Teachers play so many roles on a daily basis. We are mainly instructors, facilitators, then we become an advisor, a coach, a mentor, even at times we assume the role of a caregiver. As we diligently take on each function, our goal remains to serve our students the best way we know how. Craig Mertler made me realize another important role we unknowingly portray. We are actually also our classroom’s researchers. Teachers by nature are investigators. This profession requires us to be hardworking, focused and passionate about our specific field of interest. This makes us work with an open mind, constantly looking for ways to improve, innovate and change both the areas of learning and teaching. This just defines what makes us the most reliable proponent of an action research plan for our own classrooms.

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     Reading Mertler’s “Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators' ' gave me an insight of how I can create a comprehensive but realistic action research plan to measure the effectiveness of my innovation plan. As I begin to understand the process of developing the action plan following Mertler’s 4 stages (planning, acting, developing and reflecting), I started by developing my action research outline to guide me in finding answers to my fundamental questions. I also revisited all of my previous research since I started developing my innovation plan including the first literature review I wrote. I did some revisions to it, and updated content with additional resources and studies. I am now beginning to implement my innovation plan in my kindergarten class and having this action research plan is like an additional framework that can substantiate how it can be an effective learning environment.