Teacher Research
Teacher Research: A Beginner’s Guide
Research is a high-hat word that scares a lot of people. It needn’t. It’s rather simple. Essentially research is nothing but a state of mind… A friendly, welcoming attitude toward change… going out to look for change instead of waiting for it to come.
Charles Kettering
What is teacher research and why do it?
Often called teacher inquiry or action research, teacher research is simply the process of developing questions that arise in classroom practice, gathering data, making sense of that data, and then acting on it in meaningful ways to improve classroom practice. It is any systematic investigation conducted by teachers to “gather information about the ways their school operates, how they teach, and how well their students learn” (Mills, 2003, p. 4). It is research done by teachers for teachers (Donato, 2004), and its goals are often to reflect on one’s practice, gain insight, and improve student learning and/or one’s school, teaching, or classroom practices.
Teacher research is often conducted within a community of teachers who share their questions, help each other make sense of their data, and work together toward answers or solutions to their questions. This supportive, collaborative community is usually an essential part of doing research. Some teachers inquire with their students, focus on issues of social change and social justice, and publish their findings in scholarly journals. It can really take many forms and be used for many purposes. It all depends on what teachers find meaningful and manageable.
How do teachers “do” teacher research?
There are many ways to “do” teacher research and it really depends on what a teacher finds most meaningful to them and their teaching contexts. What seems important is that teachers adopt an “inquiry stance” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2001), in which they are continually asking questions about what’s going on around them, in their school, their classroom, their students’ lives, their communities, and trying to reflect on their own teaching and ways of thinking and knowing. An inquiry stance means that teachers are considering alternative viewpoints, thinking about different ways of doing things, challenging accepted practices, and exploring new ideas and practices.
There are many frameworks that can guide teachers in “doing” research, but a simple four-step model is provided below.
Inquiry Step #1: State the Problem or Question:
Inquiry begins with questions that are important to you. Meaningful questions are inspired by genuine curiosity about real-world experiences. You might feel a need to know something, such as an answer to a question or information to make a decision, and this will be the starting point for your inquiry. Having a real problem helps you define a purpose for your study. Good questions have some of the following characteristics for both students and teachers:
- They are important and meaningful to you;
- They deal with controversial issues that are open to multiple points of view;
- They have no obvious single correct answer;
- They can be researched using available sources of information;
- They require the collection, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of data;
- They help you develop new and deeper understandings.
In Living the Questions: A Guide for Teacher- Researchers, Hubbard and Power suggest that teachers’ questions are often unearthed by reflecting on what they see, are born out of frustration, or arise from gaps between teacher expectations and the performance of students. They note that teachers’ questions focus on students and emerge from teachers’ daily work and the wonderings that arise from it. They also suggest some helpful strategies for generating questions:
- List questions about the area of interest you discover;
- Examine the list of questions (the best inquiry questions often begin with the word what or how);
- Force yourself to write a succinct what or how question;
- Practice tunneling in on your question to anticipate the kind of data you will need to answer your question;
- Be aware of the impact a research question will have on your students;
- Note that your question will likely evolve as you investigate it;
- Ask yourself why you want to study this question and what sub-questions you have.
The following chart outlines some very general questions that might guide teacher inquiry. They would be more specific depending on the person, and/or the content, experience, curriculum and instruction, or aspects of contexts that one finds problematic.
TEACHER INQUIRY STEP #1 |
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Teacher’s Questions |
Examples of Teacher Questions |
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Are about the teacher and/or their relationships with students, content, etc. |
Who am I as a teacher? What are my beliefs and values about teaching and learning? |
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Are about students and subject matter content. |
What are students’ understandings about content? How can I help my students become better questioners? |
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Are about classroom experience. |
How can I engage students more meaningfully in cooperative learning? What can I do to improve classroom management? |
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Are about curriculum and instruction. |
How can I effectively teach my students about other cultures? How can I include more writing across the curriculum? |
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Are about the contexts of one’s teaching? |
How can I change my school’s approaches or policies toward struggling learners? How might my students and I deal with issues of poverty that affect our community? |
Inquiry Step #2: Gather information:
To investigate your question, you will need to gather and make sense of information from a variety of resources. Teachers should ask how they will collect data and what data may be of most use for their question. Data might include the following:
- personal/classroom experience
- student work or artifacts
- classroom artifacts (lesson plans, assessments, curricular materials, etc.)
- student interviews/conversations
- assessments, assessment results
- videotape or audio recordings of teaching or classroom
- peer observations and feedback
- a personal journal (recording direct observations, personal reflections, ongoing questions, etc.)
