Hello, everyone. I'm posting to open up discussion of the topic for Week Six, which is a continuation of our discussion of teacher research for teacher education/professional development. In addition to discussing the key themes that arise in the readings (the dialectic between research and practice, the influence of the "reputation" of teacher research, the role of communities in teacher research, and university obstacles to teacher research), I also want to focus our discussion this week on the issue of teacher/researcher identity which Andy brought up in his presentation last week. What does it mean to have a researcher identity or to see oneself as a researcher? Is this identity in conflict with a teacher identity? While I don't want to add a lot of reading to your load, to facilitate this discussion I'm going to send you tomorrow a section from my book _Teacher Identity Discourses_ which provides a short overview of the history of teacher education in the US. I think this section will help contextualize our discussion. I'm also pasting in below an email Andy sent me after class elaborating on this issue. He gave me permission to send it to you.
See you Thursday,
Janet
Andy's email:
Janet,
Thanks again for inviting me to class yesterday!
I hope I didn't seem too pessimistic. I was thinking about this in the car afterwords--I think that, if you caught me on a week when I was better rested, I'd probably show a bit more enthusiasm.
I also found myself thinking a bit about identity, again. I think it took me a long time to develop a "teacher identity"--to feel like I really belonged in front of the classroom. (This might have been easier if I'd gone through a full four-year program, instead of TTT--but I couldn't afford that route. If not for TTT I wouldn't be teaching at all.)
I think, similarly, it would take me several years to develop an identity as a real, authentic researcher. At this point, it's much like those first days in the classroom--I don't really feel like I have the authority to claim what I'm doing is real, authentic research. It still feels like I'm playing a role, and that colors my perceptions of the value of my work. Not that rational, I suppose, but perhaps most human behavior isn't once you think about it.
I don't know if that insight is as useful to you or to the class as it is to me. Still, if it helps, there it is.
It will probably be a few years before I re-enroll at Purdue--I think my next step is to earn a journalism license, which means some time at Ball or IU--but I suspect I will be looking at PhD programs one of these years. Perhaps I'll eventually be back in your classroom. Meanwhile, let me know if you should have any other suitable guest speaker vacancies.
Regards,
Andy
Last week our discussion touched on beginning masters students feeling creditable and I admitted that the fear of being seen as uncreditable is why I sat next to Ryan in my first graduate class. The idea was that if I sat next to the people who knew the game, I would not be called out as an imposter. The more I interacted with the people who had been in graduate school for a while, the more I would learn and feel like I was on a solid foundation. While reading the article by Capobianco et al, “Action Research for Teachers, Understanding the necessary steps for developing and implementing productive action plans,” I wondered why reading related action research articles was not one of the six steps. For the last five weeks our discussions have circled back to the idea of teachers not feeling like and not being recognized as researchers. Why would we as teacher educators expect teachers to feel like and be accepted to act as researchers when they most likely feel like imposters?
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Capobianco et al, I also read an article by Robert Slavin, “Research for the Future - Research on Cooperative Learning and Achievement: What We Know, What We Need to Know.” In the concluding section, needs for additional research, Slavin states, “Yet there is much more work to be done to identify strategies for professional development likely to lead to high quality, thoughtful, and sustained implementation. A few factors worth studying might include contrasts between schoolwide and teacher-by-teacher implementations, expert versus peer coaches, inservice focusing on generic principles versus specific strategies, and use of teacher learning communities (Calderon, 1994), groups of teachers who meet on a regular basis to support each other’s innovative efforts” (Slavin, 1996, p. 63). What Slavin is recommending for future studies regarding cooperative learning techniques is teacher research. Although Capobianco et al. do not discuss cooperative learning they do demonstrate the importance of a teacher learning community as the three teachers who contributed to the study worked collaboratively, especially during the reflection stage. The three women relied on each other for clarity, support and guidance, and suggestions for improvement. (p. 53) “The collaborative discussions [they] engaged in regularly … were crucial … [providing] points of reference that enabled [their] thinking, acting, and reflecting upon subsequent changes in [their] teaching practices” (p. 49). What Slavin inquires about and what Capobianco et al. demonstrate is teacher empowerment through teacher research.
The empowerment to implement teacher research in the classroom comes from a teacher being empowered to ask questions and take action in order to explore those questions. The first step as outlined by Capobianco et al. is to identify a starting point, admit there is a problem. I think the only way to recognize that there is a problem is to question. This brings me back to teachers reading research. It’s like me sitting next to Ryan in that first class. Reading the work of others who have conducted teacher-research can help validate teachers’ questions and empower them to take action. As a beginning teacher in a teacher research group, I did not feel empowered to question. As the person with the least amount of teaching experience in the group, I barely felt creditable to belong to the group. I felt like an imposter. Had I been encouraged to read teacher-research before being asked to identify a starting point, I think I might have been able to find one.
