EDLD 5301 Week 5 Final Reflections

I learned valuable information in this course that will help me in my quest in becoming an administrator.  I began in week one learning the difference between action research and traditional educational research.  Now that I know what action research is, I like it because it allows the administrator to identify a problem on his/her own campus, ask questions about the problem, analyze data relating to the problem, and implementing an action research plan to address the problem.  The steps in conducting the action research helps the administrator reflect on his/her own practices. Blogging is something I was never interested in doing, mainly because I thought it was just about people telling their business like twitter and facebook.  After taking this course, I found that blogging is a great help tool.  Blogging, along with the blackboard helped me with every assignment.  I was able to get ideas, comment on others’ posts and receive input from my classmates about each assignment.  Seeing others plans or comments helped me reflect on my ideas and action plan.  I was able to go back and change, add or delete items to create a plan that I feel will benefit the stakeholders on my campus.  I see how much collaboration worked in this course and feel I will get the same results with collaborating with the stakeholders on my campus. Learning how to conduct an action research got easier each week with the videos from scholar practitioners, readings from two main books in the course,  Leading with Passion and Knowledge: the Principal as an Action Researcher by Nancy Dana Fichman and Examining What we do to Improve our Schools: 8 Steps to Improve our Schools by S. Harris, S. Edmondson, and J. Combs.  The videos of the scholars helped me with my inquiry. Dr. Briseno emphasized the importance of obtaining data even before you begin the other steps in your action plan. When a teacher came to him about a problem, he immediately wanted to know about the data.  This helps me know that I must back up my research with data.  Dr.  Lewis emphasized data as well and he helped me understand that I must understand all aspects of the problem before I can come up with a plan to address the problem.  Both of them taught me that it is important to include staff in the action plan.  The books helped me with all of the steps of the action research plan.  Each week’s lessons had a reading that would help me with a particular step in the plan.  Breaking the action research down in parts is really helpful.  I found the book by Harris the most helpful in planning out my action research because it had diagrams and templates along with explanations. The course, EDLD 5301 seemed overwhelming in the beginning, but I found the assignments, readings, videos, blackboard posts and blogs made each week easier than the previous week.  The course is set up perfectly to build on understanding.  The knowledge I gained from this course is invaluable.