Re-visioning one's Narratives: Exploring the relationship between researcher self-study and teacher research

This paper is concerned with the relationship of self-study to a non-self-study methodology used in a teacher study. The study was intended to involve 18 kindergarten to Grade 12 teachers in “bringing memory forward” through looking back on their narratives, producing an autobiography and discussing familiar texts in relation to unfamiliar ones. Conceived separately from the researcher's self-studies, this methodology can be traced back to the researcher's own memory work. The paper explores the complex relationship between researcher self-study and teacher research, arguing that one builds on the other but that pedagogical, theoretical, and methodological reasons exist for also keeping them distinct. The primary pedagogical reason is to allow teachers the freedom to acknowledge the stories that have been formative for them and to critically engage those narratives.     

The resourceful facilitator: teacher leaders constructing identities as facilitators of teacher peer groups

The use of teacher peer groups is a prevalent strategy for school-based professional development and instructional improvement. Facilitation of such groups is an increasingly vital dimension of teacher leadership as a component of school improvement efforts. Drawing on a qualitative study of facilitation of teacher peer groups, the article investigates how teacher leaders integrate experiences from different domains of life in constructing a unique facilitator identity. Focusing on portraits of three teacher leaders, it demonstrates how teachers relate experiences outside of teaching, including academic experiences, other professional experiences, and social experiences, to the skills and orientation necessary for effective facilitation. The article argues for attention to reflexive practices of identity formation in the preparation of teacher leaders as facilitators and in the ongoing development of teacher leaders who already function as facilitators.     

The teacher researcher and the management of change

A school has used a full‐time post as teacher researcher, supporting a curriculum development team, and herself being supported by a consultant from Higher Education. Issues and outcomes are discussed including the role of data collection in educational decision‐making, and ways in which both the teacher‐researcher, and her colleagues must rethink their planning approach. Finally, we consider how this model might be developed under grist to evaluate whole‐school effects on INSET.     

教师如何成为教学研究者

"教师即研究者"已是大家普遍认同的理念和共同追求的目标。教师解决教学实践中的困惑与困难,进行有效教学,教师要实现专业化,成为幸福的教师,必须进行教育教学研究。不断学习,注重实质积累;积极反思,从小处入手;相互协作,团队合作是教师进行教学研究有效途径。     

Biography,Identity, and Inquiry: The making of teacher,teacher educator,and researcher

This is a self-study of my professional and cultural biography and identity, a history which directed me first toward the work of urban teaching and then into teacher education and research into comparative educational issues of racial and national identity. I use this inquiry to demonstrate how biography and identity influences the lived experience of teaching and the researcher's stance. I also examine areas where preservice urban teacher education programs must improve. My personal recommendations describe experiences that would have better prepared me for urban teaching. Suggestions include expanding coursework in the historical, political, and sociocultural influences on urban education and in designing culturally responsive curricula. I also recommend restructuring field experiences to offer richer classroom-based learning opportunities for preservice teachers and extending fieldwork into urban communities. Finally, I suggest ongoing inservice teacher education in learning-community models that respond to educators' context-specific teaching concerns.     

A place for informal learning in teaching about religion: The story of an experienced non-Muslim teacher and her learning about Islam

Teacher learning about religion has remained an under-researched topic in spite of the professional accountability placed on teachers to teach about religion in a constitutionally permissible and pedagogically sound way. Using data collected from interviews, the purpose of this study is to describe and examine how and what an experienced Non-Muslim teacher of the world’s religions learned about Islam in today’s climate of accountability and negative imagery of Islam. The findings of this study suggest that informal learning through independent reading and interaction with a local Muslim community can be a means to enculturate teachers of world religions into ways of learning about Islam.     

The commingling of teacher researcher identities: a mediated approach to teaching action research

This article chronicles and discusses a two-semester graduate level action research course in which the co-authors were instructors. Evidence of prospective teachers' appropriation of a ‘teacher researcher’ identity prompted a closer look at the dynamics of the course experience. Using a theoretical foundation based on the work of Vygotsky, Wertsch, Kozulin and Bakhtin, the notions of experiential learning, shared pedagogical mediation, collaborative problem posing and problem solving, and a resultant commingling of teacher and researcher identities are explored     

The place of the personal: Exploring the affective domain through reflection in teacher preparation

Emotions and emotional states play an important role in learning to teach, encouraging teacher educators to consider the place of the affective domain in preservice teacher preparation. Preservice teacher reflection provides a means by which to constructively explore the affective domain in teacher preparation. This article draws from two qualitative studies on reflection and technology conducted at an American university to explore the affective domain in teacher preparation. Using the web-based data of online discussion posts and weblog entries, this article considers the affective issues addressed in preservice teacher reflection and the implications of those emotional concerns for teacher preparation.     

Encounters in the third space: constructing the researcher’s role in collaborative action research

ABSTRACT

Action research is a methodology that has been increasing in educational studies in recent years. Previous studies have revealed that action research affects practitioners more than traditional methods, since the practitioners are not only participants but also researchers themselves. One branch of action research is collaborative action research (CAR), whereby practitioners and the researcher collaborate through the action research process. This study builds on material from CAR in one Icelandic preschool that lasted over 24 months. The focus of this article is on the role of the researcher in the action research project and how it was constructed through the process. The research material consists of the researcher’s self-narratives, practitioners’ diaries, interviews, and recordings from meetings. The findings show that the researcher’s role was constructed in a so-called third space where the researcher and practitioners collaborated. The researcher went through an emotional landscape while constructing her role and her position was something in between an insider and an outsider. Finally, she faced different kinds of tension concerning her role as a researcher in the CAR. The study contributes to the limited number of studies on the researcher’s role in CAR and how it is constructed during the process.     

