2. Background
Ineffectiveness of traditional PD model
One-shot, one-size-fits-all
Irrelevant to teachers’ classroom practice
Teacher Research as a promising PD activity
Develop teachers as reflective practitioners
Empower teachers from “known” to “knower”
Close research-practice gap
Contribute to the knowledge base in education
community
Ref.: Lumpe, 2007; Wilson & Berne, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999;
Loucks-Horsley, et al, 2003; Roth, 2007.
3. “Rocky Road” of Teacher Research
Most teachers are unfamiliar with research
Confuse with library research
Stereotyped view of traditional quantitative research
The research process itself is difficult for
teachers
Lack of time for research
Lack of support from colleagues and
administrators
Ref.: Christenson et al., 2002; Esposito & Smith, 2006; Price & Valli, 2005;
Zeichner, 2003
4. Supporting teacher researchers
Teachers need support to engage in
teacher research
Few studies have systematically explored
what are important conditions for
productive teacher research
5. Developing a teacher research model
Drawing upon previous research
Teacher research (Christenson et al., 2002; Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 1993; Levin & Merritt, 2006; van Zee, Lay, & Roberts, 2003;
Zeichner, 2003)
Professional development (Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, &
Yoon, 2001; Loucks-Horsley et al., 2003; Penuel, Fishman, Yamaguchi,
& Gallagher, 2007)
Teacher learning (Schön, 1983; Shulman, 1986)
Japanese lesson study (Fernandez, Cannon, & Choski, 2003)
Problem-Based Learning (Gijbels, Dochy, Bossche, & Segers,
2005; Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Schmidt, 1993)
6. Developing a teacher research model
In the summer PD
Brainstorming research questions
Developing research plan
Getting feedback from peers and facilitators
Learning about the PBL approach
Learning about videotaping and editing skills
In the school year
Implementing research plan
Collecting data: videotaping, student work
Analyzing data
Meeting in small groups monthly
Presenting to the group
Discussing problems using the PBL approach
Searching literature on learning issues
7. Research question
From the teacher researchers’
perspectives, what components in the
collaborative teacher research model are
useful to support teachers in studying their
own practice?
8. Methods
Participants:
45 in total: 34 females; 11 males
34 for one year; 6 for two years; 5 for three years
Year 1: 10 (3 males and 7 females)
Year 2: 28 (7 males and 21 females)
Year 3: 23 (2 males and 21 females)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Females
Males
9. Data sources
Participants Data sources Number of participants Date of collection
Year 1 Individual interviews* 10 End of Year 1
Year 2 Individual interviews* 17 End of Year 2
Focus group interviews 27 End of Year 2
E-stories/written reflections 28 End of Year 2
Year 3 Individual interview* 14 End of Year 3
Survey* 22 End of Year 3
Focus group interview 23 End of Year 3
E-stories/written reflections 22 End of Year 3
* Data was collected by the third party project evaluators.
Table 1: Description of data sources
10. Data Analysis
Descriptive quantitative data
Qualitative data
Identify themes from teachers’ statements in
different data sources
11. Results
A model for teacher research
Motivation
Community
Data (evidence)
Time
Process
13. Results
Mean* Std.
Group discussion of my problem 4.6 0.75
Group discussion of someone else’s problem 4.5 0.75
Guidance of facilitator 4.5 0.81
Analysis of student work 4.5 0.68
Teaching problem development in summer 4.4 0.87
Analysis of my own video 4.2 0.87
Group research of literature 4.0 0.95
Video analysis of TIMSS teachers in summer 3.1** 1.03
* 1= Not useful, 5= Very useful. ** N=17.
Table 2: Teachers’ ratings on the usefulness of PBL model components (N=21)
14. Results
Self-directed process (or choice for studying “my
own” issues)
I was not “told what to do”, but allowed to explore my own
issues. I had “ownership” and learned more by doing my own
research, then being able to discuss it. It was relevant to my
immediate teaching practice.
(Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, written reflection, 4/10/2007)
I had never thought that this could be so meaningful to do your
own research project. We are [doing it for] our own. We really
got excited with thinking of our own little assessments and
testing ourselves and seeing if we could see changes in our kids
and their achievements. (Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, Focus group
interview, 05/16/2007)
15. Results
Self-directed process (or choice for studying “my
own” issues )
Moderator: One thing we struggle with is trying to figure out how
this professional development differs from other professional
development that you’ve experienced in the past or also are
doing at the same time.
Teacher 1: [In this PD] no one is telling us, “This is what you
should do.”
