Engaging Students in Teaching and Learning Discourses as a Result of Teacher Research

• In Event: 52.080 - Teacher Research and Identity Work: Making Room for the Voices of Teachers

Abstract

Objectives:
This study examines how participation in inquiry through teacher research influences teachers’ classroom practices and instructional decisions.

Theoretical Framework:
As Cochran-Smith, Barnatt, Friedman and Pine (2009) note, practitioner inquiry allows for systematic examination of student learning interwoven with teacher-researchers’ examination of their own “intentions, reactions, decisions, and interpretations” (p. 19). By conceptually linking student outcomes to teachers’ thoughts and decisions, teachers engaging in teacher research are prompted to reflect on how their individual classroom practices—and the thinking that informs them—influence student learning. Because teacher-researchers typically anchor their work in areas they wish to change or improve, they may imagine and enact new ways of teaching that will heighten student learning. In this way, teacher-researchers may engage in self-directed symbolization (Holland et al., 1998) by imagining new ways of existing within familiar contexts.

Participation in teacher research makes teaching and learning visible, public, and open to critique (Cochran-Smith et al., 2009). Although that critique typically refers to professional discourse among educators, teacher-researchers may imagine new ways of approaching instructional challenges by making teaching and learning visible and public to their students as well. By engaging students in conversation and critique around the teaching and learning occurring in their classrooms, teacher-researchers may invite students to practice agency by imagining new ways to transact with teachers, peers, and content.

Methods:
This paper analyzes qualitative data collected from one English teacher at an urban middle school in the southeast, as well as from the students with whom she implemented an action research project designed to improve their meaningful engagement with reading response journals. Data includes 1) semi-structured interviews with the teacher; 2) student writing artifacts; and 3) student surveys/reflections. Interviews were conducted following the teacher-research project as the teacher reflected on the experience and examined student artifacts and surveys. For analysis, I used grounded theory method (Corbin & Strauss, 2007) and discourse analysis (Gee, 2011) to examine how experiences with inquiry and agency in a teacher research group ripple into the instructional decisions and practices in her classroom.

Findings:
The teacher used her teacher-research experience to gain critical distance on her instructional practices, to engage students in ongoing discussion and critique of the teaching and learning in their shared classroom, and to modify instructional practices in response.

Significance:
Despite the limited scope of the single case considered in this study, this work suggests that participation in teacher research may offer transformative possibilities for the ways in which teachers understand how their students learn, their capacity to constructively engage students in critique of teaching and learning, and their work to reshape instructional practices to promote student learning.

Authors

• Claire Lambert, Salem College

• Jill McClanahan