My final reflections over EDLD 5301 Research course
started at the beginning of the course with Dr. Arterbury’s lecture making me
feel that I could complete the action research because it was attainable. When
I got the course title, I got nervous that I wasn’t going to be able to succeed
due to my previous experiences with writing research papers. After listening to
the first lecture and having Dr. Arterbury and Dr. Jenkins lay the whole course
out for us, it was reassuring that I was going to be able to succeed and find
the course useful. Throughout the entire five weeks of this course, I enjoyed
the lectures and the reassurances they provided.
The Adobe Connect meetings that I got to attend were
extremely useful, and I really appreciated the postings of the ones that I was
not able to attend. I found that others were having the same questions I was
having, and having Dr. Abshire available every week for those meeting times was
helpful to be able to answer my most pressing question. I think that these
opportunities were very beneficial. I was able to connect with other people in
different degree plans and other discussion groups through these meetings. This
helped me to get others to follow my blog and find other blogs to follow. I
think that helped me understand the research process better.
The discussion boards were also another way I was
able to get questions answered throughout the course about assignments or other
wonderings I had about my action research plan. I was intrigued by some of the
comments from my posts and it helped me to further question things in my
research. I hope that this will better my research plan and future research
that I want to complete.
In the readings, I really enjoyed the nine passions in
the Leading with Passion and Knowledge (Dana, 2009) book. This helped me to
see how action research could be used in many different ways in my educational
career. It gave me a better understanding of why some things were done in the
past, and how I could better improve my presentations of staff development in
the future. I also enjoyed Chapter 3 in this book (Dana, 2009) describing all of
the different ways to be able to collect data. I had not really considered
surveys as a part of my data collection, and them being a valid piece of data
for my action research plan. Being able to see the variety of ways to collect
data helped me to expand my data collections and hopefully provide better
results with my action research plan.
I am not enjoying the tk20 part of this degree. I think
it is repetitive, and not necessary. However, I will do what I have to do to
obtain my degree.
Lastly, having a blog to post my action research
plan and gain feedback from others is a something I fretted over. Now I see the
benefit of posting things on the blog for others to see as a way of
communicating my action research plan for them to be able to benefit from all
the work I am doing. I have been able to get feedback that helped me to see
that my data may not show what I wanted it to, and realize that my camp might
not be long enough to gain the results I was looking for in the numerical data.
Overall, I have really enjoyed this course and the
knowledge it has provided me. I know that I will continue to use action
research throughout my educational career, and even into my personal life.
Dana, N. F. (2009). Leading
with Passion and Knowledge. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.
