As I watched the videos and read the preface of Improving School and Empowering Educators, I realized how important action research in education is. According to Dr. Craig A. Mertler, author of Improving School and Empowering Educators, this cyclical process serves as a mechanism that allows educators to take charge of improving their own craft (2019). Although many of us in education do a version of this daily when we monitor and adjust our instruction, learning about the 4 stages of action research and the importance of reflecting deeply as an educator will allow us to be more engaged and intentional with our teaching.
Mertler (2019) describes the four stages of action research as planning, acting, developing, and reflecting. Upon reading about and reflecting on these four stages, I believe that the reflecting stage might be one of the hardest one for me. As educators we reflect all the time, but according to Metler, reflecting on the process is a crucial step. This type of reflection is not a surface level type of reflection that we do daily, it is meant to be deep reflection as a professional. It also helps us determine our next steps. For me this will be the most difficult because it will shape what I do next with my information. For example, once I have conducted all this research and presented it, now what? What do I do next with this data? What do I change or revise?
I am very excited to dive deep into this course and this book to continue to learn and reflect on action research and how this will shape my innovation project: Blended Learning: Personalizing the Future of Education.
Mertler, C. A. (2019). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators
(6th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
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