Action Research is a process of reflective thinking as we,educators, evaluate and implement improvements for student success. This week, as I unfolded the process of action research, many thoughts came to mind. The first thought was, gaining a true understanding between traditional research and action research. As I read the assigned readings, I found it helpful to connect the examples to my world and search for those examples that empowered me to gain a deeper understanding of the process. Therefore, the ideas behind traditional research had me thinking back to the days of high school and the process we utilized in the classroom to complete research on a pre-determined topic. I remember narrowing the topic, as I looked through the card catalog to find information on this topic, sometimes of no interest to me. Many of my resources were from books that were housed on the shelves of the library. As I think about today's process for finding resources, it has me amazed at how the doors of communication have opened to not only a child's school library, but access to resources across the world. An example of this was this week's web-conference. Even though I did not get to attend, I reviewed the video of the web-conference, getting to experience the conversations of other educators from across the world. As I listened ,I reflected about how their topics of action research "fit", or did not "fit" , with the needs of my district. There were so many topics of interest. I can not wait to see how their topics of studies unfold over the course of their internships!
As a member of several district and school committees, I have experienced the process of action research, but I never knew this process actually had a name. This process is on-going at the district and campus level. Each year we revise our district and campus improvement plans based on the data we collected over the course of the school year. One piece of important data that has been collected from state assessments, local assessment, and teacher observations is the lack of fact fluency that our students exhibit. This understanding of number sense is critical in the development of mathematics as we prepare our students for College and Career Readiness. The data that has been collected over the years indicated that the lack of fact fluency is directly impacting our student's success in high school Algebra. As a member of the District Curriculum Council, District Math Curriculum Writer, and school Math Specialist I find it of great importance in asking theWHY? Therefore, I have invested the time of gaining a deeper understanding of the critical skills for the development of number sense, Kindergarten through fourth grade. One way that I have deepened my understanding about this topic is reviewing our state student expectations, to gain clarity, on how number sense is addressed in this document, the driving force of our instruction. Secondly, I have also attended several professional development courses that addresss this specific topic. As I listen to each speaker I compare their views and reflect on how this information could be utilized to serve the needs of our district, school, and my Response to Intervention students. This journey has been long, but worthwhile. This past school year I joined a team that consisted of the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, the Math Instructional Specialist for the District, and myself to create vertically aligned fact fluency assessments for K-8th grade. We used an action research process as we created potential assessments, tested sample groups throughout the district to explore patterns and determine the validity of our assessments. The most difficult assessment was the first grade mathematics assessment. I have recently visited with the first grade mathematics curriculum writers to gain a deeper understanding as I reflect on this assessment. Changes have been made based on more research, discussions with other educators, and student expectations that have been set by the state.
My action research study is to reflect on the effectiveness of this new district fact fluency program. I will do this through a continous study of methodologies of number sense, data analysis, reflection, and the review of plan implementation to increase performance for Algebra Readiness.
