Teacher Self-Study: Classroom Practitioners' Perspectives on the Merits of the Action Research Laboratory Experience Joseph Senese, Lauren Fagel, John Gorleski, Paul Swanson Highland Park High School, Highland Park IL, USA Prepared for the Second International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, Herstmonceux Castle, UK, August 16-20, 1998

 

Introduction

University educators who engage in the self-study of teacher education practices stimulate the professional development of pre-service teachers. But the responsibility to the profession of education lies not only with university teachers who prepare pre-service teachers, but also with those who work in the school systems that hire those new teachers. As Hargreaves (1997) has noted, teacher professional development and teacher education can no longer be considered either school based or university based. This paper proposes an effective way to contribute to the effort to unite teacher education. Grounded in the success of collaborative action research, it incorporates the work of classroom practitioners into the field of teacher education.

The Action Research Laboratory (ARL) at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois, offers a means for teacher educators to collaborate with practicing teachers in a joint effort to invigorate the teaching profession. The ARL offers the hope that, through this process, the community of teachers as learners will expand to include everyone in the teaching profession.

The Structure of the Action Research Laboratory

The Action Research Laboratory is a model of professional development. It provides teachers the means and encouragement to engage in collaborative action research. The ultimate goal of the ARL is to make substantive changes that will result in increased student learning.

Teachers in multi-disciplinary teams of three apply the principles of collaborative action research in their classes. They investigate how best to apply current research to their classroom practices as they devise new and inventive ways to structure learning opportunities and to assess student learning and growth. With the guidance of an assistant principal, they integrate into their practice the recursive process of action research: working collaboratively to set goals, collecting and analyzing data, taking action, and setting new goals.

In its three years of existence, the structure of the ARL has evolved as the needs of the participants have changed. However, several elements have consistently proven to be effective professional development activities. Teachers in the ARL:

• meet regularly as a team in collaborative sessions,
• consult with the facilitator,
• observe other ARL teachers,
• attend conferences and workshops as a team,
• develop and carry out action research, and
• share their progress with others.

Written and oral reports from ARL teachers provide documentation of their personal growth, increased reflection, and a commitment to teaching as a profession as manifested by their eagerness to share their action research with others. The ARL can serve as a model of professional development for other schools; it can also contribute to pre-service teacher education.

Benefits of the Action Research Laboratory

Interviews, observations, reflective papers, and the application of diagnostic rubrics provide qualitative evidence of the professional growth of teachers in the ARL.

1. Self-determination

Because the Action Research Laboratory operates on constructivist principles, teachers make their own meaning through their professional practices. This allows teachers to maximize their professional growth in ways that are personally meaningful and that produce significant innovation in classroom practices.

In the ARL, teachers develop their own capacities to solve problems, research ideas, and meet the needs of their students. The action research arises from these teachers' own experiences as teachers and as learners. This is so important because the decisions they make have to make sense to them and have to feel right to them. This empowers them and enhances their performance. As one teachers noted, "I wanted you [the facilitator] to show me what to do, and I never felt anywhere along the line that you ever showed me what to do. . . I kept waiting for that to happen, but it never happened. I think . . . your role was . . . providing the setting so that we could do the professional growth on our own."

Each existing ARL team has chosen to conduct action research on a topic of personal interest:

• Team #1: Instituting project-based learning and authentic assessment practices;
• Team #2: Emphasizing learning by de-emphasizing grades;
• Team #3: Creating a community of learners in the classroom; and
• Team #4: Keeping senior students engaged throughout the year.

Each ARL team has a facilitator who creates a learning environment for the teachers, one in which they are comfortable, encouraged to ask questions that are truly meaningful to them, to take risks, to dream of the ideal, to reflect, and to posit solutions. Although the ARL facilitators provide structure and support, they do it without leading the teachers in a predetermined direction. This trust in the professional nature of their work has been particularly liberating for ARL teachers.

