Reflection of My Action Research Project

“In what ways will the implementation of STEM Education affect my 5th grade students in science and mathematics?”

            I choose this topic because I was concerned about the achievement of the students at my school; primarily because in the past they have scored below proficient on standardized tests, especially math.  Also, with the district implementing STEM Education (the integration of science, technology, the engineering design process and mathematics), I was concerned how this would affect my students because I am still held accountable for the scores my students receive.  I am curious as to what affects STEM will have on their achievement scores.  On top of having to implement STEM I was also named the STEM coordinator for my school.  Being in this position I would like to know more about the effects STEM has on the students so I can knowledgeably share the best practices of STEM education with my fellow educators.  As teachers, if we know the effects that STEM has on our students, we better know how to practice it.  Upon the conclusion of this research project, I will have a good idea of how to alter my STEM teaching strategies for next year.  On the other hand, this year STEM was only implemented into 5^th grade, next year, two more grades will be chosen.  It will be partly my responsibility to convey to them how to best implement STEM.  There are also some skeptics in my school regarding STEM education; with the information from this research project I will have evidence as to how STEM does affect our students.

            At the beginning of this class I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to research and how I might go about doing it. However, after completing the research proposal I had a concrete idea of what I was doing and how I was doing, as well as, how I was going to analyze the data I collected.  With having to justify every part of my project I got a deeper understanding as to what I was going to do and why I needed to do it.  In addition to learning what I wanted to do for my action research, I also widened my knowledge of research in general.  I was aware of qualitative and quantitative research plans, but I was unaware of all the different research designs and the multiple methods to collect data.  By learning all of new designs and collection methods I really had to question myself as to what I wanted to accomplish from this research project.  In all, I really enjoyed this aspect of the project; I thought it was a good way to make the researcher think deeply about their study. 

            I personally found the literature review very stressful, I was grateful that it was broken up into many different portions.  I think that locating the articles was the most challenging part, once I found my themes and analyzed the research that I found; I started to see the benefit of the literature review.  I was able to learn from what others had already researched about my topic, and it helped me refine my research question so I was not duplicating research that had already been completed.  Also, after reading others’ research I started to hypothesize what I was going to get from my research.  Along with learning from the literature and diving deeper in to my own topic, I also remembered how stressful deadlines are and how essential it is to save the things on your computer in more than one place.  On the other hand, professional writing is more refined opposed to the writing we use on a day to day basis.  After completing this literature review I remember what it is like to write professional grade papers.

            I believe that the peer review is a very beneficial aspect to this course.  Not only are we receiving useful feedback from our fellow classmates, but we have to look deeper in to the expectations.  With looking deeper into the expectations we get a clearer picture of what we are trying to complete.  Upon the conclusion of this, when I look back at my own paper I always have a more critical eye and spend hours rewriting.  Moreover, after reading what others have written and how they have formatted their papers, I take the aspects I find appealing and apply them to my own writing.  I think that peer review allows us, as writers, to develop a higher quality written response.