What is Teacher Research?
Readings:
Cochran-Smith & Lytle – Research on Teaching & Teacher Research
Goswami – Teacher Inquiry (Chapter 1 – What’s going on here?)
Favorite quotes from this week’s readings:
“…too many of us are left not knowing if the students we teach are receiving enough of what they need to be great citizens, strong and productive members of the communities they inhabit who are able to make a decent living because they can think, write and analyze their world.” (Goswami et al., p. 2)
“Teacher research-systematic, carefully conceived and well-executed inquires-are urgently needed in this time of excessive testing that does not even begin to document learning.” (Goswami et al., p. 10)
What is Teacher Research?
It is logical that teacher research search be conducted by teachers in the classroom. However, classroom teachers need guidelines for designing and conducting inquiry projects to document student learning. There needs to be a systemic research model for studying teaching and learning. The problem is that the classroom can be an unpredictable, messy environment where systems run can run amuck. Another major issue is that teachers are not given incentives or support for conducting research in the classroom.
In the readings this week, Janet Emig explained a paradigm for inquiry. She states that inquiry is a more useful term than research as it has greater breadth for addressing the issues. A paradigm as described by Thomas Kuhn is an explanatory matrix. I did not know who Thomas Kuhn was so I did a bit of research and found out that he is a physics who wrote the book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In this book, he discusses how scientific discovery goes through paradigm shifts. It is interesting to note that Kuhn does not believe paradigms are found in the social sciences. However, I have heard of social paradigm that I do believe is used in the social sciences especially when it comes to educational changes. But getting back to paradigm as an explanatory matrix. I get the definition of explanatory as a way to understand something, but I have not heard the matrix defined in this manner. It is defined as a situation that encourages the development of something. So I thought about the movie the Matrix, and in fact that is what the Matrix in the movie represents. It is a created environment that allows another reality to evolve. I am guessing that Emig wants teacher inquiry to be able to explain the development of learning in the classroom environment. I would like to discuss this further in class. I would also like to bring up when a paradigm shift happens and perhaps how research can facilitate a change in the perception of teaching and learning.
There are six characteristics that Emig refer to when describing the inquiry paradigm. I will list them and give my thoughts on each.
· Governing Gaze – We need to be aware of the lens we are looking through when we conduct our research. As much as we want to be objective, we carry with us our own set of perceptions. Being aware of these perceptions will help to guide us through our inquiry.
· Set of Assumptions – We should set our expectations of the inquiry, being very clear about our focus. This will help us frame and conduct the inquiry.
· Coherent Theory – We need to wrap our inquiry in theory. It is imperative that we understand the theory we are using to help explain the foundation of our research.
· Intellectual Tradition - We need to reach back into a knowledge base of those who came before us in order to guide our research into the future. I like the term that Emig uses here, “web of meaning”. This is something that I would like to discuss further in class.
· Methodology – This book will give some examples of methodology, but time, circumstance and context are the guides that are used to develop the methodology that will work best for our own inquiry.
· Indigenous Logic – The questions that are given in this section are good ones that get at the heart of “Is this inquiry worthy of my time?” and “Will I and others learn from or benefit from the experience?”
Coming from the design field, I like that there is no scripted blueprint, but that there are a set of parameters that need to met for the inquiry or research to be effectively conducted.
Readings:
Cochran-Smith & Lytle – Research on Teaching & Teacher Research
Goswami – Teacher Inquiry (Chapter 1 – What’s going on here?)
Favorite quotes from this week’s readings:
“…too many of us are left not knowing if the students we teach are receiving enough of what they need to be great citizens, strong and productive members of the communities they inhabit who are able to make a decent living because they can think, write and analyze their world.” (Goswami et al., p. 2)
“Teacher research-systematic, carefully conceived and well-executed inquires-are urgently needed in this time of excessive testing that does not even begin to document learning.” (Goswami et al., p. 10)
What is Teacher Research?
It is logical that teacher research search be conducted by teachers in the classroom. However, classroom teachers need guidelines for designing and conducting inquiry projects to document student learning. There needs to be a systemic research model for studying teaching and learning. The problem is that the classroom can be an unpredictable, messy environment where systems run can run amuck. Another major issue is that teachers are not given incentives or support for conducting research in the classroom.
In the readings this week, Janet Emig explained a paradigm for inquiry. She states that inquiry is a more useful term than research as it has greater breadth for addressing the issues. A paradigm as described by Thomas Kuhn is an explanatory matrix. I did not know who Thomas Kuhn was so I did a bit of research and found out that he is a physics who wrote the book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In this book, he discusses how scientific discovery goes through paradigm shifts. It is interesting to note that Kuhn does not believe paradigms are found in the social sciences. However, I have heard of social paradigm that I do believe is used in the social sciences especially when it comes to educational changes. But getting back to paradigm as an explanatory matrix. I get the definition of explanatory as a way to understand something, but I have not heard the matrix defined in this manner. It is defined as a situation that encourages the development of something. So I thought about the movie the Matrix, and in fact that is what the Matrix in the movie represents. It is a created environment that allows another reality to evolve. I am guessing that Emig wants teacher inquiry to be able to explain the development of learning in the classroom environment. I would like to discuss this further in class. I would also like to bring up when a paradigm shift happens and perhaps how research can facilitate a change in the perception of teaching and learning.
There are six characteristics that Emig refer to when describing the inquiry paradigm. I will list them and give my thoughts on each.
· Governing Gaze – We need to be aware of the lens we are looking through when we conduct our research. As much as we want to be objective, we carry with us our own set of perceptions. Being aware of these perceptions will help to guide us through our inquiry.
· Set of Assumptions – We should set our expectations of the inquiry, being very clear about our focus. This will help us frame and conduct the inquiry.
· Coherent Theory – We need to wrap our inquiry in theory. It is imperative that we understand the theory we are using to help explain the foundation of our research.
· Intellectual Tradition - We need to reach back into a knowledge base of those who came before us in order to guide our research into the future. I like the term that Emig uses here, “web of meaning”. This is something that I would like to discuss further in class.
· Methodology – This book will give some examples of methodology, but time, circumstance and context are the guides that are used to develop the methodology that will work best for our own inquiry.
· Indigenous Logic – The questions that are given in this section are good ones that get at the heart of “Is this inquiry worthy of my time?” and “Will I and others learn from or benefit from the experience?”
Coming from the design field, I like that there is no scripted blueprint, but that there are a set of parameters that need to met for the inquiry or research to be effectively conducted.
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