Written and oral records from ARL participants have reinforced this perception. In response to a question about the role the facilitator played in their professional growth, teachers offered these responses:

• You had this insistence that we really define what it is that we wanted to do and how we wanted to go about doing it. . . .you forced us to come to our own conclusions and to be problem-solvers. I guess, in other words, you asked us to practice what we're preaching in our own learning.
• You would jump in with this little comment here or there, never say very much, but just enough to kind of trigger us . . . back on the focus of where we're going.
• I thought that first of all you established an environment and a place, then let us take ownership of it. . . . you really allowed us to construct what our time together would be.
• You never seemed to have a personal agenda, and I just felt [that] you were the source of information and some resources we needed at times. You were a source of encouragement and support. . .

2. Authentic Enterprises

The structure of the ARL allows teachers to grow in their profession through job-embedded activities, not extrinsic contrivances.

The Action Research Laboratory was begun in the spring of 1995 with three teachers. During the 1997 - 1998 school year, that number increased to twelve teachers and continues to grow. The impact that those teachers have had on changes in the school far outweighs their number. For example, based on the successful experiences of the Action Research Laboratory, this year all 150 faculty members at Highland Park High School were placed into learning teams to conduct a version of collaborative action research.

Although each ARL team chooses its own area for research, the work of one team has had an effect on the other because of their sharing at joint meetings and their natural interest in each other's work. For example, the desire to explore meaningful assessment to inform practice has crossed every team's work and has not only influenced other ARL teams but has also affected teachers not even participating in the ARL.

ARL teachers have expressed how their collaborative action research has not only informed their own understandings and practices, but has also transformed them as teachers.

• [The ARL] has spurred some thinking in me and . . . in really a proactive way as opposed to just a reflective sort of experience, but in a really proactive, "Okay, now let's go out and do it and see what happens."
• [The ARL] has helped me to look more analytically at how students learn and why they learn. And it's helped me to figure out what's the best way . . . to assess what they know.
• I think because I saw the success [from] taking the risk with this project, I'm more likely to take more risks trying more projects next year.

3. Continuous Growth

The framework of the ARL requires teachers to collaborate with other professionals, to articulate clear goals for student performance, and to collect and analyze data on which to base future directions. Mike Schmoker (1997) has indicated that these are the elements of continuous school improvement.

Because the ARL is a collaborative effort by three teachers pursuing action research as a team, support for risk-taking and problem-solving and collegial appreciation and understanding are inherent in the process. In fact, teacher interviews at the end of the 1996 - 1997 school year yielded over 225 references to collaboration.

"Research-based" takes on a dual meaning for the Action Research Lab teachers. First, these teachers require the latest information from the experts in the field of education. Shared readings, membership in Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development with a subscription to Educational Leadership, and shared attendance at conferences provided many opportunities for discovering and sharing this information. Second, each ARL team is conducting its own collaborative action research that requires them to collect and analyze data from their own classrooms.

Common experiences, along with periodic readings of the latest information and research in education, become embedded in teachers' personal and professional goals; they then form the basis for professional discussion, reflection, and further study. They provide a common language and understanding of the theoretical and research bases on which the ARL projects rest.

In exit interviews, ARL teachers referred to research (their own or others) almost as often as they made references to collaboration and teacher empowerment. The interviews demonstrate that having attended conferences as a group, reading about and discussing current research in education, and conducting their own studies have given these teachers a solid foundation in making decisions based on educational theories, information, and data.

In their written reflections and in interviews, ARL teachers provide other indications of their professional growth.

• [The ARL] has helped me to realize that having data to backup "gut level" feelings is an important aspect of research. . . .This desire to collect data is completely new to me, and can be directly attributed to my action research practices.
• [The ARL] has allowed me to take risks . . .that I might not have normally taken in the classroom. . . . I wouldn't . . . have had the support from [the facilitator] and from the other two teachers in the group to try new things the way that I did.
• In my opinion, true learning cannot take place without true reflection. ARL provides so many opportunities to reflect..

