This year, I am delighted to have the opportunity to become a mentor for Outstanding Learning Teaching and Assessment (OTLA) Action Research projects. I am currently working with Oldham College on a project aiming to ease the transition from ESOL to Vocational FE courses and Lancaster and Morecambe college on a project investigating emotional support strategies for ESOL learners. So far, I have been blown away by the knowledge and enthusiasm the lecturers have.

It’s been wonderful working with such inspiring individuals, but also hearing about previous OTLA projects. It has struck me that Action Research can often be misunderstood. I think many practitioners (my less experienced self included) hear the words ‘Research’ and instantly think of trawling journal articles, reading (and re-reading) big academic words and hours analysing data. But in fact, action research is none of those things. It is much simpler.

Every teacher can be a researcher. And it’s highly likely that most practitioners informally do action research without even knowing it. Action research is essentially trialling new teaching techniques and working practices to make improvements. Now find me a teacher who hasn’t done that! In a more formal sense, action research projects involve reflection, keeping a journal, collecting evidence (such as students’ work, feedback, lesson plans, etc), a final report, ethics agreements and sharing the learning with other professionals.

Here’s a sketchnote I drew to summarise Action Research: