Learning through Self-Study:
Exploring the Development of Knowledge

Jeff Northfield, Penninsula School of Education

John Loughran, School of Graduate Studies

Monash University, Victoria, Australia

Paper presented at the International Conference,
Self-Study in Teacher Education: Empowering our Future,
Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, England August 5-8, 1996

 

Learning through Self-Study: Exploring the Development of Knowledge

In recent times, there has been an increasing interest in self study of practice. In some cases this appears to be related to the development of Schön's (1983) ideas about reflection on practice, as demonstrated by Munby and Russell (1994) who have developed these ideas to highlight the "authority of experience" as a key to knowledge and understanding of teaching and learning. There is also a realisation that there is no educational change without people change. Therefore, by focusing on personal practice and experience, teachers may undertake genuine enquiry that leads to a better understanding of the complexities of teaching and learning.

Richardson (1994) distinguishes between two forms of research on practice: formal research and practical inquiry. She argues that "Both forms...may be conducted by the practitioner, and at times, practical inquiry may be turned into formal research...one could suggest, then, that practical inquiry may be foundational to formal research that will be truly useful in improving practice." (pp. 7 & 8).

This paper attempts to explore the experiences of Jeff Northfield during a one-year teaching allotment in a secondary school when he taught Mathematics and Science and was the Home Group teacher for one class of students in their first year of secondary school (Year 7). At the same time Jeff was the Director of Pre-service Education in the Faculty of Education at Monash University, an academic role with responsibilities and interests in teacher education, teaching and learning, and school level Mathematics and Science curricula. During this teaching year, Jeff maintained a daily journal of his high school activities including descriptions, reactions and interpretations associated with his teaching and his students' learning. The journal was an important part of Jeff's own self study of his teaching experience in a secondary school.

In this return to high school teaching, Jeff the researcher became Jeff the practitioner and worked from a self-study/practical research perspective through to more formal, more widely available and accessible research knowledge. By exploring some of these experiences and the resultant knowledge we hope to enhance educators' understanding of the teaching, learning and research possibilities associated with the knowledge created and communicated through self study. We also question whether the results of self study can be made more widely available in ways that allow new meanings to be established by others.

The paper draws on three main data sources: Jeff's daily journal, interviews conducted by Carol Jones with 22 of the students in the class, and student writing from both regular classroom tasks and specific responses to classroom experiences. The journal was also read by interested teachers in the school and provided a stimulus for extended discussion about students and teaching and learning. At the end of the year, Jeff reviewed the journal and developed 24 theme statements grouped under five headings: 1) Nature of learning; 2) Creating conditions for learning; 3) Student perspectives on learning; 4) Process of teaching and learning; and 5) Overall reactions to the experience. Each statement summarised significant experiences and suggested possible interpretations of unresolved questions and issues related to teaching and learning. Carol spent time in Jeff's classes observing his teaching and working with and interviewing students. Her presence in the class helped her to get to know the students and to be accepted as an observer with no teaching or assessment status. Thus her interview data is most interesting and revealing. The students' writing was equally interesting as they completed specific learning tasks and other regular classroom activities.

Both of us are teacher educators trying to understand the schooling situations for which we are to prepare and support teachers. We are also searching for more effective ways to prepare teachers. It is therefore not surprising that we see the opportunity to spend an extensive period of time in school classrooms as a valuable learning experience. First hand experience must allow a better understanding of current learning issues and should surely better inform the teacher education approaches being undertaken. The value of recent and relevant experience for teacher educators is almost regarded as self evident. However, we would now argue that the connection between school experience and improvement in teacher education is not clear. On the one hand we would argue that greater opportunities should exist for teacher educators to work in schools and classrooms, but the experience alone is not sufficient. Certain conditions for learning about teaching and teacher education need to be established to make the effort worthwhile.

In Jeff's return to classroom teaching, two conditions made the experience worthwhile. The first was the involvement of Carol Jones. Jeff needed the opportunity to interact about the student responses to his teaching and Carol helped him to do this. Carol was also able to interview students and provide a student perspective on the classroom activities and act as a colleague as the teaching and learning situations were interpreted from the perspective of all participants and their background and aspirations. The daily journal record and the variety of data gathered from the class began to make some sense. Carol therefore provided the conditions to begin learning from experience.

The second condition for learning from the experience involved the second author taking an interest in the journal and the data and so continuing the study. The book that resulted from all of this collaboration (Loughran & Northfield, 1996) could not have been written without the involvement of a colleague who was able to remain at a distance from the experience and see the trends developing over the year. As a result of this collaboration we have developed a number of assertions about self study:

• · Self-study defines the focus of study (i.e., context and nature of a person's activity) not the process of studying the situation.

• · Effective self-study requires a commitment to checking data and interpretations with others.

• · It is very difficult for a person to change their interpretations (frame of reference) when their own experience is examined.

• · Colleagues are likely to frame an experience in ways not thought of by the person carrying out the self-study.

• · Self-study demands immediate action so that the focus of study is constantly changing.

• · There are differences between self-study (as we think about it) and reflection on practice.

• · Collaboration in self-study is based on a relationship in which withholding judgment is crucial to learning.

• · Understanding and identifying with the context in which the self-study is situated is crucial to understanding and developing a reasonable interpretation of the events.

• · Valuable learning occurs when self-study is a shared task. The learning is intensely personal, but self-study itself requires collaboration, in many ways learning through self-study is a shared adventure (Loughran and Gunstone, 1996).

For Jeff, the return to teaching was often a confusing and unsettling experience. The conditions rarely seemed to be suitable to initiate different teaching and learning activities with the class. His journal entries continued to outline disappointments as he searched for understanding of his context. The daily event of teaching and its unpredictability appeared to dominate his reflections. As he began to understand the student perspective their responses to the demands of their schooling often made more sense than the learning attitudes and outcomes he was seeking. Yet the overall experience with the class was enjoyable and satisfying. What tended to get documented in the journal and discussed with others were the surprises, dilemmas and tensions, giving a more negative picture of the experience.

Teacher knowledge generation (teacher research) depends on teachers finding ways of sharing critical experiences. The tacit experiences must be made explicit if we are to consider alternative frames of reference that may lead to deeper understanding of teaching and learning. The danger is that teachers will interpret situations in ways that reinforce existing perceptions. Genuine study of classrooms is associated with a willingness to reconsider alternative frames of reference, and colleagues are an important source of ideas of support as the teaching is reviewed.

This paper attempts to place all of this into the learning of and undergoing of self-study. It is an attempt to find a way of informing and involving the reader in the exploration of the data gathered from the teaching and learning experiences during Jeff's return to High School teaching. It also demonstrates how the outcomes of self study might lead to, and better inform, more formal research knowledge.

The presentation of this paper will be in the form of an interview whereby John will interview Jeff and pose a number of provocative assertions about the nature of self-study and how they relate to learning from and through experience. We would anticipate that this interview would be an entree for the audience to become involved in an interactive learning experience about the nature of self-study.

References

Loughran, J.J. and Northfield, J.R. (1996). Opening the classroom door: Teacher, researcher, learner. London: Falmer Press.

Loughran, J.J. and Gunstone, R.F. (1996). Self-study in teaching and research. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 1996.

Munby, H. & Russell, T. (1994). The authority of experience in learning to teach: Messages from a physics method class. Journal of Teacher Education, 45 (2), 86 - 95..

Richardson, V. (1994). Conducting research on practice. Educational Researcher, 23 (5), 5 - 10.

Schön, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books