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This article describes a brief history of Action research within education, ethical issues around informed consent, confidentiality, discipline standards, conflicts and recommendations are included. By: Amanda Nolen and Jim Vander Putten

U.S. senators were "graded" on their support for the arts. Interesting to look at who is a strong supporter and who isn't. For example, John McCain received a failing grade. He argued that the National Endowment for the Arts be cut by $50 mil- which is a 3rd of its entire budget! He suggested the NEA has no significant impact on jobs. About 80% of the NEA budget is allocated for grants, which employ thousands of artists. Some suggest that there should be zero public funding for the arts. Well, NASA's budget for 2009 was over $17 BILLION, while the National Endowment for the Arts received $161 million. NASA's budget included $170 mil to invest in entrepeneurs to develop COMMERCIAL transit programs. That's more than the entire NEA budget. Food for thought.

This editorial comments on some innovations in creating change to address the issue of bullying, including an effort called Roots of Empathy. The approach described here is interesting because rather than addressing a problem directly by creating a structure around it, enforcing reward and punishment, and convincing others about right and wrong, the approach is indirect -- it involves setting up a certain environment and tapping into people's innate abilities to behave in positive and productive ways.

More predictable easy pap from Tom Friedman, the NYTImes resident billionaire sage. He reports that we are falling fast and that we, in order to field a strong military and compete in global economics, need to make serious changes in the quality of our national teacher stock. He points to countries that require teachers to graduate in the top third of their college class and he advocates establishing a federal/national teacher's college, similar to a military academy, as a symbolic leader in the all out public relations battle needed to get people to take schooling seriously. He does closes by acknowledging that students and parents have to get on board, too.

Action research in a school. This article discusses how a school librarian was required to have students for one thirty minute class period. She talks about how she didn't want it to be a waste of time so she came up with a plan to make sure the time spent in the library would be well spent. She got feedback from the students to get ideas on what they wanted to get from this experience.

I think this is a good example of action research. The article discusses the relationship between stress at work and how it can have an effect on employees' health. It also gives ideas on ways to decrease stress at work thus improving the health of employees.

This is as very interesting article. The action research process is used along side quantitative data collection procedures to determine effects and solutions to employee stress and workplace changes. The article is extensive and I confess I did skip over the details of the subjects involved in order to see the author's results. The inclusion of employee input to determine matters that disturb them, which can be underestimated and overlooked, such as the simple need to be validated in the work they do, or the desire to have more input into decisions, is how the researchers were able to create interventions for change, by learning about the actual areas of stress.

This article is actually an interview of Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, and Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science; both are also organizational theorists. The two discuss how organizations can be more successful if they can work better with uncertainty, and incorporate meditation, derived from periods of silence in dialogue sessions, into their work. They claim that organizations need to accept that change should be accepted as the reality, and that life is a continuous state of change. The two also discuss the concept of "collective cultivation," wherein Buddhism teaches that cultivation is the practice of meditation, study, and service. Organizations not only need to accept change, but they need to collectively work hard and know how to accept this change. Unfortunately, most organizations don't have the tools or methods to support this idea. This interview allows the reader to think more about the concept of organizations and leaders in general, and how we understand them. We can't blame the hierarchy for the way things are, because we put the hierarchy in place. We are responsible for our own actions when we obey the demands of our leaders. If we can change our own views of organizations and the habits that we have adopted to work in them, then we can potentially change the way that they function from the inside out.

What struck me most about this article is their suggestion that we need to change our concept of what it means to be a leader in an organization. Particularly in the Western world, we look to our leaders, in fact expect our leaders, to have all the answers. As a leader, being comfortable sitting with uncertainty makes those you lead uncomfortable with you. The process of action research incorporates many of the same characteristics Senge and Wheatley identify: listening, being open, engaging in dialogue. Actively using action research in the workplace may help us reform our model of leadership.

I thought this article was very different but also very interesting. I like the combination of a business perspective and a religious one. I never really put too much thought into any similarities between the two. The suggestions on an effective leader and an effective organization are insightful. I agree there needs to be more dialogue as well as more reflection in order for things to work more efficiently.

