*Did not print out Resource Readings. Used Onenote to take notes. Tried to play and use different technology to understand the readings and keep track of ideas, but very difficult. No time.
Harste & Leland | On Getting Lost, Finding One’s Direction, and Teacher Research
L500 Harste and Leland (2007) on teacher research.pdf
Carolyn Burke (personal communication, July 1, 1980) makes a similar point by maintaining that too often we build curriculum on memory rather than on inquiry. (p.7)
Building curriculum with students doesn’t mean that we don’t front-load the curriculum with what we see as important. What may not be clear in this regard is that we’ve learned to focus our efforts on putting in place the social practices that surround “being literate,” rather than worrying endlessly about “being literate” per se. These social practices include conscious engagement, acceptance of alternate ways of being, and embracing responsibility to inquiry and reflexivity (Lewison, Leland, & Harste, in press). (p8)
Conscious engagement means that we are actively opening up spaces in our classrooms for discussing topics that have been either taboo or taken-for-granted. Accepting alternate ways of being entails giving value to multiple perspectives, text sets, and curricular invitations that allow students to explore topics from a variety of angles and in a variety of forms, including art, music, language, movement, and drama. (p8)
Literacy takes care of itself when we focus our attention on putting in place the social practices that sustain conscious engagement, multiple perspectives, inquiry, and reflexivity. (p9)
(Harste, Short, & Burke, 1986) that there are really three curricula. The paper curriculum is the document on paper, your official plans. The enacted curriculum is the curriculum that results from your putting those plans into practice. The real curriculum, however, is what happens in the head of the learner. The tension among these curricula is what fuels teacher inquiries. (p9)
Learnings:
1. Never value programs over people. (p9)
2. Don’t use “scientifically based research” as your daily guide to practice. (p9)
3. Don’t fall into the trap of doing a little of everything—perhaps badly—every day. (p9)
4. Avoid taking the stance, “If it’s working, don’t mess with it!” (p10)
5. Keep your classroom door open. (p10)
Few people understand that it is being a philosopher that gives you the right to be a teacher and a researcher, not the other way around. (p10)
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Sagor, Richard (Author). Guiding School Improvement with Action Research. Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2000.
L500 Sagor E-book on action research.docx
Preface
Education is something that is endured, not treasured. When I listen to teacher talk at these schools, I hear explanations about why things aren’t as they should be: the community doesn’t support education, the parents have the wrong values, the administration doesn’t support teachers, the facilities are inadequate, and so on. The negative thinking isn’t limited to the adults. Students in these schools complain, “I can’t do that” or “This is too hard” or “Why do we have to do this?” The attitudes of defeatism are so contagious that I begin looking at the clock myself, wishing that it were time to leave! (p vii.)
Collaborative action research, though not a magical cure for all that ails education, can be a powerful force supporting the transformation from defeatism to an “I think I can” work environment. (p viii.)
seven-step action research process that the book explores (finding a focus, clarifying theories, identifying research questions, collecting data, analyzing data, reporting results, and taking action) are nothing more than tools to be used by creative professionals. ( p viii.)
versatility. (p ix.)
deal with all three forums for the conduct of action research— the individual practitioner, the collegial group, and the schoolwide faculty. ( p x.)
of action research and reflective practice.(p x.)
Chapter 1: What is Action Research?
That definition states that action research is a disciplined process of inquiry conducted by and for those taking the action. The primary reason for engaging in action research is to assist the “actor” in improving and/or refining his or her actions. (p 3.)
- Selecting a focus
- What element(s) of our practice or what aspect of student learning do we wish to investigate (p 4. )
- Clarifying theories
- Identifying research questions
- Collecting data
- Valid
- Reliable
- Triangulation
managing triangulated data collection is, first, to be effective and efficient in collecting the material that is already swirling around the classroom, and, second, to identify other sources of data that might be effectively surfaced with tests, classroom discussions, or questionnaires.( p 5.)
5. Analyzing data
- What is the story told by these data?
- Why did the story play itself out this way? (p 6. )
6. Reporting results
7. Taking informed action
Three purposes for action research
- Building the reflective practitioner
- Making progress on schoolwide priorities
- Building professional cultures ( p 7.)
Personal Response: In Unit 1, I found the information well-organized and logical. Except the final section: Why Action Research Now? I found some of the rationale - well, condescending and too simplistic. I disagree that North American teaching has had a blue collar approach to teaching. And I found the statement that a homogeneous society might use one method for instruction; I feel this statement does not respect the unique learning approaches that individuals need, regardless if they are ethnically the same.
Chapter 2: How is Action Research Accomplished?
Steps of the Action Research Process with examples from author's experience of teaching writing to a 9th grade class.
Step 1: Selecting a focus
Strategy 1: Reflective Journal
Strategy 2: Reflective Interview
Rules of the Reflective Interview
- Find a location where you are unlikely to be interrupted for at least 30 minutes.
- Select a colleague who is willing to listen as you talk.
- Pick a topic to talk about that meets the following criteria:
- (1) it concerns teaching or learning;
- (2) it is an issue of significant personal concern;
- (3) improving performance on this issue is within your control.
- Explain to your colleague that his or her job is to listen, ask clarifying questions if necessary, and stimulate further reflection (should you run out of things to say in less than 30 minutes). (p 14.)
Strategy 3: Analytic Discourse
The purpose of the analytic discourse is to get the individual being interviewed to explore the topic as fully as possible.