- surveys or inventories
When you conduct this research, it is helpful to continuously communicate with others about your findings and remain open to multiple points of view. The results might force you to change or modify your research question.
TEACHER INQUIRY STEP #2 |
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Teacher’s Data |
Examples of Data Collected by Teachers |
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Personal experience in the classroom, observation |
Journals, reflections, stories, note-taking during and/or after each class |
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Artifacts of classroom practice |
Student work, assessments, standardized test scores, lesson plans, lesson activities, videotaping |
|
Use of tools that help teachers collect classroom data |
Journals, portfolios, videotaping, interviews, surveys, inventories |
Inquiry Step #3: Analyze, interpret, and evaluate information:
Analyze means to study something carefully and break it down into smaller parts. Analysis is fundamentally a process of finding patterns in the data.
Evaluate means to consider how accurate, reliable, and useful a piece of information is to your research. Evaluation usually involves a careful consideration of the source of information, who made the source and why, and it’s relationship to other sources of information you are considering.
Interpret means to restate something or to express it in another form. Oftentimes putting information into a graph, diagram, drawing, or cognitive web can help you and others better understand its meaning.
In short, this step is where you take the information you have gathered and apply your best thinking skills and a whole lot of common sense. It means developing patterns and categories, creating visual aids that helps you see how data fits together, and making sense of data. It is especially helpful to work with others who can help you see or think about the data in different ways.
TEACHER INQUIRY STEP #3 |
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Teacher Sense-Making |
Examples of Teacher Sense-Making |
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Looking for themes |
Developing codes and categories by carefully reading and making sense of journal entries |
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Analyzing student work products |
Range-finding to categorize student work; looking for patterns in test scores; developing a chart to record types of responses or number of a certain kind of response |
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Evaluating student understanding represented by work |
Evaluating students’ ideas and understanding in relationship to desired results; keeping running records of student understanding and then writing a narrative account of students’ developing understanding over time |
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Interpreting student work with a group of teachers for multiple perspectives |
Interpreting a student work product and generating multiple possible interpretations; sharing narrative accounts |
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Consulting other research |
Reading what others have written about a particular problem or issue |
Inquiry Step #4: Develop tentative conclusions and action plans:
Having identified a problem, researched it, and carefully studied the data, you need only to figure out the answer or solution! You might develop this insight at just about any point in the process. Or, it might linger. Sometimes you do all of the hard work, immerse yourself in the data, but you just can't figure out what it all means. Then you take a break, go out for a walk or something, and--bingo!--it just jumps into your mind. That's because, even when you're doing something else, your subconscious mind might continue to solve a problem that is perplexing you. If that doesn't work, the best strategy is probably to tell someone else what you have learned by your research or seek other opinions and perspectives. In the telling, you may solve the problem yourself. If not, maybe your listener can provide the insight that you need to get to the solution of your problem.
Research conclusions should always be considered tentative because new information may be uncovered later and force you to change them. Even though you may have become quite expert on the topic of your research, you must always remain open to new data and new interpretations. Often, the results of your research generate new and better questions and the process starts all over again. That is why this model is best represented as a repeating cycle.
Once you’ve formed tentative conclusions, it is a good time to reflect on the inquiry process. Look back at your question(s), the research path that you followed, and the conclusions that you reached. Sharing this history with other members of your community will help you learn even more from these reflections. This process is called meta-cognition. It means "thinking about thinking." It's like what a team does when the players and coach study game films to figure out ways to improve team performance.
TEACHER INQUIRY STEP #4 |
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Teacher’s Conclusions |
Examples of Teacher Conclusions |
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Solving the problem or making a decision based on findings |
Making a change in teaching practice or trying something new based on findings |
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Sharing your findings with others |
Preparing a written report, writing a journal article, or presenting findings at a conference |
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Creating a new theory, model, or representation that demonstrates findings or new understandings |
Developing big ideas for a unit, creating a new unit or assessment, constructing a new theory or orientation of teaching and learning |
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Develop an action plan |
Decide on a course of action in the classroom, school or community, try it out, reflect, and modify |
Now what?
If you are interested in “doing” some sort of research or conducting an investigation into some aspect of your teaching, your students’ learning, or your school and contexts, there are some tools, resources, and approaches that can help you. It really starts with something you’re wondering about, curious about, or want to change. Having a group with whom you can share your questions, challenges, data, sense-making, and findings is important. The journey begins with taking this first step. Hopefully, we can decide on next steps together.
Copyright
2005-2006 by Phi Delta Kappa, Taiwan Chapter.
