Teacher as reflective practitioner and action researcher
For best results, please make sure your browser is accepting the characters you see in this image:Educational r as reflective practitioner and action researcher - r as reflective practitioner and action researcher. Isbn /s: rick parsons / west chester universitykimberlee brownrick parsons, kimberlee se on ble formats and resources for r as reflective practitioner and action researcher (print). Book introduces students who are also pre-service teachers to the powerful concept of action research -- research which stems from a practical problem and is planned and implemented by the people most likely to be affected by the findings - the teachers. This text provides the specifics of transforming the teacher (or preservice teacher ) into a reflective practitioner and action sted in instructor materials? Learning verify all requests before sharing instructor ng is only provided to australia, nz & pacific island mark a title as favourite you must first be logged into your user ng an account is free and already have marked 50 products as ston, cradle this unit, you will explore the processes and possibilities of practitioner action research, and generate a plan for investigation into an aspect of relevance in your own educational context. The teaching and assessment in this unit will provide you with a rationale for conducting inquiry and familiarise you with the practicalities of planning a research project within a given rs as reflective practitioners and action e of arts, law and educationschool of elspeth ble as student elective? The lecture timetable | view the full unit edplease use link to coop bookshop ston, semester coast, semester university reserves the right to amend or remove courses and unit availabilities, as ston, cradle this unit, you will explore the processes and possibilities of practitioner action research, and generate a plan for investigation into an aspect of relevance in your own educational context. Succinct definition of action research appears in the workshop materials we use at the institute for the study of inquiry in education. That definition states that action research is a disciplined process of inquiry conducted by and for those taking the action.
The primary reason for engaging in action research is to assist the “actor” in improving and/or refining his or her tioners who engage in action research inevitably find it to be an empowering experience. Relevance is guaranteed because the focus of each research project is determined by the researchers, who are also the primary consumers of the s even more important is the fact that action research helps educators be more effective at what they care most about—their teaching and the development of their students. When teachers have convincing evidence that their work has made a real difference in their students' lives, the countless hours and endless efforts of teaching seem action research ional action research can be engaged in by a single teacher, by a group of colleagues who share an interest in a common problem, or by the entire faculty of a school. These seven steps, which become an endless cycle for the inquiring teacher, are the following:Identifying research informed 1—selecting a action research process begins with serious reflection directed toward identifying a topic or topics worthy of a busy teacher's time. Considering the incredible demands on today's classroom teachers, no activity is worth doing unless it promises to make the central part of a teacher's work more successful and satisfying. Selecting a focus begins with the teacher researcher or the team of action researchers asking: what element(s) of our practice or what aspect of student learning do we wish to investigate? 2—clarifying second step involves identifying the values, beliefs, and theoretical perspectives the researchers hold relating to their focus. For example, if teachers are concerned about increasing responsible classroom behavior, it will be helpful for them to begin by clarifying which approach—using punishments and rewards, allowing students to experience the natural consequences of their behaviors, or some other strategy—they feel will work best in helping students acquire responsible classroom behavior 3—identifying research a focus area has been selected and the researcher's perspectives and beliefs about that focus have been clarified, the next step is to generate a set of personally meaningful research questions to guide the 4—collecting sional educators always want their instructional decisions to be based on the best possible data. Action researchers can accomplish this by making sure that the data used to justify their actions are valid (meaning the information represents what the researchers say it does) and reliable (meaning the researchers are confident about the accuracy of their data).
