Action Research

I have learned that action research can be beneficial to an educator in many ways.  It allows you to research a topic of particular interest or challenge that you may face in your classroom, school or district and do research on it to help you as an educator.  This is not a research that is just assigned to you and has minimal or no relationship to you and you are expected to find an outcome and implement it in some way.  I think that you can gain many benefits from doing research like this because if you involve the individual that it directly effects than there will be greater chances that the individual will be more receptive to implementing the changes that are needed based on research.  In my seven years in the same school district I have worked in special education, five years as a speech therapist and two years as a special education teacher. As a speech therapist in my school district you can be assigned one or more campuses which in results I have been on 6 different campuses.  Each campus is very different and unique and has its own dynamics but one thing that I have noticed that all campuses have lacked is diversity in the staff members with a very diverse group of learners.  I feel this would be a great subject to do an action research for me and of great interest in comparison to my school district vs other surrounding districts.