Week+One+5301

=**The Problem You Wish to Study**= In my role as an advisor I am responsible for providing services to students in the area of career exploration and professional development. The overall goal of our program is the retention of students through graduation from the university. First generation college students often lack the motivation to persist in achieving their degree. It could be that they have not had these skills modeled for them by their parents or they may not be educated about the requirements or possibilities available to them in a career field. Some students reach the point of graduation and need help writing resumes or cover letters, conducting job search, preparing for interviews, or talking to employers.

I believe that this is a problem of critical importance that could benefit from the process of action research. Without career exploration and professional development skills, our students may be less likely to be motivated to complete their degree. A study of the impact that intentionally, and purposefully teaching these skills has on students could increase the number of successful students in our program. Although the university offers many professional development workshops, and resources for career exploration, we began having a special emphasis “career week” this past Spring semester and had a good response from the students in our program. We worked with each of them on an individual basis to identify and address their short and long term career needs and goals. I wonder how consistently providing individualized, intentional, and purposeful career exploration and professional development training would impact the retention of students.


 * Action Research Topic: Mentoring Programs**

I have experienced similar problems in the past with training or mentoring new staff members. I always enjoyed mentoring new staff because I felt if gave me the opportunity to get to know someone and share my own best practices. Although, the downside was seeing a new staff member leave and feeling that you had invested valuable time and energy in training someone only to see them move on to greener pastures. An issue that intrigued me from our Dana text was the subject of professional isolation. Possibly rather than having a one-on-one mentoring relationship, a team approach might serve the same purpose and better meet the needs of new staff members as well as addressing the problem of professional isolation. I think that no matter what the age or experience, we all benefit from having a mentor to help us improve in some areas. In my opinion, involvement in professional learning communities are one way to achieve this goal and then each person in the group can discover their own mentor/ mentee relationship rather than being assigned to someone with whom they may not feel entirely comfortable.


 * Action Research Topic: Student Engagement**

Since my educational background is in Psychology I often take the same approach to problem solving. Usually the surface problems are only symptoms of deeper issues that are at work and in need of finding resolution. Michael, I think your idea for active research of student engagement is a good one and that you probably already have a handle on what some the underlying issues are, but finding ways to define and identify the sources of the problems and then resources and ideas to change and correct them will be the tricky part. I learned long ago that if I keep getting the same negative results I need to stop trying to change the other person, and instead change something I am doing. Educators need to be able to see that when they change their attitudes and actions it becomes contagious and positively impacts their school culture and students.


 * Week One Assignment - Action Research**



[|Action Research and the Value of Reflection]