ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with action research communities as a means for professional learning and addresses how action research communities can result in improved student achievement. Action research represents the epitome of customizable and meaningful professional development. Long gone should be the days of one-size-fits-all professional development for educators. This type of professional development for educators tends to focus more on "training" and less on "learning". The true benefit of action research as professional learning is that it provides the mechanism for an educator to focus his or her professional growth specifically on aspects of the teaching-learning process that have been identified by that teacher as an immediate need. Action research communities are the facilitating mechanism that can pull all of these components together in one unifying initiative. It follows logically that if action research communities improve teaching, the structure can also support and lead to improved academic achievement.