Teacher 2: Yes, [This PD is] self-directed in many ways.
Teacher 3: Yes, it’s not like, “Here’s a book. Follow along while
I speak. Read my PowerPoint.”
(Year 3, Focus group interview, 5/14/2008)
16. Results
Healthy pressure to maintain teachers’ focus
and effort
… it forced me to stay focused on what I wished to change …
There is something about knowing that you are going to meet
next month, and you have to kind of talk about something, so
you should do something, or you are going to have nothing to
talk about. So there is a little pressure. You work hard on that.
You have to work. You know if you were not involved [in the PD],
you might think this [strategy] would need to try, but you wouldn’t
probably, because you don’t have to. (Year 2, Kindergarten teacher,
interview, 4/25/2007)
17. Results
Healthy pressure to maintain teachers’ focus
and effort
“The [monthly] meetings required research for our problems.
Without this, I would not take the time to research but would use
the “trial and error” method to evaluate changes. I feel I’ve
gained 10 years of experience by pooling our group (peers and
mentors) and research.” (Year 3, 4th grade teacher, survey, 5/14/2008)
I’ve always questioned my practice but this just gave me the
forced time to deal with the things that I’ve always wanted to
address and look into. (Year 3, 6th grade teacher, Focus group interview,
5/14/2008)
18. Results
Collaborative learning community
One of the best things about this process is watching
everybody else as we went through because it made
me think about my own classroom practice every
single time. When we went to Sue's classroom and
she did science talks, it was like I couldn't wait to
wake up the next day and get to my classroom so I
could do that in my class. And watching the
assessment stuff with Leslie and I was like, “Oh, I
have to think about that the next time I do this.” I just
don't think that we do that enough as teachers.
(Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, Focus group interview, 5/16/2007)
19. Results
Collaborative learning community
The usefulness, I think the main thing would just be
having people you are required for three hours to sit
down and talk about science with just because I don’t
get that very often here. Yes, we have staff meetings
but maybe ten minutes are spent when you are
actually talking with other science people in your
department. So just having that opportunity to
discuss “What are you doing in your classroom, what
is working for you?” I think that is huge because we
all teach science, I mean people may teach other
things but the one thing we all have in common is we
all teach science.
(Year 1, 8th
grade teacher, interview, 5/2006)
20. Collaborative learning community
Too nice to each other
In our group, it's just everyone is positive. If anyone brings up the
negative, it is the person who is presenting, usually we brought up
with "Er, ... Not a problem!" ... We probably are too nice to each
other. You know, you don’t want to hurt any people's feelings;
(Year 2, 8th
grade teacher, interview, 4/9/2007)
Group problems
Grade level
School
Research topics
21. Results
Table 3: Teachers’ ratings on facilitators’ role (N=22)
Mean* Std.
The facilitator has helped me think more deeply
about my students and classroom practice.
4.8 0.43
I believe my group could meet effectively even
without a facilitator.
2.1 1.04
•1= strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3= varies or uncertain how to respond; 4= agree; 5= strongly agree.
•(17 teachers rated 5 and 5 rated 4 on the first question.)
Facilitator guidance
22. Results
Facilitator guidance
I have been thinking about the importance of the
guidance of the facilitators. I learned about how small
groups work in our group and have been thinking
about how difficult it is even for us as adults to work
productively and cooperatively in our small group. It is
the guidance of our facilitator that has given us the success
we've had this year. We could not be effective without
them.
(Year 3, Kindergarten teacher, Survey, 5/14/2008)
Our facilitator really did a great job questioning and making me
think more deeply about question or problem. She was really
great at making me think!
(Year 3, 3rd
grade teacher, Survey, 5/14/2008)
23. Results
Analysis of teaching videos
You have one perception of what is happening when you are
going through any experience and a different one when you
view it as a witness.
(Year 2, 6th
grade teacher, Survey, 6/2006)
What I really realized is that the videotaping of myself, watching
all of that. It lends itself not just to teaching science, but it taught
me so much about teaching in general and so that was a really
an eye opener for me to go back and look at that…
(Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, focus group interview, 5/16/2007)
It is really helpful to look at your teaching through video,
because how often do you film yourself? You have a feeling for
what’s going on but how often do you actually sit down and
watch yourself doing it?
(Year 3, Kindergarten teacher, Focus group interview, 5/14/2008)
24. Results
Limitation of video
Not suitable for all tasks, e.g., individual
writing work.
Capture only partial classroom practice
Analyzing video is time consuming
25. Results
Analysis of student work
Analyzing student work was the line that allowed me
to clearly reflect on my teaching effectiveness and on
guiding future instructional practices.
