Fall 2013 Syllabus

Action Research 650-653 Dr. Valerie Schmitz vschmitz@pepperdine.edu Overview Action research is a process of deep inquiry into ones practices in service of working toward goals that align with values. It involves taking action (or attempting change) and collecting data to analyze and understand the actions from the perspectives of others and in relationship to a projected outcome. It is cyclic or spirals as the researcher moves through a period of thoughtful planning of the action, to taking actions, then analyzing evidence collected to make sense of the actions. The final step--critical reflection on what was learned--is used to create conceptual tools for planning of new actions. As one progresses through cycles, there is a continuous process of refining methods, making new decisions about data collection and evolving strategies for data interpretation. The understanding developed through reflection on earlier cycles shapes the process of inquiry often in new directions. Action research is then an iterative process which converges towards a better understanding of what happens as a result of actions taken. Because practices involve other people, action research is participatory, often high collaborative and employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. The primary object of research is the researcher. The goal is to evolve a theory of change that is highly sensitive to the factors that operate in a particular context. The Overall Plan This strand has four courses, 650 651 652 & 653and so we will be together throughout the year. 650--You will be learning about action research and exploring ideas for action research in your workplace. In doing so, you will work with your "learning circle" partners to help them frame their ideas. Part of your work will be to begin your search for references to help you plan. You will define a "field of action, " and in that field you will look for problems you care about. We will also review ethical issues involved in action research. 651-We will start by working on your problem context identifying reading topics and searching the literature for problems like the one(s) you have identified. You will be reading and reflecting on ideas of others as you work on developing the first draft of your literature review and overall plan for your action research. At the end of the semester all of you should have developed your research question. Some of you may start your first cycle. 652-- You will carry out your action research generally completing 2 cycles. This will involve planning, acting, collecting reactions, analyzing, and planning again. In most cases your will be reworking or adding to your literature review. 653--You will finish your final cycle, reflect on the whole process and organizing all of your notes and works into a final report and presentation for the cadre in July. Then we hope that your work will be transformed into a publication, a presentation, and/or project proposal for the next year. Course Objectives for 650

1. 2. 3. 4.

Become familiar with the key concepts of action research methodology. Propose an initial outline of your plan for your action research project. This should particularly focus on your topic of interest and information about those from your workplace who will participate with you in this reflection on your practice. Learn more about the appropriate procedures for involving participants in research, particularly informed consent and guarantees of anonymity in reporting the results of your actions. Successfully complete the online IRB tutorial to familiarize you with ethical research methodology as it

5.

applies to both education and medicine. Create a logic model and a forcefield analysis

Thinking with People This graduate program is unusual in many ways some of which you may have discovered at cadre camp. (Love to hear your reactions to camp!). You will find that we have moved beyond student-centered learning to communitycentered learning. A great deal of your educational experiences will be in and about communities. Your peers are not only co-learners. They are your learning consultants. Each of us will serve as a consultant to the other people in our community. We will listen to your descriptions of your communities of practice and your understandings of your identity within these communities. Then as a group we will engage you in a reflective process that helps you think about the way things are and how things might be. We will think with you about how best to engage with the people in your community to move you and them towards evolving goals. In exchange for this work, you will be able to focus the "community mind" on your work. You will have the collective intelligence of our community to think about your membership in your professional communities. We will, as a group, help you reflect, analyze, explore, understand the changes that are taking place. This process is difficult to do alone, but you will not be alone. You will be thinking with people. We will help and support you as you find your way toward new understandings of yourself and others within your circles of work. You will be engaged in a form of self-reflective practice with all of us studying the reflection you see. Your Action Research Website and E-Portfolio You will need to set up a home for your action research. Since it a yearlong project it makes sense to have the site continue from class to class (rather than setting up separate webspace for 650, 65, 652 and 653 (like you might for your other courses). Students find it works best to create an action research website and link it to opening page and continue to work in the same space from semester to semester. We will be revising work done as we go along. The site will evolve with your work. For this semester, you will add the following to your website:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Select a "Field of Action" and exploring problems Discuss Informed Consent Begin your review of literature as part of a planning process Begin your Action Research Journal (Blog) Create your Force Field analysis Create your logic model

