What I Have Learned From 5301..

When being introduced to something that is completely new, it is easy to just push it to the side and claim, “since I haven’t always done it this way, it’s wrong.” I had never heard of action research prior to taking this course, so it was an adjustment in the beginning. I learned a wealth of knowledge from the Dana text. It put things in an understandable, easy to comprehend way. The Dana text defines action research as, “wonderings, gaining data about wondering, analyze and read relevant literature, makes changes, and share information” (Dana 2-9). This was put in a way I could understand it. Again, in the beginning the blogs were a hassle. However, over the course of the class they become a useful tool needed to communicate with other students about my action research plan. I received some beneficial feedback form using that. A couple productive things that I got from the blog about my action research plan were; many have suggested I meet with the Vocational Adjustment Committee more than 2 times throughout my plan. After reading their feedback, I would have to agree with them. Since this program is across the district as a whole, it is important to share the feedback I receive from the employers as soon as I can with the other teachers, so they can start modifying their curriculum and delivery if they need to. A couple more suggestions that were made were; I should research how other school districts organize their vocational curriculum at the beginning of school rather than waiting until December and to be more specific with the data tool I am going to use. All of the comments were useful for me. Whether it was critiquing on what I can do better or simply affirming that my topic was good and worth researching. Lastly, the part of this class that I have gained knowledge from is Part of Assignment 4 when we had to meet with our supervisor. That was so good for me because she gave me a lot of useful information to help with my project. We discussed naturally occurring data and the benefits of doing something that wouldn’t take the stress of meeting with various people but things that could be done within the frame of the class.