- Interviewers ask probing questions.
- Interviewers offer no personal opinions.
- No critical comments are permitted.(p 15.)
Step 2: Clarifying Theories
Priority Pie
The priority pie process has three steps: (1) brainstorming, (2) conducting an intuitive assessment, and (3) drawing a pictorial representation.( p 15.)
Graphic Reconstruction
The function of the graphic reconstruction is to fully illustrate the researcher’s understanding of the dynamic relationships between the variables identified in the priority pie.(p 16.)
Step 3: Identifying Research Questions
Step 4: Data Collection
- Existing data
- School/teacher records
- Student work/portfolios
- Observation data
- Photographs
- Videotapes
- Diaries, logs, journals
- Rating scales/rubrics
- Data obtained by shadowing students through the school day
- Probes
- Tests
- Surveys
- Interviews
- Focus groups ( p 19.)
Triangulation Matrix
Step 5: Data Analysis
Search for patterns and trends
Cut, Sift, sort, categorize data
What is the story told by my data? What might explain this story? (p 20.)
Step 6 & 7: Reporting and Action Planning
The primary purpose of action research is to inform the decision making of practitioners who wish to improve their performance.(p 20.)
Part II: The Rationale for engaging in Action Research
Chapter 3: Professionalism, Teacher Efficacy, and Standards based Education
Opening hook: Contrasting defeatism with optimism
Reality isn't defeatism. Attitude is what makes reality defeated.
Personal Response: Sunny words isn't optimism. Positive words can be a spin on a bad situation. While motivational words can move people to action, if their action is not shepharded along in a constructively critical manner, it can seem like a waste of time or busy work.
Inspiration
Industrialized teaching system
"Blaming" culture
-
Attacking Nonroutine Problems
-
Considering Multiple Perspectives
-
Building a Professional Knowledge Base
-
Accountability
Personal Response:
But professionals also have fewers interpersonal relationships to manage (students, plus parents, plus admin, plus peers)
Professionals often don't have parenthate their experience to diverse audiences (teacher has to code switch same info to different groups)
Teachers and professionals are often punished (with job termination) as a consequence to out of the box thinking. If there is not a culture of respecting creativity at a company, then risk taking is not safe and often not practiced.
A bit too optimistic about professionalism. Job holders in professions often are just as industrialized ants as the author describes defeatist teachers as being.
Using Data to build efficacy
Activating the power of reflective practice requires two things: (1) making data on performance available and (2) providing teachers the authority to use these data for the improvement of their instruction.( p 33.)
Personal Response:
Make data available can also skew results and future tweaks.
Not just giving them the authority, but also the support
Chapter 4: Teaching a Complex Process
This chapter examines two teacher research imperative: current trends that make investing in
- The increased diversity of our student bodies •
- The high-stakes consequences of the standards movement( p 36.)
Statisticians use the term central tendency to refer to the level of performance exhibited by the majority of a population.( p 38.)
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/iub/Doc?id=10115189&ppg=51
Personal Response: This book is very America. Focuses on results, action. Doesn't see personality or life as a pastiche of several types. The active and the passive. The writing style implies that passivity is somehow bad. Passivity can be good - observation, lurking, thinking, meditating, gestating, mulling, moodling. And lack of an end point can be liberating to creativity and solution creation.
L500. Cochran-Smith & Lytle, Chapter 1.pdf
Chapter 1: Practitioner Inquiry in Trying Times
- The Current Policy/Political Climate in the US
- Education and the Economy
- Emphasis on Accountability
- Evidence, Science, Scientism
- Taking Stock: Major Themes in Teacher Inquiry/Practitioner Research
- Theme 1: Taking on Issues of Equity, Engagement, and Agency
- Classroom, School and Program based investigations
- Networks & Cross Network Initiatives
- Students as Researchers and social actors
- Theme 2: Developing Conceptual Frameworks
- Theorizing the practice of teaching
- Theorizing practitioner research
- Epistemologies, Methodologies, and Methods
- Ethical Considerations
- Theme 3: Inventing and Re-inventing Communitiesof Inquiry
- Affordances of New technologies
- Local groups with national reach
- Cross national communities
- Grassroots, national professional organizations, and foundations
- Theme 4: Shaping School Reform and Educational Policy
- Schools as sites of change
- Organizing to inform policy
- Theme 5: Re-forming Research and Practice in Universities
- Visibility of practitioner research in academic literature
- Academic research and teaching
- School -University Partnerships
- Looking Back, Looking Ahead and Moving Forward
Cochran-Smith & Lytle, Chapter 3.msg
Chap 3 - Troubling Images of Teaching in No Child Left Behind
- Training/Testing as the key to school reform
- NCLB: Images of the Knowledge Teachers need to teach well
- Subject matter knowledge
- Knowledge of scientifically based research techniques
- Critique of NCLBs Images of Knowledge
- Images of Teachers and Teaching
- The Central importance of teachers
- Conceptions of good teaching
- Purposes of Teaching and its role in schooling and society
- Critique of NCLBs Images of Teachers and Teaching
- Images of Teacher Learning
- Teacher preparation
- Professional development
- Critique of Images of Teacher Learning
- Troubling Images of Teaching
- A Matter of Truth and Consequence
- Toward a different Image: Teaching and Teachers' Role in Educational Improvement
