“Essentials” for a Successful School-Wide Action Research Project

Recently, we had the privilegeof conducting a year-long case study at an elementary school in Ontario which was car-rying out a school-wide action re-search project. As the year pro-gressed it became clear that, if a school wanted to feel the full ben-efits of this technique, its imple-mentation could not be under-taken like ten solitary research en-deavours with ten separate par-ticipants. Instead, we concluded that visible changes had to be made to the traditional school be-haviour for this innovation to suc-ceed in the long term. From a lit-erature review and our experi-ences with the case study school, we identified ten “essentials ” that needed to be addressed for a school-wide action research project to prosper, ultimately changing the culture of a school and improving both teacher and student learning. Our findings fall in line with recent literature arguing that a school should be seen as a “learning community”. As a way to bring meaning, moti-vation and accessibility to profes-sional development, an entire school should engage in peer col-laboration, action research projects and collegial dialogue in an effort to improve teachin