(Year 3, 3rd
grade teacher, Survey, 5/14/2008)
Something we all need time to do because it is so
important to understanding what our students know
and need to know. We are kind of forced to do it, and
I'm thankful for the time.
(Year 3, 5th
grade teacher, Survey, 5/14/2008)
26. Results
Summer preparation
I don’t think you can do it without the time in
the summer, where you get to really focus on
it without any distraction in the school year.
(Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, Interview, 4/25/2007)
I just feel like I hop on a merry-go-round at the
beginning of the year and it just goes around
faster and faster and doesn’t slow down.
(Year 1, 5th
grade teacher, Interview, May, 2006)
27. Results
Extended studying time
By being a one-year experience, I had the time and
opportunity to “see, try, research and reflect”.
(Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, written reflection, 4/10/2007)
I also like that it goes through the whole year, because you know
you go to something for one day and even though it is great, you
go back, you mean to try it but you just forget. You put it on the
shelf, and you don’t do it. But when the last year like that, we
meet each month, work on things, so it is a continuous process.
You know you stay involved with that. It is just not something
that you think is neat, but do not try. So your really have time in a
year to try stuff. And because of that, I really have tried things in
my teaching, not just talk about it, or learn about it. But with that
whole year of time, I have time to try something that I might
not try. It changed my science teaching I think for the better. I
am excited about these changes.
(Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, interview, 4/25/2007)
28. Results
Analysis of teaching problem using PBL approach
I really enjoyed working through the PBL process with
my peers. It was a great way to talk about, discuss,
and analyze what had worked and what had not
worked. Through this analysis the group and I came
to several conclusions.
(Year 3, 3rd
grade teacher, Written reflection, 5/14/2008)
I really enjoyed the brainstorming sessions that we had before
we started each task. It allowed the group to discuss the task
and get several different perspectives of how to solve the
problem before going off and getting started on it.
(Year 1, 7th
grade teacher, Interview, May, 2006)
29. Results
Literature searching
[The] group research of literature helped me better
understand how to get all children involved in
discussions!
(Year 3, 4th
grade teacher, Survey, 5/14/2008)
It is still hard for me to know when to step in and
correct misconceptions and when to let my students
figure things out for themselves....and though it was a
learning issue for us nearly every month we could not
find a significant amount of research on young
children and inquiry.
(Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, Written reflection, 5/2008)
30. Discussion
Contribution: Developed a comprehensive model
that supports teacher research
Importance of using video as evidence to
examine teaching
Only 12% of teachers in 78 studies used video
evidence (Roth, 2007)
Importance of self-directedness in teacher
research
In many teacher research studies, teachers were not
self-directed. (e.g., Honan, 2007)
31. Limitation and future research
Limitation
Coding for frequency
Reliance on self report data
Lack of evidence on teacher learning and student
learning
Future research
Case studies of teacher research
Impact of teacher research on teacher learning and
student learning
Hinweis der Redaktion
Good afternoon. My name is Meilan Zhang. I am a postdoctoral researcher in a professional development project for science teachers at Michigan State University. One of the activities in this professional development program is that teachers engage in a year-long teacher research project to conduct research on their own practice. In this presentation, I am going to talk about a model that we found useful to support teachers in conducting teacher research. My colleague, Mary Lundeberg is there. She is also one of the co-authors of this paper. I believe she will help if I miss something.
So, why teacher research? Because we all know that teachers are the key for the success of educational reforms, and each year, the federal government, states, and school districts invest millions of dollars in different professional development for inservice teachers. However, the traditional one shot, one size fits all professional development model has been found ineffective. Teachers often find this kinds of professional development irrelevant to their work in classroom and misaligned with their needs for improvement.
Teacher research, in which teachers as researchers systematically inquiry into their own classroom practice, has received great attention in the last two decades as a promising professional development activity. First, by studying and reflecting on their practice, teachers are more likely to become reflective practitioners. Second, teachers are empowered from “known” to “knower,” from “being researched” to “researcher”. Teachers are also more likely to use what they find in their own research to improve their practice, so teacher research helps to close research-practice gap. Finally, teacher research contributes to the knowledge base in educational community because teachers as insiders have unique opportunity to study issues or problems that are hard to access by outside researchers.
