What I have learned about Action Research

I was just reading another blog and noted that another student had the same image of a "research" course as I had.  What a pleasant surprise to find that it is not what I thought.  I feel that action research is something that every good teacher/educator does in their classroom/building.  As a teacher, I look at the lessons that I have completed and ask myself, "is that the best I can do?" or "I saw a lot of blank looks on their faces, I have to fix that!"  I think that being reflective in your teaching or even personal life can be difficult, but necessary as we move on our journey.  We must continually look at ways to grow and action research is just another way to do that.
I believe that our campus is beginning to do this.  Our leadership team just read, Turn Around Schools: Creating Cultures of Universal Achievement, and we are implementing some of those strategies on our campus.  We have a very young team of teachers, most have taught 3-4 years and are 25 years old or younger, so we have had to address many issues.  Many of the veteran teachers, including myself, have had to step up into a mentoring role to assist our younger counterparts.   If we had not participated in both reflection and some action research, we would still have the same issues that were occurring in our 1st and 2nd year as a campus (our building is 4 years old).
In my opinion, our principal has led the way and that is the key for the process to work.  Administration has to set the tone and the example for it to work on a campus.