Improving Practice to Serve the Public Good: Grounding Research in the Experience of Practitioners

• In Event: Action Research and Practicing Teachers: Reflection, Collaboration, and Action

Abstract

Donald Schön (1995:29) states that we should think about practice as a setting for the generation as well as the application of knowledge; and should explore not only how research findings can be used to improve practice, but what kinds of knowing are already embedded in competent practice.

This presentation includes the story of a group of early years educators, who integrated collaborative inquiry and a living theory approach to action research (Whitehead & McNiff 2006) as a means of creating knowledge that is grounded in practice. The inquiry demonstrated a means by which the singularity of each individual developed within a collaborative environment can have a transformational influence on the individuals involved, and on wider socio-cultural contexts.

Author

• Joan Walton, Liverpool Hope University