In identifying with the world as both a researcher and a teacher, a teacher may become frightened by the word “research”. As stated in McDonough’s essay, it is common for pre-service teachers to acknowledge the major discrepancies among these two words.
ReplyDelete“Despite the benefits that teachers may gain from carrying out research, they may not see it as one of their responsibilities. Teachers (both pre-service and in-service) may associate research with positivistic assumptions and values, such as validating hypotheses, testing theories, controlling variables, and generalizing findings” (McDonough, p. 35).
The essay goes on to cite the major misunderstandings of the basic methodologies of action research and the pre-service teacher. The students seem to be unable to identify with being a teacher and a researcher because of the socially conditioned implications of the word ‘research’. However, many of these students find their initial reactions to action research to be incorrect, and find major value in conducting action research projects as practicing teachers. Their self-reflection journals allowed further insight to better teaching tactics, and soon the teachers found that action research methodologies created a better teacher identity.
To understand that one is both a teacher and a researcher creates a teacher identity that is incredibly positive for the students. This type of identity creates an environment of exploration and curiosity. It creates an attitude in the classroom that is not ruled by authority; instead it is ruled by collaboration among the students and the teacher. And the action plans that Capobianco, Horowitz, Canuel-Browne, and Trimarchi mention seem only to be implemented when the teacher is aware of both he or she’s inner teacher/researcher identity.
Chapter 4 of Inside and Outside continues to remind us that teachers are all researchers at heart. As observers of culture, difference, and diversity, teachers can only be researchers. We watch and respond to our surroundings on a daily basis, and continue to ask questions about effective ways of integrating these differences in our classrooms. And if this is a central concept in teaching today, we as teachers will not only identify with our responsibility to administer content, but also our responsibility to observe behavior.
I am in full support of pre-service teachers understanding the value of action research. I think it is incredibly important that teacher identity is not only driven by content but also by inquiry. If we do not ask “why” about our daily observations nothing will ever change and the questions will always linger. But as administers of knowledge, it only makes sense to me that we continue to build our knowledge database, and the only way I really know how to do this is through research. Why not question daily life? Why not experiment with methods that can only make you a better teacher, regardless if they fail or succeed? Why not become a better educator? To me the words researcher and teacher are synonymous, and as teacher research continues to thrive, maybe others will begin to believe the same!
Two things I found particularly interesting in the readings for this week were the notion of “working the dialectic” (Inquiry as Stance 93) and the different discussions on collaboration – which each of the pieces we read deals with in one way or another.
ReplyDeleteI loved Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s discussion of working the dialectic as a melding of “inquiry and practice “ where “there are not distinct moments when they [educators] are only researchers or only practitioners. Rather these activities and roles are integrated and dynamic” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, p.95). Too often we forget that not only can the two coexist, but that they can have a successful, reciprocal relationship that helps one grow as an educator (and of course, the students benefit and grow as well). We’ve become so tied to the notion that you have to be one or the other – teacher or researcher – because we think they always require different skill sets that are not compatible, or, perhaps more practically, they are so time consuming that “mastering” both seems impossible.
This sentiment is one which some of the teaching assistants in McDonough’s study shared, and this feel of unease about research didn’t subside until they actually participated in and accepted action (teacher) research as a doable, viable and valid research option.
What I really liked about McDonough’s piece was how the teaching assistants grew not only professionally, but also personally as a result of their experience. (This personal aspect speaks to Andy’s discussion of identity from our last class.) To me, teacher research seems too important, impactful, and, as McDonough writes, “help[ful] [in] develop[ing] in-depth perspectives about the process of teaching and learning,” that I think it would be rather beneficial if more college/graduate students were (at least) exposed to teacher research.
If I am perfectly honest, I never really explored or seriously considered teacher research until graduate school. It was then, when I myself became a teaching assistant, that I began to think about the kinds of research projects I could do in my own classroom to improve my practice. That was when I began to really consider the importance of teacher research as a reflective process. Such reflection is of course part of teacher research, but there is so much more (as Cochran-Smith / Lytle’s chapters attest) to it that I initially hadn’t considered.