The "Evaluation Exchange" is a periodical published by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It reports new ideas in evaluating programs and policies.This is a great resource because they include short yet in-depth articles focused on evaluation. I am sure that most CCT students could find useful resources and information within this site. One article I read, called "Evaluating the Impact of Professional Development," was of interest to me because it directly relates to my topic of evaluating a potential professional development opportunity for teachers.

The was written in 1997 (by professional development specialists), so it is a little older, however it is a nice overview of the importance of evaluating professional development programs for teachers. Anyone interested in action research related to professional development would find this useful!

The Philadelphia article describing Southwest Airlines implementation of a program to allow autistic individuals "pre-view" the flight experience prior to the real experience to minimize initiating behaviors illicited by the new situation. Other airlines are joining in on the procedures. Dr. Wendy Ross trained 130 airport and airline employees on autism, which is diagnosed in one in 100 children annually.

This researcher asked the question, "What effect will Conscious Discipline behavioral teaching strategies have on reducing the incidence of the aggressive acts of young children in child care settings?". Conscious Discipline is a management system and emotional intelligence program that teaches educators and parents how to respond rather than react to life events. The researcher utilizes surveys, interviews, and direct observation in order to collect information. I liked the questioning that she did before beginning her intervention and that by the end of her research, she was able to answer all of them.

I post this one as a counter to Mr Friedman, and as a guide toward where action research is needed: away from the built-in goals and failures of unchallenged schooling. It is a bit dated, but so is our approach. There's a chapter in one of his books entitled "Research by People" that I'll try to track down and see if it pertains.

No doubt helped by the federal dollars they seem to receive, here is a nice pamphlet from the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory At Brown University. It explains their approach and model, and includes a couple of informative charts. It also describes two action research projects, one at an elementary school in Lowell and the other at a middle school in Providence.

As a research methodology, Participatory Action Research (PAR) is an ideal blend of CCT skills and tools. The author of the article, Couto quoted Freire (1970) in saying that "PAR is a community-based, problem-centered, active learning pedagogy, and it imparts several social problem-solving skills and lessons about participation in democratic societies". The article chronicles efforts by the author to engage students from the University of Richmond in a participatory action research project. The purpose of the research was to better understand needs and issues facing the Richmond Juvenile and Family court system. During the project, students worked with detained juveniles to better understand how the system was affecting each individual. The article provides a clear overview of participatory action research, offering numerous benefits of the process. The author suggests that PAR has the potential to be seen as the "scholarship of engagement" and is spreading in the same way that community service and service learning caught on in the 1970's and 1990's.

This method sounds like it could deliver much stronger learning experiences than typical service learning can because there the students usually remain formally outside what they study, though they learn and gain a lot through personal interactions and experiences. Here they directly engage in situations, working for change as partners, that through the service learning model they generally only try to alleviate and understand. The example is extreme and probably unsuited for most groups, but the methods are intriguing and exciting. The part about the community affected controlling the agenda would be key, as it can be a balance act, trying to have students really learn from experiences and not take condescending approaches.

This article was a good complement to the interview of Peter Senge and Margaret Wheatley (Changing How We Work Together) and Senge's work is also quoted in the article as well. Senge says that learning organizations should nurture new and expansive patterns of thinking, have higher standards for collective learning, and engage people in the team. It would be interesting to see what would happen if higher education institutions engaged in more participatory action research, wherein the students, faculty, and staff had more of a say in the actions of the institution. As it stands now, feedback from students and faculty is sought in some respects, such as in committee work, but many students are too busy to offer feedback to the institution. Instead, there is still a hierarchy of administration that makes the final decisions for actions that affect the students, faculty, and staff.

This YouTube clip shows a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson on how we need to revolutionize our educational systems. It resonates with what Myles Horton said in his interview about "molding" vs. "liberating." Schools have been about preparing students to become productive members in an industrial based society. Like Horton, Robinson argues that we need to break free of that model. Robinson also has a couple of good talks on Ted.com related to education. Some of us watched his talk on how schools kill creativity when we took Creative Thinking.