Lastly, before data are used to make teaching decisions, teachers must be confident that the lessons drawn from the data align with any unique characteristics of their classroom or ensure reasonable validity and reliability, action researchers should avoid relying on any single source of data. Most teacher researchers use a process called triangulation to enhance the validity and reliability of their findings. Observing a phenomenon through multiple “windows” can help a single researcher compare and contrast what is being seen through a variety of planning instruction, teachers want the techniques they choose to be appropriate for the unique qualities of their students. All teachers have had the experience of implementing a “research-proven” strategy only to have it fail with their students. The desire of teachers to use approaches that “fit” their particular students is not dissimilar to a doctor's concern that the specific medicine being prescribed be the correct one for the individual patient. The ability of the action research process to satisfy an educator's need for “fit” may be its most powerful attribute. Because the data being collected come from the very students and teachers who are engaged with the treatment, the relevance of the findings is the harried and overworked teacher, “data collection” can appear to be the most intimidating aspect of the entire seven-step action research process. Teachers not only see these events transpiring before their eyes, they generally record these events in their grade books. The key to managing triangulated data collection is, first, to be effective and efficient in collecting the material that is already swirling around the classroom, and, second, to identify other sources of data that might be effectively surfaced with tests, classroom discussions, or 5—analyzing gh data analysis often brings to mind the use of complex statistical calculations, this is rarely the case for the action researcher.
A number of relatively user-friendly procedures can help a practitioner identify the trends and patterns in action research data. During this portion of the seven-step process, teacher researchers will methodically sort, sift, rank, and examine their data to answer two generic questions:What is the story told by these data? Answering these two questions, the teacher researcher can acquire a better understanding of the phenomenon under investigation and as a result can end up producing grounded theory regarding what might be done to improve the 6—reporting is often said that teaching is a lonely endeavor. It is doubly sad that so many teachers are left alone in their classrooms to reinvent the wheel on a daily basis. The loneliness of teaching is unfortunate not only because of its inefficiency, but also because when dealing with complex problems the wisdom of several minds is inevitably better than sad history of teacher isolation may explain why the very act of reporting on their action research has proven so powerful for both the researchers and their colleagues. The reporting of action research most often occurs in informal settings that are far less intimidating than the venues where scholarly research has traditionally been shared. Faculty meetings, brown bag lunch seminars, and teacher conferences are among the most common venues for sharing action research with peers. However, each year more and more teacher researchers are writing up their work for publication or to help fulfill requirements in graduate programs. Regardless of which venue or technique educators select for reporting on research, the simple knowledge that they are making a contribution to a collective knowledge base regarding teaching and learning frequently proves to be among the most rewarding aspects of this 7—taking informed informed action, or “action planning,” the last step in the action research process, is very familiar to most teachers.
When teachers write lesson plans or develop academic programs, they are engaged in the action planning process. What makes action planning particularly satisfying for the teacher researcher is that with each piece of data uncovered (about teaching or student learning) the educator will feel greater confidence in the wisdom of the next steps. Although all teaching can be classified as trial and error, action researchers find that the research process liberates them from continuously repeating their past mistakes. More important, with each refinement of practice, action researchers gain valid and reliable data on their developing purposes for action stated earlier, action research can be engaged in by an individual teacher, a collaborative group of colleagues sharing a common concern, or an entire school faculty. These three different approaches to organizing for research serve three compatible, yet distinct, purposes:Building the reflective progress on schoolwide ng professional ng the reflective individual teachers make a personal commitment to systematically collect data on their work, they are embarking on a process that will foster continuous growth and development. When each lesson is looked on as an empirical investigation into factors affecting teaching and learning and when reflections on the findings from each day's work inform the next day's instruction, teachers can't help but develop greater mastery of the art and science of teaching. In this way, the individual teachers conducting action research are making continuous progress in developing their strengths as reflective progress on schoolwide singly, schools are focusing on strengthening themselves and their programs through the development of common focuses and a strong sense of esprit de corps. As a result, when a faculty chooses to focus on one issue and all the teachers elect to enthusiastically participate in action research on that issue, significant progress on the schoolwide priorities cannot help but ng professional an entire faculty will share a commitment to student development, yet the group finds itself unable to adopt a single common focus for action research. Just as the medical practitioners working at a “quality” medical center will hold a shared vision of a healthy adult, it is common for all the faculty members at a school to share a similar perspective on what constitutes a well-educated student.
