Action Research

Administrative inquiry or action research is a process of endless reflection of your own work, or as Dana (2009) describes it in her book, it is to take charge of your own professional development to become the head learner in your school. You could describe it as seeing you in a mirror at all times to find ways of improving yourself to be more productive as an administrator for your students and teachers. The administrator has a role as a proactive insider instead of an outsider observer and critic. It includes steps that involve a continuous analysis of what needs change for improvement, asking critical questions, collecting data, analyzing data, and using related readings to make plans of action to implement and share. It is becoming a model in the learning process. Administrative inquiry is a fascinating view because you become a part of the problem that needs to evolve to achieve the goals.

This approach might be used in many aspects. It might be used with your students now. You can reflect on why your students are failing and how you could change your teaching/approach to improve the results. You can collect data from this year and previous years to try to find a trend on the grades. You can find readings about good practices for teaching the subject. You can use the blogs to discuss different possibilities. Gathering the data, reading and discussing you can make a plan of solutions to implement and share with other teachers that are going through the same situation.