Action research as a practice‐based practice

Action research changes people’s practices, their understandings of their practices, and the conditions under which they practice. It changes people’s patterns of ‘saying’, ‘doing’ and ‘relating’ to form new patterns – new ways of life. It is a meta‐practice: a practice that changes other practices. It transforms the sayings, doings and relating that compose those other practices. Action research is also a practice, composed of sayings, doing and relating. Different kinds of action research – technical, practical and critical – are composed in different patterns of saying, doing and relating, as different ways of life. This paper suggests that ‘Education for Sustainability’, as an educational movement within the worldwide social movement responding to global warming, may be a paradigm example of critical action research.     

It works in practice

More tested lessons, suggestions, tips and techniques which have all worked for ETρreaders. Try them out for yourself - and then send us your own contribution.All the contributors to It Works in Practice in this issue of ETρwill receive a free copy of The Language Teacher's Voice by Alan Maley, published by Macmillan. Macmillan have kindly agreed to be sponsors of It Works in Practice for the coming year and contributors will be given copies of books in their Teacher Development Series.     

Evidence-based practice in autism educational research: can we bridge the research and practice gap?

In order to develop deeper and better understandings of what constitutes effective educational practices, and to bridge the gap between research and practice, there is a need for a paradigm shift in autism educational research. The contribution of this paper is to examine the key methodological challenges that stand in the way of autism educational research impacting on practice. This research field is dominated by experimental research designs that evaluate the impact of ‘interventions’ that focus on developing the skills, knowledge, and understanding of pupils with autism. For educational research to have an impact on the lives of individuals with autism, their families, and the practitioners who work with them, movement towards a more balanced range of methodologies is needed. This needs to include methodologies that situate the knowledge base of practitioners on a par with the knowledge base of researchers, drawing on the evidence base from the classroom itself, and bringing in the perspectives and views of individuals with autism, their families, and the practitioners who work with them.     

Action research – connecting practice and theory

Teacher education is often criticised for not being relevant and for there being a lack of continuity between practice teaching and the university coursework. In the literature, action research is presented as a way to bridge the gap and connect the two. The present article explores, through a qualitative study, how research-based knowledge communicated at the university and experiences from practice teaching interact in student teachers’ action research projects. The study also explores the outcome, for the student teachers, of conducting research in their practicum. The findings show that student teachers use theory and research in many different ways, and they are both consumers and producers of research. They especially emphasise the outcome of theory interacting with real situations encountered in the teaching practice. Contributing to a positive impact on their outcome were the opportunity they are offered to reflect on their own practice, the possibility they have to focus on something they find important, and the chance to make their own experiences with a particular tool for professional development.     

Student‐teachers' concerns about teaching practice

The essence of helping student‐teachers lies in an exploration of their concerns about teaching. Based on this assumption, the current study aimed to explore student‐teachers' concerns and potential topics of reflection, following their teaching experiences. The analysis of fifty‐nine journals revealed the complex pattern of past and future‐oriented concerns relevant to students' personal and professional identity, the mission and fading of the teaching profession, and the emotional dimensions of teaching. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about developing growth‐producing experiences for student‐teachers through their teaching practice.

Die Erforschung der Interessen und Sorgen von Lehrerstudierenden bezüglich des Lehrens stellt eine wesentliche Hilfe für sie dar. Auf der Grundlage dieser Einschätzung bestand das Ziel dieser Studie darin, zu explorieren, auf welche Thematiken und Interessen sich die Reflexionen der Lehrerstudierenden, im Zusammenhang ihrer Lehrerfahrung, beziehen. Die Analyse von 59 Zeitschriften brachte diesbezüglich folgende Sachverhalte zu Tage: es existiert ein komplexes Muster von Vergangenheits‐ und Zukunftsorientierten Interessen, die relevant für die personale und die professionelle Identität der Studierenden sind; das Auf und Ab der Lehrerprofession; die emotionalen Dimensionen des Lehrens. Dieser Aufsatz will zu den laufenden Diskussionen über die über ihre Lehrpraxis vermittelt Schaffung von entwicklungsermöglichenden Erfahrungen für Lehrerstudierende beitragen.     

Psychologists’ dilemmas in career counselling practice

In this study, we explored main dilemmas psychologists face in career counselling in two main professional settings: employment and education. Participants included 24 experienced Portuguese psychologists, working in employment (n?=?14) and educational (n?=?10) settings. We used consensual qualitative research to conduct and analyse semi-structured interviews. Results revealed dilemmas?? in five domains: neutrality, assessment, dual loyalty, role boundaries, and confidentiality, with the typical dilemma in the domain of neutrality. Differences between groups were found in the domains of dual loyalty and role boundaries.     

Grounding practice in scholarship,grounding scholarship in practice: Knowledge of a mathematics teacher educator–researcher

Despite the acknowledged complexity of the expertise of teacher educators (Cochran-Smith, M. (2003). Learning and unlearning: the education of teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19, 5--28), there is limited research attending to what teacher educators need to know and how they develop this expertise. This self-study draws from multiple frameworks of teacher knowledge to investigate knowledge content, structure, and growth of a novice mathematics teacher educator-researcher (MTE-R) from her doctoral program into her third year of a tenure-track faculty position at a large southwestern United States university. Narrative inquiry was used to both examine past artifacts and create new data. The findings highlight how the multiple roles of MTE-Rs elicit different kinds of knowledge and how frameworks for studying mathematics teachers can be utilized for studying teacher educator-researchers.     

