Collaborative Action Research: Developing Professional Learning Communities

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.