Hybrid Learning in a School-University Partnership: Teacher Research Integrating Common Core Standards, Scripted Curricula, and Innovative Practice

• In Event: Practitioner Researchers: Hybrid Roles in the Generation and Use of Research Knowledge

Abstract

Objectives and Significance to the Field

Traditionally, teachers who want to know what instructional practices will meet the academic needs of their students (especially those in under-achieving schools) are directed to the work of experts, primarily through curriculum guides and research reports written by school administrators, publishing companies, and academic researchers. Currently, the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) adopted by Pennsylvania and 43 other states, which expect all students to demonstrate advanced literacy proficiency in all subjects (NCCSSO & NGA, 2010a), have become the framework to which teachers are expected to adhere.

To increase the academic rigor of their courses and the degree of instructional support for students, teachers in the three university partnership elementary schools came together to form a teacher inquiry community focused on deepening their understandings of the CCSS and creating safe spaces where innovations could be developed to improve teacher practice and ultimately improve student learning. This paper addresses the overarching question in what ways the participation in a collaborative inquiry community (focused on the integration of the CCSS) inform instruction and enhance teaching and learning. Analysis of the work of this community included detailed case studies of teachers who conducted classroom research, reflecting their efforts to integrate outsider research-based knowledge with knowledge produced through local investigations.

Perspectives and Analysis

Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993, 2009) argue that teacher research challenges the traditional view of knowledge production for educational improvement. From the perspective of practitioner research, knowledge is not solely developed by outside experts with teachers expected to be technicians implementing others’ ideas. Rather, practitioners develop local knowledge about teaching and learning in their own classrooms. Teachers’ own research about their successes and challenges throws into sharp relief the issues that may affect the integration of the new standards into classrooms across a range of contexts. It also illuminates the possibilities of what Bullough and Gitlin (2001) refer to as “wiggle room,” or, spaces within which alternative and ecologically valid ways of thinking and acting can be safely integrated into the classroom, even in the context of new initiatives like the Common Core Standards.

Data Sources and Findings

Data collection included multiple sources of data focused on the efficacy of innovations in terms of student achievement and engagement, including teacher researcher journals, student and teacher writing (journals, lesson plans, tests), audio and videotapes of classroom and inquiry community interactions, meeting fieldnotes and teacher documentation of classroom events. In addition, observations of teacher practices over the year were documented with audiotapes, fieldnotes and videotaping. E-mail communication and Wiki conversations are also a part of the data set as were teacher interviews. Data were examined thematically to determine emergent patterns. Analysis of the relationships and interactions of teachers within the inquiry community sheds light on ways teachers as hybrid consumers of university-based research and national curriculum policy documents as well as creators of rich local data sets conduct systematic, disciplined inquiry on their own schools and classrooms.

Author

• Diane Waff, University of Pennsylvania