As I reflect on this
class, it really has been eye opening.
Before the class started, actually before I started the masters program,
I looked at the classes and thought, oh that’s going to be a boring, lots of
work, go nowhere class. It’s been everything
but that. I have thoroughly enjoyed and
utilized to the fullest the book Leading with Passion and Knowledge. It’s been very helpful in keeping me on
track. Between looking through the books, the resources, the videos, lectures,
and most importantly the blogs, I feel like I have a much better understanding
of action research, what it entails and how to be successful. One of the great
things is the constant changing and perfecting. It’s just like any other
educational setting whether you are a teacher or an administrator, you keep
changing and perfecting, that’s what action research planning has been
about. I like this. I don’t want anything to get stagnant and I
want to make sure everything I do reflects towards the future. One thing in the Dana text that hit home was “In
many ways, inquiry is like exercise” (Dana, pg 15). We give up exercise because
we get busy or find a reason why we don’t have time for it. This is the same
with inquiry, even though it’s difficult to do, we need to still find time to
do it so we can stay ahead of it and not way for that “physical with the doctor
(principal) at the end of the year and realize we haven’t been doing what we
should have been doing. With that said,
I believe the Dana text helped with each and every assignment we had in this
class. You had to read the text to do
the assignment and while reading it applied to what you were doing and
therefore you learned hands on (while reading). This made the class and the
assignments more enjoyable, which eliminated my thoughts from the beginning of
this paragraph.
Next to discuss the web
conferences, I wasn't able to do the live lecture very often, but I actually
found listening to it after more helpful.
On the live, it seemed choppy and bogged down but viewing it after,
seemed more helpful. I did feel like
some of the time was wasted with trivial stuff and talking and as far as
assignments it seemed like we didn't spend a lot of time going over the actual
assignment. I got enough out of them to
learn what I needed to know, especially on the TK20 assignment. TK20 seems so scary at the beginning of the
week, but with the web conference, the teacher explained it well and went over
and over it as well as the videos on how to upload, that it makes it almost a
seamless transition to doing a regular assignment on blackboard to one on TK20.
The discussions are
very interesting. I call that “hands-on
101”. It’s perfect for gleaning
information on what others are doing in your profession and it’s a major
collaboration tool. Even if the topic
wasn’t something I was really interested in, I found myself engaged in reading
it and then going back to see what others said about it. It’s definitely going to be interesting to
watch all these projects grow through the course of this program. I found myself searching out the posts of the
ones that I really liked to see what they would post the next week. It’s almost like we are sponges trying to
suck up as much information as we can in the little time we have. Even though we are all extremely busy with
the other commitments we have, we find time to comment and read. I love this part of each of the classes and I
know if it wasn't a requirement we probably wouldn't get a chance to do it, so
I am glad it’s required because we make the time.
Blogging, blogging, and
more blogging - this is my favorite part of all of our different things to do
in class. With my technology background, I love that we are doing it. It’s resourceful, it’s collaborating, it’s
using technology and it’s helpful to ANYONE who has a computer and has the
desire to search and find you! I don’t have a ton of followers, but I am
following lots of others, because I want all the resources I can have and not
try to reinvent any wheels. Anything I
found in reading these blogs that I thought our district could use, I have passed
on to my administrators. They have been
very receptive to reviewing them and seeing if anything will work at our
campuses.
I thank our teacher
for her invaluable help and desire for all of us to have fun, learn and most of
all succeed. I can’t wait to start
working on my action research project and continue on in the next class.