In terms of the McDonough article, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the students’ work as teacher researchers had clearly impacted them both personally and professionally. They changed their previously static notions of research, learned how to improve their practice, and learned the value of “peer collaboration,” all because of this experience (McDonough p.42). Given the seeming success of this study, how do you think we can help practicing and preservice teachers to embrace teacher research and “working the dialectic”? For myself, one thing that I think is really important in answering this question is collaboration.
In Inside Outside, Cochran-Smith and Lytle point out that “there are no obvious and simple ways to create the conditions that support teacher research, and that, in fact, major obstacles constrain this activity in schools and make it difficult to redefine teaching as a form of inquiry” (Inside Outside, p.85). While there is no simple or obvious way, one way to combat this is through teacher research communities (collaboration).
In class last week we talked about this very thing, and about how nice it would be to have teachers collaborate with one another and share ideas about the research they are or would like to do. Having such a community seems like one of the most important things to the success of teacher research (along with many other things). When we feel a part of a caring, collaborative community, we are less likely to become overwhelmed, and more likely to take chances, which will help us and our communities grow.
I want to start by responding to those of you who have posted before me this week. First of all, Marianne, I also was interested in the idea of “playing the role” of graduate student, researcher, etc. from a slightly different perspective. I have always enjoyed theater and acting, so role-playing has been a major part of how I take on new tasks. I'm totally going to flub this “wise man once said,” but I've always found it helpful to “act” as though I am already what I wish to become. If I want to not have stage fright, I act as though I do not have stage fright and act as though I am cool, confident, and collected (yeah, right :-). It sounds simple, but it does require preparation, which is why I really like what you've said about reading the published action research studies of others. You can't expect to play a role in the theater without extensive literary study and writing regarding character interpretation; likewise, you cannot begin to act like a teacher-researcher without studying what those who already are teacher-researchers do.
ReplyDeleteTaylor, I wanted to respond to something you said about collaboration. You said, “It creats an attitude in the classroom that is not ruled by authority; instead, it is ruled by collaboration. . . “ and I wonder if this is part of what turns some teachers off to the idea of action research/practitioner inquiry/whatever we're calling it. I hate to be the skeptic, but I agree that engaging in action research in the classroom requires a critical stance that leaves room for “role drift” (hey, maybe I should coin that). I wonder if there are some who just can't handle letting that amount of control go. I love the idea of going back into a classroom in more of a mentor/guide role, but I know that doesn't seem to be for everyone, so when you ask why not do these things (and they do seem like common sense to me, too), I guess that's why.
Heather, your post reminded me of taking the basic Ed. Psych class here at Purdue as an undergrad. There was a complete disjoint between the progressive ideas and the completely regressive way they were being taught (read the book, hear a lecture on group work). That's why I've decided to get right into trying some action research – in order to “work the dialect” and practice what is being preached/what I'd like to preach.
More in Part II. . .
I found the discussion of binaries in "What does it mean to be a secondary school teacher?" very interesting, and important for thinking about teachers as researchers. After reading Andy's email and thinking about his statement in class that he doesn't totally identify himself as a researcher, I began to ask myself, simply, "why?" Why is it that bright and capable teachers like Andy struggle to identify themselves in this way? It seems important to explore this issue first--before we even start to think about training teachers to do action research. How motivated will teachers be to do research if they cannot even see themselves in the researcher role?
ReplyDeleteI agree with this reading's assertion that the binaries inherited by teachers--such as 'failure' vs. 'success'--can help explain the nature of teacher identities. A binary that seems to exist for some teachers is: receiver of knowledge/producer of knowledge. I think that, due to the many historical discourses that have surrounded them, teachers are viewed by culture as primarily receivers and transmitters of knowledge. As a teacher you are just delivering content and you do that through whatever method someone 'higher' up instructs you to use. This does not fit with the concept of a researcher. A researcher is a producer of knowledge. Unfortunately, many teachers buy into this social construction of their profession and become complacent. After lots of professional training they come to feel that they are not professional, and that they could never get to the level required to do research. For this reason I think the first, essential message of teacher research is that teachers can begin doing research where they are--they are already capable. If we can somehow convince teachers of this truth, I think that it would be much easier to increase and encourage teacher research among practicing teachers.
More from me. . .
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that Heather mentioned was the comfort of having a community with which to collaborate, something that graduate students in McDonough's article, the student teachers in the START program, and the teachers involved with the Philadelphia Writing Project all seem to enjoy. It was nice to talk to Beth briefly after class last week and to hear her encouraging words regarding my ideas for my project. My favorite part of the readings this week was Chapter 5 in Inside-Outside, Communities for Teacher Research: Fringe or Forefront. The concept of teacher research as “a collaborative and social activity that requires opportunities for sustained and substantive intellectual exchange among colleagues” (p. 87) spoke to me because I require a lot of time to digest and process information and benefit greatly from talking through my ideas with others. There is that element of fear that comes into play – I would love to always be able to “conceal my failures” (p. 87), but I would far rather learn from them with the help of others.
