Question 4
How far do I/we need to get involved to reap the benefits?
As a CPD coordinator you are in a good position to help teachers realise that they have choices about how deeply they want to engage in and with research, and to help them to value the skills involved at every level. Many teachers feel daunted by the prospect of doing research with a capital R and tend to undervalue their own practical, small-scale experiments and enquiries.
Those teachers who choose to undertake research may work all the way from:
- identifying a research question;
- designing methods for collecting data capable of answering the questions;
- analysing data; and
- writing/dissemination
so that other researchers and practitioners can test the evidence for themselves.
There are certainly increasing numbers of such teacher researchers. Their work can offer a very helpful stepping stone between traditional academic research and classroom practice.
But by no means everyone wants to engage with research or enquiry so deeply. Here are some examples from the St Thomas More School and Cranford Park Primary School, of different teachers using research with different levels of intensity to develop their practice.
At any given point in time:
- Some teachers may just want to try our new strategies and collect evidence to help them refine their efforts and know whether they are working. Colleagues often start with very small, tentative experimental steps:
"In the early stages of research into teaching thinking at St. Thomas More, teachers involved became engaged by having a go at thinking skills strategies such as Mysteries, Odd One Out or Maps from Memory. After trialling these strategies some staff did open/closed question audits and videoed their lessons to examine how to improve the quality of their lesson debrief."
"As part of my MA studies, I kept a reflective journal based on day-to-day classroom issues. The journal encouraged me to stop, reflect upon my existing methods and collect useful strategies from existing research to support me in modifying, refining and improving my practice. It made me pro-active in searching out a wider range of possibilities to address my problems. Subsequently I engaged in increased dialogue with colleagues in sharing my findings."
"All teachers involved in the project kept teacher diaries to help the school-coordinator better understand how teachers ability to teach thinking skills developed. Many also used pupil learning logs to inform their practice and improve their teaching."
"At least three of the original research and development group have now had their work published in journals. All have remained committed to increasing the body of knowledge on teaching thinking, in different ways. One for example has focused on developing teachers' ability to teach thinking, while another has focused on using video and the third has written on pupil learning logs."
However deeply teachers get involved, the process helps them to refine and enhance classroom-relevant skills. An added benefit of teacher research is that it demonstrates that teachers as well as academic colleagues are creators of knowledge about teaching.
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