What I Have Learn About Action Research

What I have learned about action research has been overwhelming.  I am slowly coming out of the fog of it all.  I just hope what my thoughts are, are on the right track.  I have learned that action research is very time consuming and it could take up to a year from beginning to end.  I understand that you have to use data and assessments to help you gain an understanding of what might need help or to at least inquiry about to see if an action research process needs to occur to better understand what is going wrong and how to improve it.  There are many different ways to conduct an action research.  There are action research plans at the district level and campus level.  You can even have different people involved on the team.  I prefer to have an administrator and at least three teachers as an action research team.  I know this will take some research into current literature to provide a resource to help find a solution, and conversations of brain storming to find ways to improve on what the problem is.  Then you have to actually implement the new way of doing things into the classroom and reflect on the process as you go.  The data in the end and any anecdotal notes or documentation obtained will provide a greater inside to the success of the action research.  I know with current STAAR scores in, we as a district will be conducting a data disaggregation staff development to start the action research process for our campus.