I've been thinking, in conjunction with the readings, about what is really required for that kind of collaborative community to exist within a school, district, etc. One thing that I thought was fabulous about the START program was the idea of a year-long student teaching experience. As we're coming up to the beginning of our student teachers' 10-week experience, it seems crazier and crazier to me that we expect them to come out the other side “prepared.” Such a short experience also does not leave those preservice teachers much time to develop the real relationships that are required to lose the fear of making mistakes, asking questions, and engaging in genuine collaboration with colleagues and students. Losing that fear and not needing to conceal ones failures requires time to develop trust with ones colleagues, and when do we really get that? I've talked frequently about the “old teachers,” but I have to honestly say that I never got a chance to know many of them well enough to move beyond the “teachers lounge” impressions of them. Cochran-Smith & Lytle say that “[teachers] need significant chunks of time in which to work and sufficient longevity as a group over time. When the pace of a community's work is unhurried and members of the group make a commitment to work through complicated issues over time. . . trust builds in the group, and participants feel comfortable raising sensitive issues and risking self-revelation” (p. 91). It seems like time is always the constraining factor and seems to be what drives a lot of the problems such as teacher deprofessionalization, teacher willingness to engage in research, and teachers' ability to develop identity as a teacher-researcher. I would love to start a charter school where teachers could spend half the day in classes with the students and the other half engaged in team meetings, collaborative inquiry, individual research, and support groups. Who's with me?
The Theory:
ReplyDelete“There is growing support for the notion that research by teachers about their own classroom and school practices can function as a powerful means of professional development and can also contribute to the knowledge based in education” (p. 85).
The Reality:
“Despite its potential, there is widespread agreement that there are no obvious and simple ways to create the considerations that support teacher research and that, in fact, major obstacles constrain this activity in schools and make it difficult to redefine teaching as a form of inquiry” (p. 85).
Something that I’ve been considering when reading through everyone’s posts this week and actually in reading through all of the texts we’ve read so far and which also fits with the teacher/researcher identity question is 1) do most teachers want to be researchers and 2) why should they? I’ve been thinking about our class reading and discussions in relation to the school district I taught in, the districts I attended, and the district where my son currently attends, and I can honestly, although sadly, say that I have never witnessed or even heard of a teacher doing any kind of classroom “research” in the way we have defined teacher research (systematic, made public, etc.). And someone’s question to me last week about how much research goes on in local schools where I live made me realize that those in university towns really do have a skewed perspective because I think that truth is that unless these initiatives have started with universities, they are not taking place. And, as I ask in my second question, should they? I remember in my own Master’s program, one of my professors mentioned that I should try to “write up my study and submit it to the English Journal, and at the time I remember thinking, why should I? Yes, I think there’s a small number of teachers who do keep abreast of research in their field and do implement these ideas, in the English Journal, for example, into their classrooms, but how many practicing teachers actually contribute to it, and how many want to? As Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993) point out, “To many teachers, research is more or less by definition something that is distant, uninteresting, and impenetrable” (p. 89). My guess is that most K-12 teachers are in the classroom because they want to do just that, teach, and while they may not like the top-down approach in education they do not know what their role, if anything, can be in changing it.
II
ReplyDeleteOkay, so I have a reason for painting this bleak picture above, and maybe it’s not bleak at all; after all, I think it’s great that we have K-12 teachers whose first priority is their students. I mention this because when I consider the teacher/researcher dichotomy and the idea of “working the dialectic,” as mentioned in Inquiry as Stance, I can’t help but trouble the notion of a teacher/researcher hybrid identity on the grounds that I would guess that the majority of K-12 teachers do not consider “researcher” (in the systematic, made public sense) as a part of their identity. Yes, I think this is ideal and probably true for teachers who are working on graduate degrees and probably for those who have gone through the Project START program Cochran-Smith and Lytle mention (which I also thought was very cool, Courtney, and YES, I definitely want to start that charter school with you!) or similar ones; however, this is not true for the teachers I worked with or those I know who are currently teachers. I also want to make it clear that I believe teachers obviously do a certain type of their own personal research on a daily basis, but, the way we’ve defined it, this is not true teacher research. While it’s nice to theorize about what this does or should look like in some unique programs or places or to consider an ideal teacher/research who blends theory and practice and contributes to the larger field of education while learning from it, I think we have to approach this idea from a practical standpoint as well, which, in my opinion, may mean reconsidering the idea of a blur of teacher/researcher.
