General Reflection About Action Research Class

One of the most important aspects of the class that I found useful was the video chat sessions.  I really liked the interaction with the professor and the other students.  Many of the questions that I had were asked and answered in the chat sessions.  I was also taken by the fact that very few students get to have face to face meetings with a professor on a weekly basis.  This was a very useful part of this class.

Both of the texts required for this task were useful and will remain in my library.  Giving step by step instructions and reminding the reader what is important in action research is a very useful thing to have around when you are about to take on an administrative position.    I found that the Dana text was much more informative that the Harris text it took greater pains in explaining the rhyme and reason of action research. 

The assignments forced me to stay on task.  Having an assignment that relates to what you are learning is very important.  These assignments made me think further into each of the topics and push myself to have a real understanding of the material that we were covering.  Much more useful that a simple true or false test or some other means of assessment.  When you have to actually do something hands-on and the task actually makes you understand the topic that you are studying better it is always a winning situation.  While I cannot say that I enjoyed each of the assignments, because I did not, I can say that I believe each of them made me a better action researcher and that was the point in the first place. 

I did find the discussion board and blog to be a bit repetitive.  One or the other would have been enough for the class.  I always found myself posting the same information in both places and so I thought that having requirements that both of them be used a bit over the top.  By using only the blog or the discussion board the interaction could have been accomplished between the students without it becoming just another burdensome task that had to be done each week.  I quite often found that one or the other got my attention and that the latter got neglected. 

I also found TK20 to be a useful tool for keeping all of the class information in one place.  I wonder, however, if throughout the program we are going to be asked to post information in yet another place for others to review it.  Hopefully not.  If this is needed to assist in the accreditation of the program then so be it, but we should just be required to post our assignments there also and be done with the TK20 instead of it being another integral part of our passing the courses.

All in all I have enjoyed taking this class and most importantly I feel like I have learned something that could be vital to my success as an administrator.