What I have learned about action research

Action research is essential to growth within a school community. To be successful, one must have a level of trust within themselves and their community to give honest, constructive feedback that will further the growth within the school. Action research is not simply a research where we gather facts to explain or theorize what is occurring in a school. Action research requires the community to define an issue to study that needs improvement, research the topic through traditional resources, take action on the recommendations, and use and share the results. The research is only productive if the community embraces and acts upon it. Educators can be valuable instruments of change if they see that change is growth, and not a negative reflection of their past performance.
Action research involves several steps to ensure its success: Identifying a need or problem, gathering professional literature on the topic, take action on the topic, and finally taking action. Each of these steps has to occur for the action research to be successful. It is imperative that the action is implemented by the educational community. Without that final step, improvement stalls.
In my school, I might be able to use action research to help in many areas. Some of these include: evaluating the tardy policy and how to get students in class in a timely fashion to not miss valuable instruction time, the gap between commended TAKS scores from elementary to upper level grades, creating a school community that fosters growth within departments, etc. While all of these are challenging initiatives, one at a time they can be accomplished.