I guess I’m concerned with our assumption that classroom teachers can or should want to include researcher as part of their identity. Is the larger issue that they cannot do this or that they do not want to? While I appreciated Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (1993) ideas for overcoming obstacles to teacher research and agree that these practices should be advocated for and implemented if for no other reason to better teacher practices at local levels, and, while I absolutely agree that teachers do have the ability to contribute to the field of education and that we can help them gain knowledge about research methodology and publication, I also believe we have to be honest and fair about the reality of those teachers who are happy just changing the 25 warm bodies they get to interact with daily rather than trying to change the world (and maybe they are changing the world this way, right?). Is our ultimate goal to expose all teachers to the idea of teacher research? To encourage all teachers to participate in some way in some type of teacher research? To have teachers continually complete teacher research?
Maybe it’s okay for some teachers to be teachers? And then, what does this then mean for our roles as researchers? While programs that teach teachers/preservice teachers/GTAs how to conceptualize and complete inquiry projects are beneficial, as was the case in the McDonough article, I want to be careful not to assume that by teaching teachers how to research that they want to perform the “researcher” identity. As researchers, this may mean that we do initiate these collaborations that several of the readings have discussed and most likely means that we do the work that we have the time, money, and resources to complete – listen, take notes, interview, gain understanding, write, publish, influence the larger system, etc. – while allowing teachers to be involved in whatever ways are easiest and best for them even if this primarily means teaching.
FROM SUDHA:
ReplyDeleteThere is power in numbers.
For things to change teachers must
recognize their own importance and
act upon their collective integrity by
making their research public.
As the Action Research article
mentioned in this regard, newsletters,
staff bulletins, and school-based
colloquiums are ways to inform
everyone within the school system;
teachers individually and collectively
can publish papers in educational
journals to spread the word
nationally.
There is too much bureaucracy
in the current school structure.
More teachers should seek leadership
roles both on the local and national
levels. In any given school system,
instead of having one person as
administrator, perhaps, a group of
current or former teachers could share
the administrative duties.
All teachers including student teachers,
graduate teaching assistants, preservice
and inservice teachers, all must participate
in teacher research. As Inside/Outside
mentions, questioning is part of the process
of teaching and learning from teaching.
"Participation in teacher-research
positions teachers to examine and take
action on issues of equity, access, and
culturally appropriate pedagogy and
curriculum (pp.80-81)."
Communication is the key to
evolving trust and through collaboration,
teachers can have the respect they
so richly deserve.
Thank you
Sudha
In reflecting upon the two articles that we read as part of our reading assignment this week, I found it interesting that both articles focused on teacher research being used to further teacher growth, but neither did so in an authentic manner. In both articles, the teacher research was mandated or was being looked at as something that should be mandated by authority figures. I'm not convinced that this promotes authentic teacher research. When I think about how this is done at my school in particular, I think that it is great to have a supportive administration that allows us the option to conduct teacher research in our classroom as a way to prove that we are being effective teachers, but at the same time, I see a good chunk of teachers use it as a means to get by. Some teachers will pick something fairly easy that does not require work, but will easily produce "desired" results of numbers that can be turned into nice charts, etc. The most common "research" project is to see if students increase their writing skills throughout the school year and track the students' writing scores. I guess what I'm trying to point out is that you cannot make someone intrinsically motivated and I think that teacher research needs to be something that comes from a genuine interest in learning more about something. Without that, I don't think that the research is effective.
ReplyDeleteI have never really thought too much about conducting my own research until the last year or so. It has always been something that I knew I would be a part of in the future, but didn't really know how I would get there or what I would research. Even now, as the process of doing a dissertation is creeping up on me, seeing myself as a researcher is still a hazy picture. I took a course this summer with Donna Enersen, which really changed my ideas and outlook on research. It was my first research course in a long time, but it really inspired me to think more seriously about the research that I am going to conduct. One of the things that she recommended was to start a research group; to get a group of people together that do not necessarily have the same interests, but that could be there to help you out as you undergo the research project. My impression was that this group might help to narrow research questions, clarify interview questions, assist with coding or triangulation. She said that she started a group when she was in graduate school and they still are in touch and still help each other out. I think that this would be really interesting to dabble with a little bit.
ReplyDeleteWould anybody be interested?