However, like the doctors at the medical center, the teachers in a “quality” school may well differ on which specific aspects of the shared vision they are most motivated to pursue at any point in s whose faculties cannot agree on a single research focus can still use action research as a tool to help transform themselves into a learning organization. However, it is also common for medical researchers to share the findings obtained from their research with colleagues (even those engaged in other specialties). In these schools, multiple action research inquiries occur simultaneously, and no one is held captive to another's priority, yet everyone knows that all the work ultimately will be shared and will consequently contribute to organizational action research now? Ever there were a time and a strategy that were right for each other, the time is now and the strategy is action research! Although blue-collar workers are expected to do their jobs with vigilance and vigor, it is also assumed that their tasks will be routine, straightforward, and, therefore, easily handled by an isolated worker with only the occasional support of a sional work, on the other hand, is expected to be complex and nonroutine, and will generally require collaboration among practitioners to produce satisfactory results. With the exploding knowledge base on teaching and learning and the heightened demands on teachers to help all children achieve mastery of meaningful objectives, the inadequacy of the blue-collar model for teaching is becoming much the teachers in a school begin conducting action research, their workplace begins to take on more of the flavor of the workplaces of other professionals. The wisdom that informs practice starts coming from those doing the work, not from supervisors who oftentimes are less in touch with and less sensitive to the issues of teaching and learning than the teachers doing the work. Furthermore, when teachers begin engaging their colleagues in discussions of classroom issues, the multiple perspectives that emerge and thus frame the dialogue tend to produce wiser professional ing teacher motivation and work of teaching has always been difficult. But now it isn't just the demands of the classroom that are wearing teachers down.
Students increasingly bring more problems into the classroom; parental and societal expectations keep increasing; and financial cutbacks make it clear that today's teachers are being asked to do more with less. Worse still, the respect that society had traditionally placed upon public school teachers is eroding, as teacher bashing and attacks on the very value of a public education are becoming a regular part of the political landscape. Consequently, teacher burnout has become the plague of the modern teachers now ask, “am i making any difference? Regardless of all the negative pressures on teachers, the sheer nobility of the work keeps many dedicated educators on the job, but only so long as they can get credible answers to the “efficacy” question. Fortunately, evidence has shown that teachers who elect to integrate the use of data into their work start exhibiting the compulsive behavior of fitness enthusiasts who regularly weigh themselves, check their heart rate, and graph data on their improving physical development. For both teachers and athletes, the continuous presence of compelling data that their hard work is paying off becomes, in itself, a vitally energizing g the needs of a diverse student a homogeneous society in which all students come to school looking alike, it might be wise to seek the one right answer to questions of pedagogy. The days are gone when it was possible to believe that all a teacher had to do was master and deliver the grade-level curriculum. It is now imperative that classroom teachers have strong content background in each of the subjects they teach, be familiar with the range of student differences in their classrooms, and be capable of diagnosing and prescribing appropriate instructional modifications based upon a knowledge of each child's ng solutions to these dynamic and ever changing classroom issues can be an exciting undertaking, especially when one acknowledges that newer and better answers are evolving all the time. Nevertheless, great personal satisfaction comes from playing a role in creating successful solutions to continually changing puzzles.
Conversely, if teachers are expected to robotically implement outdated approaches, especially when countless new challenges are arriving at their door, the frustration can become ing success in a standards-based most jurisdictions standards-driven accountability systems have become the norm. Teachers and schools face ridicule and loss of funding if they fail to meet community expectations. That said, most people will agree it is a most noble endeavor in which to invest energy and a worthy goal for any faculty to reality is that our public schools will not prevail with the challenges inherent in the standards movement unless they encourage experimentation, inquiry, and dialogue by those pioneers (the teachers) who are working toward meeting those challenges. For this reason, it is imperative that these 21st century pioneers, our classroom teachers, conduct the research on “standards attainment” the time is right for action research. The teachers, schools, and school systems that seize this opportunity and begin investing in the power of inquiry will find that they are re-creating the professional practice of education in their locale as a meaningful and rewarding pursuit. Conversely, school systems that enter the 21st century unwilling to invest in the “wisdom of practice” will likely find it increasingly hard to fill their classrooms with enough teachers who are both capable of and willing to tackle the challenges that lie ght © 2000 by association for supervision and curriculum development.