As I think about my course, I am reminded of how
important it is to find an action research project that will help my school
grow in academics with success at the end. I struggled with this project
because I couldn’t get the right questions to come out. I think reading my
fellow peers discussion post and sitting down and reading Dana and Harris text
helped me gain control of my thoughts and create an action research project
that not only interest me, but will help me grow in my abilities to read and
interpret data. I am also using Harris’ eight strategies to help me create a
environment at school that helps students grow in academics.
Listening to principals and superintendents discuss
how important it is to use our data to produce academic success really got me
to thinking about how schools should incorporate a blog site for staff to visit
to share what might help specific students that are struggling. I know that
when I talked to the previous year teachers about students, I am learned how to
teach students that struggle with reading and math.
My favorite part about EDLD 5301 was writing my blog
and reading other peoples blogs. I never realized that so many of my classmates
would respond to my posts. I learned that I have a point to make about what I
am thinking and my peers gave me additional support. I gave my blog page to a
few colleagues at work and they told me that what I am doing is going to help
struggling students in our school. When
I would blog I couldn’t help but notice that I was actually writing a journal
about my thoughts. I enjoyed this part of the class.
If I were to rate what part of the class that helped
me most it would be the discussion questions and responses. When I read my peer’s
discussion posts about our question for the week, I noticed that many of my
peers were in the same boat as me. On week one I was lost because I knew what
an action research paper is about because I did one in college. I didn’t
realize the amount of work that would go into the paper. I finally came up with
my action research paper after reading sample questions from Dana text and my
peers. I look at the discussion as another way to learn the curriculum being
taught.
I took several nights searching the library and
specific action research projects online. I actually found a EDLD 5301 blog
from several students from the year 2010. I read their topics and finally
decided that I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. Every day I see
students struggle with math and reading and I honestly do not have an answer
for this question. I do know that I need to focus my attention on the students
I work with every day. Reading prior blogs from students that took the same
class that I am in know actually helped me set my sights on how software in
tutoring can help students. I even found other elementary teachers that were
awarded money for their excellent action research papers. I was very impressed
with all the papers I had a chance to read.
I struggled with how to state my question, but
once I sat down and thought about what I actually wanted to accomplish, the
words just flew onto the page. I honestly think I have a winning topic; I just
need to know how to get the words from my head onto my paper. After
concentrating on what I felt was a need at the school, I became very confident
in the topic that I want to research. I
believe that having the professor see my “rough” draft and telling me that my
project can be done, but I will have a lot of obstacles ahead of me. I realized
that I was making the project harder than it should be.