University Policies Graduate Level Writing MAINTAINING COPIES OF ASSIGNED COURSE WORK FOR PROGRAM EVALUATION: The Graduate School of Education and Psychology evaluates its programs on an ongoing basis. The data from such evaluations provide us with information to help improve the quality of the educational experience we provide our students. In addition, the data are used by our accrediting bodies, such as the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). California Council on Teacher Credentials, and the American Psychological Association (APA), to make decisions as to whether we can maintain our accredited status with these respective associations. To this end, we may archive copies of the papers, examinations, exercises, etc. that students complete as part of their required course work so that we can track if students appear to be meeting the objectives of the program in which they are enrolled. Names will be that your course work not be archived for evaluation purposes, please let me know immediately so that I can make such a notation in the files I keep for each student who enrolls in my courses. You have writing help from Pepperdine by contacting the writing support center . CODE OF CONDUCT: The Graduate School of Education and Psychology strives to create a learning environment which is respectful of the rights and dignity of all members our learning community. Students are expected to conduct themselves in a collegial, respectful, and professional manner while participating in all activities associated with this course. Students are expected to exhibit behaviors and attitudes consistent with appropriate ethical-legal standards, and to refrain from any fraudulent, dishonest, or harmful behaviors such as plagiarism, cheating, or harassment,

which compromise the integrity of the academic standards of the university and/or impact the safety and security of fellow students, staff, and faculty. Failure to comply with appropriate standards of conduct may result in a grade of F in the course and dismissal from the program. RESPECTFUL DISCOURSE: The Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology values and respects the perspectives and diversity of our students in regard to ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, age, and ability status. Thus, it is critical that classroom discussions include respectful dialogue about any issue that impacts the lives of our students, and the individuals, families, and communities that our students serve. PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism is commonly understood in the academic community to involve taking the ideas or words of another and passing them off as ones own. When paraphrasing or quoting an author directly, one must credit the source appropriately. Plagiarism is not tolerated at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology. DISABILITY STATEMENT: Any student with a documented disability (physical, learning, or psychological) needing academic accommodations should contact the Disability Services Office (Malibu Campus, Tyler Campus Center 225, 310.506.6500) as early in the semester as possible. All discussions will remain confidential. Please visit http://www.pepperdine.edu/disabilityservices/ for additional information.es/ for additional information. rdine.edu/disabilityservices/ for additional information. Books and Materials Required Reading for the Strand Collaborative Center for Action Research - This will be a "living textbook" which you should return to for each step in the process of doing action research. Margaret Riel developed this site and will be transforming it into a massively open online course (MOOC) over the year. This will help guide you through the process of doing This is a great workbook for doing action research. It will serve as a second guide. McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J.(2009) You and your action Research Project. (Version 3) Kindle version

Coghlan, D. and Brannick, T. (2009) Doing action research in your own organization. Sage Publications Ltd: Or ...James, A, Tracesea, S. , Bucknam, A. (2011) Action Research for Business, Nonprofit, and Public Administration: A Tool for Complex Times

Berieter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (1993). Surpassing Ourselves: An Inquiry into the Nature and Implications of Expertise.

Academic Writing for Graduate Students, Essential tasks and skills (Second Edition). These books will be read this first semester and reread throughout the year. We will focus on the first part of the books this semester, learning what action research is, why and when it's valuable, and how to do it in your local setting. By the end of August you should have a plan in place.

Reading Resources Action Research The Participatory Action Research Network (listserv) Network of Action Researchers in Education and Training Action Research at Queensland University Ethical Issues Short article" Action Research and Implications for Ethics in Human Research" addressed to CSU's Ethics in Human Research Committee http://www.csu.edu.au/research/committees/human/ehrc_actnres.htm Required Tutorials IRB Tutorial http://cme.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/learning/humanparticipant-protections.asp University of Minnesota Informed Consent Tutorial: http://www.research.umn.edu/consent/ Resources Other links that might be useful as your look for information about your topic: The George Lucas Education Foundation The National Staff Development Council Technology Connection / Impact of Technology Center for Creative Leadership The Buros Institute NCREL NWREL CASENET Active Learning & Active Research, Clark University Activities Action Research Activities

