Improving Teaching with Collaborative Action Research: An ASCD Action Tool, Jan/2011

Once you’ve established a professional learning community (PLC), you need to get this ASCD Action Tool to ensure that your PLC stays focused on addressing teaching methods and student learning problems. This ASCD action tool explains how your PLC can use collaborative action research to formulate questions about topics of your own choosing, take action, and then collect and analyze data to answer those questions. This action research process helps your PLC unearth the root causes of issues and plan corrective actions while fostering ongoing and collaborative teacher staff development. Dozens of learning activities—checklists, rubrics, planning guides, and reflection prompts—lead your PLC through the steps of

1. Developing a common understanding of effective group process and collaborative action research.
2. Identifying a meaningful starting point for inquiry, thinking through a rationale and vision for group work, and generating questions to guide the inquiry.
3. Encouraging meaningful and productive discourse among members.
4. Promoting the effective use of action planning and data.
5. Supporting continuous assessment of results and reflection on effective practices.

Each tool in the collection includes an explanation of why and how to use the tool. Whether your school is new to this action research or is already engaged in the process, this action tool gives you an easy, go-to resource that is perfect for instructional leaders of all sorts—grade-level leaders, department leaders, principals, assistant principals, and staff developers—who are responsible for facilitating improvement.