Action Research for Continuous Improvement
The Apple Distinguished Schools Action Research for Continuous Improvement (AR4CI) is a unique professional learning experience for K12 school leadership teams to develop their capacity for action research by more deeply investigating an area of technology integration and learning in their school. Participating school teams will develop research questions around important global educational topics, collect data in their own school using empirical research tools, and then explore and share their own local results and learnings.
Over 8-12 weeks, 4-5 synchronous learning sessions introduce each school’s team to the theory, resources, and best practices for leveraging data and research in the context of their own educational objectives and setting. Specifically, each participating schools will identify and develop a research topic and question, collect data from their across their teaching staff, and use data tools to explore local learning practices and perceptions across their school. Through this research experience, schools will directly participate in curated action research activities accessing a suite of data collection and reporting tools.
Each 75-minute live session is led by Dr. Damian Bebell and supported by educational researchers Dr. Holly Ludgate and Kayla Burt to collectively provide schools with curated resources, reflection opportunities, facilitated work time, and support to collect and explore their own research study. Supporting each school team and each live session, curated resources and media related to each topic are hosted on a Canvas LMS. With Apple’s prior support, the AR4CI course has yielded dozens of research studies leveraging data and research into the local discourse and culture of educational technology, pedagogy, and continuous improvement practices across the Apple Distinguished School K12 landscape.
AR4CI 2024 School Participants included:
Fall 2023 Schedule
- Session 1 - Oct. 10: Intro to Action Research/ Research Topics
- Session 2 - Oct. 24: Research Design and Action Research Tools
- Session 3 - Nov. 7: Collecting Data
- Session 4 - Nov. 21: Analyzing and Telling Stories with Data
- Session 5 - Dec. 7: Celebration of Learning
Spring 2024 Schedule
- Session 1 - April 18: Intro to Action Research/ Research Topics
- Session 2 - May 2: Research Design and Action Research Tools
- Session 3 - May 16: Collecting Data
- Session 4 - June 4: Analyzing and Telling Stories with Data
- Session 5 - TBA: Celebration of Learning
Each 75 minute session will occur twice each scheduled day @ 8am and 5pm PST.
Spring 2026 Schedule
- New 2026 Dates coming soon!!!