Activity 1: Set up your Action Research Journal/Blog Throughout the program, you will be keeping an action research journal. This is very important as it tracks your thinking which may change over time. You can use it as one of the many forms of data. You might later to be able to track themes that appear in different ways. Over the year, you will be refining your personal theory of learning and teaching. Your action research journal is a good place to reflect on this process and collect the things that you learn in other classes that you will want to use in your final report. It is your a place to reflect on the building of the final written report. The more regularly you write in your journal, the more written work you will have to pull from when you are ready to write your final report. Chose a day and plan to write something each week. You will keep your journal online in a password protected area on myomet. This means that you can write notes that others in your workplace or on the internet cannot read. However, those with a password on myomet, pepperdine students present and past and all program faculty will have access. There are good exercises to help you keep your blog in Coghlan and Brannick's book (third edition). "Keeping a Journal" and "Developing Inquiry Skills" exercises (pages 33-34), and the "Learning Window" exercise is at the end of chapter 6 (page 90). You can feel free to copy text from your own forum message or from others with permission and then reflect on the relationships to your action research. You can also copy in parts of a (synchronous class) session you want to save. This is your personal note taking section. It is public in the sense that others can read it but there is no requirement for other students to read your blogs. We will check to see you are recording your ideas and we will read them and even respond from time to time. But you should not assume that you are talking to the class when writing in your blog. If you should write something and realize that you want to share it with the cadre, just copy it into the SAKAI forums. We will read everything in the forums in SAKAI. Activity 2: Rich Description of your Workplace or Site of Your Action Research This is your time to really develop your description skills. What do you see, not what do you think. Tell us what you see taking place in your workepaces. Avoid words like "I think" or this person feels. Tell us what you see taking place. Try to remove your assumptions. You can describe the way a meeting takes place or a a period. Activity 3: Ethical Issues and Service, Purpose and Leadership at Pepperdine The Online Master of Arts in Educational Technology program strongly supports and advances the mission of Pepperdine University by further strengthening students for lives of purpose, service and leadership. These objectives are inherent throughout the Master of Arts in Educational Technology curriculum. Faith, spirituality, honesty and integrity should be evidenced in the actions you take as leaders in modeling the appropriate uses of educational technology during the cycles in their action research projects. The goal is to develop your skill as a reflective practitioner. You are encouraged to open discuss all ethical issues while maintaining a spirit of respect for diversity of ideas throughout the program. Required Tutorials 1) National Cancer Institute - IRB Tutorial http://cme.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/learning/humanparticipant-protections.asp Here is the direct link to the signup page: http://phrp.nihtraining.com/users/register.php 2) University of Minnesota Informed Consent Tutorial: http://www.research.umn.edu/consent/ You pick the social sciences model -- again, here is the direct link:

http://www.research.umn.edu/consent/menu_soc.html We will be reading and discussion ethical issues in research. Please read Chapter 5, P. 73-85 in Mcniff, Lomax & Whitehead (version 3) on eithics. Keep in mind that you do not want to ask permission for anything that is part of your everyday work or teaching as may not want to let participants opt out. Also read the ethics chapter in Doing Research in your Organization, entitled managing organizational politics and eithics (in the second edition). Ethical behavior means more than not place people in a risk without their consent. It means work effectively with your partners and get informed consent when needed. This does not mean that you have to disclose everything you plan to so to everybody-this could be politically naive and may not serve your purpose of experimentation. If you tell people what you hope they will do, they often will do it to please or help you. The task is to assess any situation that might place someone in harm and then to make sure that they are aware of the risks. And to be clear with those who are in positions of authority so they are aware of your plans. In this case of action research, your cadre madre/padre serve as your advisors. Check with us before you schedule meetings with people who will need to approve your work. Also check with us before you send letters to parents or co-workers or students. Research is a word that scares people and many people are not aware of action research. You can often describe your actions in an ethical way without using the term research or action research. FALL TERM: Activity 4: Identify a Field of Action and Compute your Force Field Analysis and Logic Model Force Fields For many of you this will be your place of work. But you can chose to locate your action research outside of work in some other arena that is important for you. For example you might consider action research in your church or in a community based activity that you are involved in. This is a short description of the field you will use for your action research. In all settings there are ethical issues. We will be doing the exercise listed at the end of the ethics chapter...Force Field Analysis in Doing action research in your organization. There are number of resources on the web for doing the analysis--search on Kurt Lewin and Force Field Analysis... Here is a possible worksheet but you can also use a tool like gliffy (a shared drawing tool) to create a diagram of the forces. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/worksheets/ForceFieldAnalysisWorksheet.pdf Here are some links to help you think about the force field analysis...you can use graphs or words--which ever serves you better in your task to understand your workplace. I think you can add pictures to forum messages. This first link is a pdf the second is html for the same content http://www.mftrou.com/support-files/lewins-force-field-analysis.pdf http://www.mftrou.com/Lewins-force-field-analysis.html http://www.accel-team.com/techniques/force_field_analysis.html http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_lewin_force_field_analysis.html Your force field analysis should be shared in the forums. You do no have to post it online on your action research site. It is your choice but since it is about the power relationships at work your might not feel comfortable posting it. Logic Models You will also be doing a logic model as a way to plan your action research. The tools for doing this are on the Interact side of CCAR. There are lots of template online for doing logic models. We will be posting the logic models in a voice threads and you will be narrating them as you do for the professional portraits. But this time the gallery

walk will be virtual and we will be able to respond to the logic models. And I hope we will use the convention of having our comments include, at the minimum, one positive and one constructive comment. Learning Circles You will be working in "learning circles" each of three full semesters: Fall, Spring and Summer. For this short semester you will be working as a whole cadre. Please explore the learning circles site, especially the discussion of the model and how it is used with action research. The learning circle placement will be set for the Fall. Schedule AUGUST COURSE- Synchronous meetings on 2 Tuesdays beginning Week 1 (July 30) Forum Discussions online in Course (Sakai) https://courses.pepperdine.edu/ Getting Ready: July 16- July 29 What is action research? Activity: Reflective Writing and Journaling -- Be ready to being your action research journal (blog) in the Course Blog site or create your own site but link to it. What is action research? How is action research different from other forms of research? Explore the CCAR site--especialy the interact site. Begin sharing your understandings of action research in the forum. We started in class and you did a good job. So this is mostly getting used to having the knowledge building discussion in Sakai (Skim both books so you know what is there) Read beginning of books:

