Action research is research performed by teachers for themselves and their students. It takes the normal reflective practice of educational practitioners and adds a dimension of systematic inquiry that helps clarify how their particular classrooms/schools operate, how well they teach, and how well their students learn. This allows teachers to reflect on their current practices, implement an intervention, activity or change, study the results and perhaps bring about positive change in their educational environment. The “action” in action research suggests that findings are meant to be implemented immediately — classroom practice can be revised before the year is out, and new research undertaken in a continual cycle.

Because action research is focused mainly on a particular setting or environment, its findings may not be as easily generalizable to other settings as formal acdemic research. However, their specificity may also help teachers adapt these projects’ findings to their own classrooms. The projects will also serve as models for other teachers’ own action research.

North Carolina educators can learn more about action research in Action Research for the Classroom: An Introduction, a self-paced professional development module offered through Home Base by NCDPI’s Division of Educator Effectiveness.

The Governor’s Teacher Network (GTN) was established by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, in partnership with the NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). This initiative, funded by the state’s Race to the Top grant, provides a statewide platform for teachers to share their best work around instruction and professional development and help advance Race to the Top (RttT) funded educational remodeling efforts across the state.

Through the GTN, approximately 450 outstanding teachers from across North Carolina were selected to serve for one year as instructional and professional development experts and facilitators. Network teachers remained in their current roles but worked to gain a deeper understanding of the State’s RttT-funded work in one of two “pathways,” both related to the establishment of Home Base.

In Pathway 1, teachers created professional development sessions and materials (face-to-face, webinars and/or online content) to address classroom instructional needs and increase the PD offerings in the state-wide Professional Development system in Home Base. Projects were developed from action research performed in participating teachers’ classrooms. The projects available here represent the product of that action research and professional development.