Exploring the Power of Practitioner Research for Innovation in Practice and Policy: The Philadelphia Story

Session Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Practice has emerged as a key issue in educational improvement, and practitioners have been identified as the lynchpins in educational reform. However, the knowledge practitioners generate by engaging in research is generally missing from larger efforts to improve the learning and well-being of children and adults and also missing from the programs of research associations, such as AERA. This session is intended to reposition practitioners, who are usually positioned as consumers and implementers of other people's knowledge, rather than as legitimate generators of knowledge themselves. The session features six presenters who have played different roles in the “Philadelphia story,” a city that has been central to the development of the North American practitioner research movement since the mid 1980s.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Teacher as Researcher

Chairs

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College

• Susan L. Lytle, University of Pennsylvania

Speakers

• Rebecca Akin, Oakland Unified School District

• Alan D. Amtzis, The College of New Jersey

• Melinda Bihn

• Gerald Campano, University of Pennsylvania

• Gillian Maimon, School District of Philadelphia

• Diane Waff, University of Pennsylvania

Discussant

• Elyse A. Eidman-Aadahl, University of California - Berkeley