Account of practice: transferring the ‘drawer of nonsense’ from a DBA-program to daily professional practice

This article attempts to build a cross-reference between a Doctoral program in Business and Administration (DBA) and the concept of ‘Action Learning’ made known within this programme, while also highlighting the relevance for ‘Action Learning’ in the authors professional daily life. The experiences made during the studies, when the concept of Action Learning was first introduced and applied, are gleaned and thus compared to the professional problems encountered by consultants in the financial industry. The chances and benefits for the professional life are highlighted, and suggestions are made to enrich the student experience while attending a DBA-program.     

Teacher–child relationships and early childhood practice

This phenomenological study explored how two experienced teachers interacted with children in classes of three‐ and five‐year‐olds. The aim was to further understand the nature of practice that promotes communicative teacher–child relationships. The study took place in a private preschool programme in the United States. Through once‐a‐week participant observations from September to December 2009 and interviews with the teachers, the study illustrated how their practice was based around valuing children’s ideas, effort, space and work, and around maintaining enthusiasm towards children’s and their own learning. In these processes, the study showed the importance of (1) teachers’ firm understanding of the context of children’s development, and their awareness of the role which they play in creating this, and (2) an environment that promotes ‘flow’ of their practice. As the study builds on developmental systems theory, the findings highlight the ways in which contexts that support teachers’ professional autonomy may influence their interactions and relationships with children.     

Fostering theory–practice reflection in teaching practicums

This article presents a design for supporting theory–practice reflection in teacher practicums. This design is based on three design principles that promote a transformative stance towards the creation of novel pedagogical approaches: mutual transformation of theory and practice, co-design among supervising teachers, university lecturers and student teachers, and participating in the long-term development of pedagogical practices. To evaluate the design, we analyse and compare student teachers’ portfolios across two implementations of the teacher practicum: a thematic practicum based on the proposed design and the conventional class teacher practicum of the University of Helsinki. The results show that the student teachers who participated in the thematic practicum used theory more frequently in their reflections. Moreover, their theory–practice connections were more robust than those made by student teachers who participated in the conventional practicum. On the basis of our results, we make suggestions regarding how to promote theory–practice reflection in teacher education.     

Critical inquiry into emergent‐oriented curriculum practice

Abstract

This theoretical paper characterizes and explores emergent‐oriented curriculum practice through the experiences of an early childhood education (ECE) prospective teacher, in the context of the U.S., as she co‐constructs the meaning of emergent‐oriented curriculum with culturally diverse pre‐K (4–5‐year‐old) children during her field experience. The paper examines how the prospective teacher understood emergent learning, how she and the children created and shaped their curriculum, and what critical aspects pertain to emergent‐oriented curriculum work from the perspective of developmentally meaningful and culturally responsive practice.     

Modelling practice – Academic development for flexible learning

Modelling is a powerful learning tool in any professional discipline. This paper describes how a group of academic developers attempted to model practice as an underlying strategy for introducing academic staff to the possibilities and problems of student centred flexible learning. Practice was modelled through a flexibly delivered Graduate Certificate in Higher Education available to staff of the university. Modelling practice was manifest in a number of ways including staff development, new course design and implementation and the development of purpose designed software for teaching. The process was also explicitly designed to act as a team building and staff development exercise for the staff of the academic development unit.     

Habitual practice vs. the struggle for change: can informal teacher learning promote ongoing change to professional practice?

In this article the relationship between teacher change and teacher learning is analysed. Data presented here were gathered through self‐study research over a 30‐month period, during which the author, as a teacher‐researcher in Malta, systematically recorded observations and reflections into a reflective journal. This article addresses issues such as: (a) how habitual routines that are technical in nature are formed, and how these tend to distance the practitioner from consciously developing and learning, and subsequently changing and improving professional practice; (b) how uncertainty regarding an innovation in the educational field might induce the need for both change and development; (c) how continuous learning and critically questioning beliefs and assumptions is important for change to occur; (d) how important determination on the practitioner's part is in the fight against the status quo; and (e) how reflective practice can be seen as a corrective to experiential over‐learning.     

‘In practice it doesn't always work out like that.' Undergraduate experiences in a research community of practice

This paper examines the extent to which a structured undergraduate research intervention, UROP, permits undergraduate students early access to legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) in a research community of practice. Accounts of placement experiences suggest that UROP affords rich possibilities for engagement with research practice. Undergraduates tread a path of gaining access to mature practice while also building their own independence, participating in work that they see matters to the community and making gains in use of a shared research repertoire. Students place UROP experiences in a contrasting frame to research exercises experienced during degree programmes; their sense of the authenticity of the research experienced through UROP emerges as a key element of these accounts. The data generate the interesting question that the degree of engagement with mature practice may account for more of the gain from UROP than simply the quantity of contact other researchers.