Coghlan & Brannick Chapters 1-3 McNiff , Lomax, & Whitehead Part 1- chaps 1-2 or in James, A, Tracesea, S. , Bucknam, A, Chapter 1

Week 1: July 30 - August 5 Read: Chapters 7 Coghlan & Brannick or chapter 5 in James, et al. Read: Surpassing ourselves (not the whole book but get started) Explore: https://ccar.wikispaces.com/Action+Research Forum discussion: What are your core values? This is another way for us to get to know you but also a way for you to think about your action research. What are three core values that guide your behavior Discuss values in the forums Read through the exercises in Coghlan & Brannick at the end of Chapter 2: 2.2-Keeping a journal, 2.3 Developing inquiry skills, and Exercise 6.3 The Learning Window. The first one suggests materials for your journal since you may not yet have an action research topic. The second one is a process that you might experiment with as you develop your action research. The Learning Window, is an idea that you might save for working with people at your workplace. Activity: Start your Action Research Journal (BLOG) either in COURSES or linked from COURSES to your blog. Course Meeting August 6 (5:00pm or 8:00 pm) Discussion of action research

Eluminate-- Link will be available in COURSES (Sakai). I will open it up on the 1st and you can see if you can get to it. For you to talk, you will need to have ear buds or we will hear an echo. For smaller learning circles in the fall we will be using hangouts in Google+ Week 2: Aug 6 - Aug 12 McNiff, Lomax & Whitehead, Chap 3 Read: Coghlan & Brannick - Chapters 4-5 or in James et al, chapter 2-3 Explore: http://ccar.wikispaces.com/plan+action Activity: Post your Action Research rich description of your workplace in the forums.No Synch Meeting. Read and comment on workplace descriptions. Week 3: Aug 13 - Aug 19 Ethical Issues and Informed Consent Tutorials Read: Chapter 4-5 in Mcniff, Lomax & Whitehead Read: Chapter 9-10 in Coghlan and Brannick or Chapter 2 in James, et al. Explore: websites listed under the force field analysis activity Activity: Explore one online ethics tutorial Discussion of action research ideas -Discussion of Learning Circles Meetings time and setup for meetings in the Fall. Activity: Create your force field analysis Meeting in Eluminate 5 and 8 pm--discussion of action research plans and logic model Week 4: Aug 20 - August 26 Force Field Analysis Coghlan & Brannick Exercise 10.2 Force Field Analysis Or online links related to force field analysis (see links in activity section) Transition: Getting Ready for the Fall Semester Read: Chapter 6 Coghlan & Brannick or Chapter 3 in James et. al Read Chapter 6-7 in McNiff et al. Continue your reading in Surpassing ourselves Read about logic models in http://ccar.wikispaces.com/plan+action Discuss Force Field Analysis and Logic Models in forums Activity: create logic model Start to formulate the plan and read the syllabus for the Fall Discuss: Ideas for action research Read your action research books Watch screencasts to prepare for the Fall. You get a pass/fail assessment the first course...no grades. Fall Term:

This is the second part of a 4-course sequence. Action Research is a form of self-reflective systematic inquiry directed by you on your own practice. You will be learning about action research and exploring ideas for action research in your work place. In doing so, you will work with your "learning circle" partners to help them frame their ideas. Part of your work will be to being your search for references to help you plan. You will define a "field of action" and in that field you will look for problems you care about. We will also review ethical issues involved in action research.

Timeline: We will meet synchronously via Google Hangouts every other week beginning September 3rd. Google Hangout Topics will be in your Google Calendar

To pass this course, you will need to...

Participate in discussion forums and TI sessions Complete your description of your workplace Have an initial plan for the type of action research you plan to do Set up and make 3 weekly entries in your action research Journal (Blog) Complete the Ethic Tutorials Complete a force field analysis and start work on your logic model

You will receive a letter grade for 651 through 653. The grades will depend in the richness of your experience in your action research, your understanding of the action research process and your fulfillment of the requirements. This will be more of a portfolio evaluation and we will ask you to participate by evaluating your own progress toward your goals. You will also be learning how to provide useful, constructive criticism for your learning circle partners.