Action Research for 21 st Century Schools Workshop 1

Icebreaker What is your name? Where do you work and what do you do? Name 2 things you are passionate about. Imagine that you have been given a "community service" award by the RAK Ed Zone. – What have you done to receive this reward? – What great things does the local paper say about your work and impact?

Vision Apply our leadership and knowledge of education and technology to complete high impact action research projects that will make the most difference for Ras al Khaimah students and schools.

Description In this course you will continue to build your technology skills while working in teams to complete a 3-month long technology facilitated action research project that helps your school community. Projects will be documented online and shared with the RAK community and educators abroad.

Over the next 3 months you will conduct an action research project. Each project should: Address a key school issue Be unique from the other class projects Include data collection and analysis Include bi-weekly project reflections to be shared on the RAKTN

Be technology facilitated Include a screencast ad of the project Include a digital case study (Google site) End with a project presentation to the community Include a project evaluation where you will evaluate your impact and team collaboration

Throughout this course we will learn: Project management Google collaborative tools Screencast tools Website tools Change management Digital presentation skills

Agenda for today Action Research 101 Perfect School School Challenges Case Study Define Research Question RAKTN Groups Review Homework/Designed Alliance Q+A/Feedback Survey

Action Research 101 What is action research? What are the steps of action research?

Vision: The Perfect School What is a perfect school like? What is the role of administration? What is the role of teachers? How do students learn? How do teachers learn? How is technology used?

Challenges our Schools Face List 15+ challenges Note: You can use the Notes section in the back of your course book.

Case Study

Define Research Questions What are your schools’ top 5 challenges? Write 5 research questions per challenge. Explain your challenges and questions to another group. Identify the most urgent challenge/question. Share your challenge/question on the RAKTN.

Challenge: Low student motivation Possible Questions: What is the impact of using project based learning on student motivation? What is the impact creating a school-wide student film competition on student motivation? How is student motivation affected when students are given permission to create their own organizations? How is student motivation affected when teachers incorporate blogging and online gaming into the classroom? What is the impact of creating a student council to address issues of low student motivation?

Challenge: Low teacher collaboration Possible Questions:

Remainder of workshop… RAKTN Groups Review Homework/Designed Alliance Q+A Feedback Survey Thank you!