The Final Analysis

If any educational system, whether elementary school, high school, or university, values teachers who can make the following observations, then the Action Research Laboratory has something to offer teachers at any level.

• Throughout my career, I have also been given to self-assessment of my performance; increasingly, I am finding that my students need to be given the opportunity to do the same. . . .In trying to do what is best for our students we become better at our craft, and vice versa: in a school which has proclaimed "student-centered learning" as a faculty goal, what else should we be doing?
• The students' evaluations after each project provided me with immediate feedback on how I can improve the projects for next year. In addition, the students' honest and sincere comments offered a continual insight into whether or not the architecture theme was really serving as the gateway to understanding the usefulness and applications of geometry.
• By far, the most rewarding part of working on an ARL team was the opportunity to learn and grow with a small group of teachers; I found that the two teachers and one assistant principal were just as committed to my learning and growth as I was to theirs. This feeling of mutual commitment provided a wonderful staff development experience; by working with these colleagues on a consistent basis throughout the year, I was able to explore new ideas and take risks in the classroom, with a type of "safety net" in place.
• A revelation that I experienced during this school year was that de-emphasizing grades in the classroom had a profound effect on me as a teacher. The sense of freedom was overwhelming.
• I think that this year I really learned about myself as a teacher, I was able to evaluate my own assumptions and beliefs about education. My ideas about assessment and rubrics and the role of grades continue to evolve, and as they change I am able to meet students' learning needs better.
• In this way, I feel the de-emphasis of grades did emphasize my own learning; I learned how to be a more creative, open-minded teacher.

The Connection to Teacher Education

One way to produce well-qualified teachers is to affiliate classroom teachers versed in collaborative action research with pre-service teachers. The Arizona Group (1996) noted, "When students enter teacher education programs, we often treat them either as blank slates or as slates covered with misinformation that must be erased." They go on to say that pre-service teachers seek the "experience" of teaching in addition to theoretical knowledge. How can universities provide that experience without the cooperation and, even more importantly, without the participation of practitioners?

Experiencing the kinds of talk that ARL teachers engage in, participating in the kinds of data collection and analysis that ARL teachers conduct, and behaving in the ways that ARL teachers behave can provide the link to experience that pre-service teachers crave. Because collaborative action research acknowledges the importance of job-embedded professional development rooted in experience, those well acquainted with collaborative action research can use their own learning to make decisions about curriculum and instructional practices. If the self-study of teacher education practices can improve teaching, then those same practices in other teaching environments should produce better teachers. Collaborative action research as practiced by ARL teachers provides one way to solidify the connection between pre-service teachers and practicing teachers.

A Proposal

The Action Research Laboratory at the high school level has provided a structure that generates professional growth with an eye to improving student performance. All that remains is a way to connect pre-service teacher education to the practitioners of collaborative action research. Participation in the ARL has benefited the teachers at Highland Park High School by increasing their abilities, competencies, and experiences. If teacher educators and practicing teachers create a way to collaborate, pre-service teachers can acquire these same benefits.

References

Arizona Group (Guilfoyle, K. et al.) (1996, August). "Navigating through a maze of contraindications: A conversation on self-study and teacher education reform." Proceedings of the First International Conference on Self-study of Teacher Education Practices, Herstmonceux Castle, UK.

Hargreaves, A. (1997). "Rethinking educational change: Going deeper and wider in the quest for success." Rethinking educational change with heart and mind. ASCD Yearbook. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

National Staff Development Council. (1995). National Staff Development Council's standards for staff development, high school level edition. Oxford, OH: Author.

Sagor, R. (1997). "Collaborative action research for educational change." Rethinking educational change with heart and mind. ASCD Yearbook. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Schmoker, M. (1996). Results: The key to continuous school improvement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.