The place of the practicum in pre‐service teacher education: the voice of the students

The focus of this paper is the importance student teachers attribute to the practical experience of their teacher education program, the practicum. Four hundred and eighty student teachers from the largest teacher education institution in Israel responded to a questionnaire with 68 closed items asking for their evaluation of various components of the teacher education program in relation to preparing them for teaching, and about sources for support during the practicum. The main findings show that the practicum is evaluated highly by a large majority of students; however, students find importance in the more theoretical aspects of their education as well. Institutional‐based supervisors of the practicum were perceived by student teachers to provide the strongest support, alongside peers and school‐based mentors. School principals were perceived not to be supportive of student teachers during the practicum. The findings align with previous research in terms of importance of the practical aspects in preparation for teaching, however not as a replacement for theoretical courses. Moreover, findings suggest that school principals do not include school‐based teacher education as part of their professional responsibility.     

The teacher as reflexive professional: making visible the excluded discourse in teacher standards

In the current climate of accountability, political manoeuvring, changing curriculum, increasingly diverse student cohorts and community expectations, teachers, more than ever, need to develop the skills and abilities to be reflective and reflexive practitioners. This study examines national teacher professional standards from Australia and the UK to identify the extent to which reflexivity is embedded in key policy documents that are intended to guide the work of teachers in those countries. Using Margaret Archer's theories of reflexivity and morphogenesis, and methods of critical discourse analysis, we argue that these blueprints for teachers’ work exclude reflexivity as an essential and overarching discourse of teacher professionalism.     

Environmental Education Research in the Classroom: a shared methodological reflection by the teacher and the researcher

This article constitutes an attempt by a teacher and a researcher to jointly present their dual perspectives on the experience of a pilot phase of school‐based research. The discussion focuses upon the methodological difficulties that we each experienced both before, and during, the period of the research. In light of these, the article discusses concrete ways in which the methodology of the broader study could be improved, and considers the deeper issues relating to teacher‐researcher interaction which have emerged through this shared methodological reflection. We see this article as contributing to the growth of collaborative writing by researchers and research participants, and furthering the ongoing methodological dialogue within environmental education research.     

Developing a professional vision of classroom practices of a mathematics teacher: views from a researcher and a teacher

The term professional vision points to the many nuanced ways professionals see. This paper traces the development of a professional vision of a researcher and a teacher looking at classroom practices. The researcher’s interest was to capture and study notable aspects of the teacher’s practice. Through a coding scheme, disparate classroom events were organized and analyzed to yield a researcher’s professional vision of the teacher’s practices. For the teacher, through reviewing the video records of his own classroom practices, his professional vision provided a basis for him to reflect and develop professionally. Leveraging on the work of the researcher, he initiated and transformed his own practices. Their collaboration yielded a mutually informed development of professional vision of classroom practices. In juxtaposing the two developments, the researcher and the teacher’s views can be contrasted, their distinctive interests highlighted and common grounds explored. Some implications for developing professional vision are drawn, and it is in the common grounds of the teacher’s professional development and seeing with a goal of enhancing of student learning that hold some promise of a mutual interest in developing a professional vision of classroom practices.     

A story of culture and teaching: the complexity of teacher identity formation

Research in teacher education repeatedly suggests that the background and underlying beliefs held by pre-service teachers about teaching and assessment act to shape their interpretations of ideas, powerfully influencing their praxis and their developing teacher identity. This paper explores how a young New Zealand secondary science teacher, raised and educated in Māori-medium and then English-medium New Zealand schools, develops his identity as a teacher as he navigates a range of educational contexts and experiences. His views on assessment provide a focus. The paper presents a case study drawn from a two-year longitudinal study, comprising a series of interviews with the teacher, as he transitioned from a university graduate to a qualified science teacher working in his first school. The complexity of teacher identity development is highlighted, particularly for teachers for whom cultural identity and indigenous world view is important. It suggests that beginning teachers need more time in their pre-service teacher education to reflect on the influence their formative educational experiences have on who they are becoming as a teacher.     

Talk as action in ‘collaborative action research’: making and taking apart teacher/researcher relationships

This article considers the role of university researchers in a project aimed at developing inclusive practices in schools through collaborative action research. It tells the story of how these researchers became part of the action in one school—Beechbank Primary—through visits, the collection and reporting of data, and through the development of a relationship (particularly with the head teacher) that facilitated learning and change to take place. One of the issues highlighted is that it is in the process of setting up an action research project that many disturbances are evident and, perhaps, inevitable. We argue that it is in working with these disturbances that one might begin to establish the basis of a collaborative relationship, rather than implying that collaboration may result in such things. The approach taken in the section ‘Beechbank Story’ is a conscious departure from the investigations conducted as a consequence of audit mechanisms, where only particular measurable outcomes, designated in advance, constitute evidence of ‘progress’. We focus instead on process and hope to illustrate the small shifts and changes, documented ethnographically, which we argue are essential if change is to take place in the culture of a school.