By researching their own practice, teachers are more likely to become reflective practitioners; they are also more likely to use their research findings to improve their practice, so teacher researchers will close the research-practice gap
Teacher research, also known as action research, in which teachers as researchers systematically inquiry into their own classroom practice, represents a fundamental shift in the paradigm of teachers’ professional development from the traditional workshop model. In the last two decades, teacher research has gained increased attention and advocacy in education as an approach to improving teachers;
Given all these great potentials, however, teacher research is not easy. For example, Christenson and her colleagues described it as a “rocky road” of becoming a teacher researcher. Teachers face great challenges when they conduct research. First of all, many teachers are not familiar with the concept of research; For example, some of them confuse teacher research with library research, they may consider teacher research as searching for resources for new instructional techniques. Teachers may also have a rigid, stereotyped view of traditional quantitative research that involve complicated statistics and measurements that are beyond their understanding.
Second, the research process itself, such as asking research questions, data collection, data analysis is difficult for teachers, too. Typically, teachers did not receive much training in their research skills. Other challenges include lack of time and lack of support from colleagues and administrators.
Clearly, teachers need support to engage in such a challenging but meaningful endeavor. Without support, teachers can easily become overwhelmed and frustrated by the demands of research. As a result, they may either fail to begin their research project or withdraw from their research effort.
================= ================ ====================== ======================
Moreover, many teachers find research a strange and frightening concept because of their stereotyped view of traditional quantitative research that involves complicated statistics and measurements that are beyond their understanding.
Many teachers confuse teacher research with library research, equating the former with searching resources for new instructional techniques
A few studies have found challenges that teachers face they the
the challenges that teachers face when they engage in researching their practice;
We know little about how to work with teachers in helping them improve their practical inquiry;
(Christenson et al., 2002; Esposito & Smith, 2006; Price & Valli, 2005; Zeichner, 2003).
In the study by Christenson and colleagues (2002), 19 teachers indicated that they planned to implement the action research proposal they developed in the course. However, after 6 months, the authors conducted phone interviews with those teachers and found only two of them actually implemented their action research as the final project for their master degree.
Clearly, teachers need support to engage in such a challenging but meaningful endeavor. Without support, teachers can easily become overwhelmed and frustrated by the demands of research. As a result, they may either fail to begin their research project or withdraw from their research effort.
PBL is a structured process to help teachers identify, analyze and reflect on possible solutions to problems of classroom practice. Problem-based learning challenges participants to work collaboratively in small groups to investigate real-world science content problems and pedagogical problems. [I can use these two sentences somewhere]
An ill-structured problem is a problem that contains incomplete information and is open to multiple solutions. The nature of teaching problems is contextualized and messy, very similar to the characteristics of ill-structured problems used in PBL. [This sentence is not used anywhere. I can use it anywhere.]
The PBL structure for analyzing teaching problems involves teachers collaboratively identifying relevant facts about the problem, developing hypothesis to solve the problem, and generating learning issues for literature research. The process is guided by one or two facilitators.
Participants included a total of 45 inservice science teachers who voluntarily participated in the PD and engaged in a year-long teacher research project over three years.
Teachers liked the fact that they had choice to study their own issues that was relevant to their classroom and could be directly translated to improve their practice. Many teachers emphasized the personal usefulness and relevance that their research had to their teaching.
Here is another example.
If you think the self-directedness is some kind of pull factor that motivate teachers, they also need some push factor that help them to stay in the process; After all, research is not a routine in regular teaching jobs. It requires teachers to do something different from what they are used to do;
Healthy pressure by the model or structure. //maintaining teachers’ focus and effort // sustain the effort by the pressure to attend the meetings and present to the groups.//Force and Focus
Change is difficult. Without the group meetings, the expectations from the group, it is hard to maintain focus; it is hard for teachers to carry out
First, overall, the structured usefulness. Without such an external structure, it is very likely that teachers may not
=======================================
“The FOP meetings required research for our problems. Without this, I would not take the time to research but would use the “trial and error” method to evaluate changes. I feel I’ve gained 10 years of experience by pooling our group (peers and mentors) and research.” [Year 3, Pat, 4th grade teacher, survey, 5/14/2008]
I’ve always questioned my practice but this just gave me the forced time to deal with the things that I’ve always wanted to address and look into. [Year 3, 6th grade teacher, Focus group interview, Riverside]
There is something about knowing that you are going to meet next month, and you have to kind of talk about something, so you should do something, or you are going to have nothing to talk about. So there is a little pressure. You work hard on that. You have to work. You know if you were not involved [in the PD], you might think this [strategy] would need to try, but you wouldn’t probably, because you don’t have to. (Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, interview, 4/25/2007)
… it forced me to stay focused on what I wished to change …
[Lee, 8th grade teacher, Year 2, Application
“The FOP meetings required research for our problems. Without this, I would not take the time to research but would use the “trial and error” method to evaluate changes. I feel I’ve gained 10 years of experience by pooling our group (peers and mentors) and research.” [Year 3, Pat, 4th grade teacher, survey, 5/14/2008]
I’ve always questioned my practice but this just gave me the forced time to deal with the things that I’ve always wanted to address and look into. [Year 3, 6th grade teacher, Focus group interview, Riverside]
There is something about knowing that you are going to meet next month, and you have to kind of talk about something, so you should do something, or you are going to have nothing to talk about. So there is a little pressure. You work hard on that. You have to work. You know if you were not involved [in the PD], you might think this [strategy] would need to try, but you wouldn’t probably, because you don’t have to. (Year 2, Kindergarten teacher, interview, 4/25/2007)
… it forced me to stay focused on what I wished to change …
Almost all teachers recognized the importance of collaborating with other teachers. Teachers are often isolated in their own classrooms, so they appreciated the opportunity to share ideas with their colleagues, to hear different perspectives on a teaching issue, and to get feedback from other teachers about their research.
