The following is a writing assignment posted for our master’s action research class this morning and my response for said assignment. I’m not sure what got into me exactly, but I was all fired up, especially when you take my words beyond the action research context and into our daily lives.
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Please reflect on the following statements:
Action research is inquiry or research in the context of focused efforts to improve the quality of an organization and its performance. It typically is designed and conducted by practitioners who analyze the data to improve their own practice. Action research can be done by individuals or by teams of colleagues. The team approach is called collaborative inquiry.
Action research has the potential to generate genuine and sustained improvements in schools. It gives educators new opportunities to reflect on and assess their teaching; to explore and test new ideas, methods, and materials; to assess how effective the new approaches were; to share feedback with fellow team members; and to make decisions about which new approaches to include in the team’s curriculum, instruction, and assessment plans.
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Alright, the mirth has worn down a bit, so serious time now.
As I read through the summary reflection, I thought about what action research means to us in our projects, and more importantly, what our projects mean to our respective fields. For example, Dexter’s passion is promoting sustainability education, so his project will seek to find ways to bring that information to the masses. This, in turn, has an impact not only in his classroom, but by ripple effect stretches out through all of society as people actively change their outlooks and lifestyles to make the world a better place for themselves and all who come after them. Change, in this case, is a way of improving life itself.
Taking that thought a step further, where we are today in terms of societal values and technological innovation is a direct consequence of the actions taken well before we were even born. Eli Whitney didn’t invent the cotton gin for kicks and thrills; he invented it because he recognized a problem and took steps to change it (in this case, a process that could use some improvements). Henry Ford set up his plant the way he did for a reason: he saw a problem (cars were too difficult and took too long to build if one person did the job from start to finish) and tested a way to solve it (an assembly line process where different workers were specialized to specific tasks in the course of building a vehicle). And the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, would not have encouraged bus boycotts and sit-ins if he felt racism and forced segregation were an okay situation. No. These men saw a need for change in an area that was important to them. And though they couldn’t be sure when they started how or even if that change would succeed, they went ahead and tried. They actively went forth on their own informal experiments and made a difference, and in their footsteps, we shall do the same.
Our names may never be listed in history books, but remember this: as we step forward through our first structured research projects and whatever lies beyond, each and every one of us has the potential to change not only our fields, but our world. Our projects may not go as planned, but even failure has deep and meaningful lessons attached. Take these experiences as a chance to grow and understand how to improve the next time around. You have the potential to change EVERYTHING.
Onward!
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