Collaborative Action Research

This timely book describes the work of the School Improvement Network, a partnership in which university professors and graduate students collaborated with K–12 school leaders and teachers to design, implement, and assess schoolwide action research projects focused on long-term school improvement. Presenting a comprehensive model, this resource can be used as an orientation to what action research is all about and as a map to guide participants through the process of action research.

Describing the role of both the university and the school, this book:

• Explores critical aspects of collaborative action, including establishing relationships, using critical friends, developing leadership teams, readiness, organization, and implementation.
• Provides lessons learned from successful and unsuccessful programs, to show schools what to do and what to avoid.
• Examines schools in Texas that have used action research to improve student achievement within a standards-based environment.

Contributors: Michael Boone, Barbara Davis, Julie Diehl, Iris Escandón, Miguel A. Guajardo, Marla W. McGhee, Sarah W. Nelson, Jane Ross, Charles L. Slater, John Smyth, and Suzanne M. Stiegelbauer.

Stephen P. Gordon is Professor of Education and Community Leadership at Texas State University–San Marcos.

“A guidebook for all educators interested in renewing schools.”
—Jeffrey Glanz, Yeshiva University

"For school leaders, college professors, and teacher leaders this work is essential reading."
—Zach Kelehear, College of Education, University of South Carolina

“A tremendous resource….”
—Daisy Arredondo Rucinski, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

“Here, instead of rhetoric, we are allowed to stand beside our colleagues and watch how they used schoolwide collaborative action research to build internal capacity through developing informed, distributed leadership….I learned something about how to support the work I value, and I believe you will also.” —From the Foreword by Emily F. Calhoun, Director, The Phoenix Alliance

“The accounts of those who have taken this journey offer not only practical advice, but also rich explanations that shape a new understanding of collaborative action research.”
—Patricia Holland, University of Houston