First, having a community that teachers can share their learning is very valuable, because it makes up the problem that teachers have. Many teachers did not have the opportunity to communicate with other teachers about their science teaching in their own school.
The usefulness, I think the main thing would just be having people you are required for three hours to sit down and talk about science with just because I don’t get that very often here. Yes, we have staff meetings but maybe ten minutes are spent when you are actually talk with other science people in your department. So just having that opportunity to discuss “What are you doing in your classroom, what is working for you?” I think that is huge because we all teach science, I mean people may teach other things but the one thing we all have in common is we all teach science.
[Kelly, SAMPI interview]
Teachers valued the role of facilitators in their group meetings and believed their group could not meet effectively without a facilitator. During the meetings, facilitators asked questions to deepen teachers’ thinking, provided resources, took notes for the discussion, and helped establish a safe learning community for teachers to discuss their practice;
Teachers valued the role of facilitators in their group meetings and believed their group could not meet effectively without a facilitator. During the meetings, facilitators asked questions to deepen teachers’ thinking, provided resources, took notes for the discussion, and helped establish a safe learning community for teachers to discuss their practice;
The facilitator is very useful. She always helps us work through any problems or questions we have. They would also give us different ideas on teaching a subject or idea.
[Jean Maiville, May 2008 Focus survey]
Well, I thought it was group. Our group really bonded well, and our group leaders really helped us form a learning community, just very safe, and we were able to really share with each other and I think throughout the year, I really looked forward to it.
[Susan Passalacqua, phone interview, year 1]
Student work provides evidence about student learning.
Evidence changed her thinking. Realized the importance of assessment, provide a new perspective towards her teaching and using assessment to justify her teaching, that she was not unaware of: it provides evidence to teachers that might be ignored otherwise.
…this would maybe scare me during the misconceptions [emerged in science talks] and wondering what direction these [students] are going, but when I've looked at some of my results from the outcomes of my kids on just the content tests and their ability to ask questions, I'm really encouraged by the results that I'm seeing that they're not losing information, they're not confused, they seem to be actually doing really well in their ability to question and talk to the other students about science. It's just dramatically improved so and I think that's part of this too. I start feeling like you're part of kind of research is that you're not just doing these things and just thinking, wow! This is neat, but we were really encouraged to think how do you know this is working, how can you keep track of what's going on. [Susan in panel discussion.]
Speaker 2: One thing I wish is that we could have had more time to examine the student work. Because my kids generate a lot of stuff and I brought things to my presentation, but we didn’t have time to look at it and to have time for people to read it and say, “Well, isn’t it interesting this person responded this way, that way and this way?” Because I had tons of stuff that was interesting but it just didn’t [have time to analyze it.]
[Year 3, Riverside, Focus group interview]
Teachers found it was helpful to develop the plan in the summer. It is important to note that a detailed, thoughtful research plan takes time to develop. It is helpful that teachers develop it during the summer, and then implement it in the school year.
It takes a lot of time to develop a detailed, researchable, thoughtful research plan;
It is important for teachers to have some focused time during the summer to think about what they want to research, what data they want to collect, and get feedback from their peers;
I really enjoyed working through the PBL process with my peers. It was a great way to talk about, discuss, and analyze what had worked and what had not worked. Through this analysis the group and I came to several conclusions.
(Year 3, 3rd grade teacher, Written reflection, 5/14/2008)
