Reflection

Impact of the Action Research Process

Student Learning

My action research impacted student learning through specific language learning strategies. I have seen quite a few English Learner programs that were basically reading interventions with little to no support for the other three domains of language. My students were impacted through a focus on their oral speaking skills so that they could communicate their basic needs, make friends, and participate in their learning environments. Having a language barrier caused difficulties at school that went beyond just the academic components. The action research process impacted my students’ learning because they were taught how to communicate, work in pairs and small groups, and how to work around their language barriers. They were also taught to embrace their skills of knowing more than one language rather than to feel angry that they did not know English. Overall, the action research process benefited students’ speaking skills and abilities to communicate and participate in their own learning.

Professional Growth

Action research impacted my professional growth because I was learning, reflecting, and collaborating throughout the process. As a professional, this process taught me how to be a lifelong learner by researching researched-based strategies and practices and then applying them to my classroom. I learned how to determine what my students needed, how to research it, and then how to put it into practice and reflect on it. I also was impacted through collaboration. Collaboration was one of the biggest areas of growth for me as a professional. I learned how to work with classroom teachers, my CADRE cohort, my co-teacher, and how to reach out to professors I previously had in undergrad. For a project this large, collaboration was key to success. I was able to ask for support and encouragement from other professionals in my building. I was also able to lean on the wisdom of past professors for guidance on how to approach an application with a specific demographic of students. Lastly, I depended on my CADRE cohort, peers, instructors, mentors, and directors to lead me through the process and the experience. With all of the people I had the opportunity to collaborate with, I successfully completed the action research process.

Teaching

Action research impacted my teaching through knowledge, trial and error, risk-taking, and flexibility. The whole process was a new experience for me. I learned how to navigate the process by developing a purpose statement and rationale, compiling research through a literature review, then developing and implementing an action plan, compiling and analyzing data, and finally presenting and reflecting on the outcomes. The process was a monster, at times it was confusing, demanding, and frustrating, and at other times it was insightful, simple, and advancing. I learned how to use trial and error to improve my teaching throughout the process. I utilized and tried new strategies in my classroom based on my research and tweaked them here and there until they were successful with my students. I took risks and challenged my students' skills and abilities. I held them to high expectations, and encouraged my students to take risks with me while they became more comfortable with speaking. The process also impacted my teaching because I had a set calendar that quickly got changed due to multiple conflicts. The process was planned out, however, and I had to be flexible and work with anything that came up; including assemblies, celebrations, snow days, testing windows, translating, and many more case by case situations. I did not realize how flexible I had been until I reflected on how much my calendar had changed from start to finish.

What I Learned

I learned what action research entailed from beginning to end. First, I had to determine what my students needed by assessing them and providing a rationale for the "why" of my research. Then, I learned about how to ask for district approval before beginning the process. Next, I learned how to have the research come before the practices. I completed research to determine which strategies would work best for the needs of my students rather than choosing strategies to attempt to fit the needs. After discovering research-based strategies, I created a plan to follow and guide the process. I also learned that even in action research, I was a teacher to my students first and had to adapt my instruction and my research in order to do what was best for them at all times, even if it tweaked the research. For data analysis, I was given parameters on how to triangulate my data collection methods in order to make the results more credible. Lastly, I learned that all personal information about my students, the school, and the district had to be kept confidential when presenting to a public audience. These were all components of action research that I was not aware of until I was working through the process.

Remaining Questions

Some lingering questions that I had about the action research process were:

What does action research look like when you are co-teaching in a push-in setting?
Do co-teachers have to conduct the action research together?
How do teachers implement action research when it is not part of required coursework?
Is there ever a time when you have to get parental consent for action research?
What happens if your district denies your action research?
Where do you present your action research when you complete it independently?
Can you conduct action research independently?

Future Thinking

For the future I think I would change the time of year that I would implement action research. Starting in January resulted in a lot of snow days, which is out of our control, and although this year had the most snow days we have had in awhile it really interfered with the research. Knowing that snow days are a possibility, in the future I would implement action research starting toward the beginning of March and lasting through the end of April or beginning of May. I would also plan for nine weeks, knowing that Spring Break and other conflicts will arise and limit the research to seven or eight weeks, naturally. I would also like to figure out a way to have the students that are part of my research all in the same group. This is very difficult as an interventionist that sees the students at different times of the day based on their classroom teachers’ schedules.

Other components that would have to change for action research in the future would be the thinking and interactions of different program models. A lot of EL programs are trying to move from pull out instruction to push in instruction. This would change the dynamics of EL action research because the research would have to be co-planned, co-taught, co-collected, and co-analyzed unless there will be a different way to go about it. In the future, I would also like to change the time frame so that I could use the ELPA scores as a way to see growth. In order to see this growth though, I would need to wait until the ELPA screener is more developed so that it shows the indicator scores. The indicator scores are easier to see growth rather than the proficiency one through five scores because they give the number range of where students are at. In other words, the indicator scores show how close a student is to being a level two or level three proficiency.

In general, action research will always impact future teaching because it allows us to try research-based strategies and improve our teaching skills from time to time. It also allows teaching and education to change with the generations, improvements in instruction, and inventions. I hope that in the future there will be more language acquisition action research taking place so that EL programs can learn and develop, become stronger, and be better supported. I feel as though a lot of EL programs are still developing and navigating new information, models, and curriculum.

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