrator possesses into the needs and problems of their campus.  The last major break in traditional research and action research is that traditional research is closed once a result has been achieved.  Action research by its very nature is cyclical and becomes an ongoing process that not only implements change, but nurtures and sustains change at an individual campus.  

Now that I know what action research is and, equally importantly, is not I may effectively advocate for my campus and its needs.  When outside consultants and programs are pushed on me that may not suit my campus and population, I will be prepared and authentically able to resist these changes and develop an internal one that leads to effective change and enthusiastic buy in from my faculty. 

How educational leaders might use blogs:

 Physically meeting with other educational leaders often presumes time in the day that simply does not exist. By using blogs, leaders may bypass time and geographic barriers and reach out to communicate in depth and at will with other leaders who may share insights into the current action research a particular leader is working with.  They also decrease the sense of isolation top level campus administrators may feel.