Education Commons^™

Encouraging Practitioner Research Engagement: Overcoming Barriers, Annie M. Cole

Journal of Practitioner Research

Despite a body of evidence showing the vast benefits of practitioner engagement in higher education research, the literature suggests that many practitioners do not regularly engage in research activities due to three main barriers: the busyness of daily practice, perceived irrelevance of research to practice, and inadequate training to engage in research. This article reviews the literature on each of these three barriers, providing practitioners in higher education insight into how to overcome these barriers to successfully engage in regular research. Through an analysis of current literature, this article furthers the understanding of practitioner research engagement despite common barriers.

Equitable Mathematics Classroom Discourse, Liza Bondurant

Journal of Practitioner Research

In this article the author shares a self-study investigation into how the quality of talk and opportunities to participate are distributed across individual students based on race and gender in her college math class. Readers will learn how to conduct a similar investigation in their classroom. A discussion of ways to use the information gathered from equitable mathematics classroom discourse investigations will follow.

The Influence Of Visually Rich Technology On The Writing Process Of Elementary Students, Mikala Thomas, Drew Polly

Journal of Practitioner Research

This teacher inquiry project, conducted by an undergraduate teacher candidate with support from a faculty member, explored the use of visually rich technology and its influence on elementary school students’ motivation and learning outcomes in writing. Students used visually rich technology as part of the writing process. We found that when students used technology to support the writing process they showed incremental gains in motivation as well as gains in student learning outcomes. Implications for practitioners highlight a need for teachers to consider how visually rich technology can support students’ aspects of the writing process as well as development in …

Implementing An Enriched Language Development Program For Learning Support Students, Alicia Smail, Linda Kucan

Journal of Practitioner Research

This article describes how middle school students who qualified for learning support performed in an enhanced language development program known as Word Generation (WG). Word Generation is a cross-curricular language development program designed to improve students’ overall literacy skills by focusing on deepening students’ knowledge of academic language. This study was guided by the following question: How does an enhanced language development program influence students’ vocabulary learning and broader literacy skills? Students demonstrated statistically significant positive differences on the pretest/posttest vocabulary knowledge assessment and maintained that learning on a delayed posttest. Engagement with the WG materials positively influenced students’ abilities …

Exploring Implicit Bias To Evaluate Teacher Candidates' Ethical Practice In The Internship, Jamie Silverman, Jessica Shiller

Journal of Practitioner Research

To create an equitable and ethical learning environment in the classroom requires teacher candidates (TCs) to develop positive relationships with students and to reflect on who they are. Using the elements of Richard Milner’s (2007) Framework of Researcher Racial and Cultural Positionality, this article presents an account of an innovative practice in how to engage secondary education TCs in a reflection of implicit biases, and how to interrupt them to become more ethical professionals. This article takes InTASC 9: Professional Learning and Ethical Practice as a point of departure and describes how a new teacher mentor piloted a series of …

“Bad Inquiry”: How Accountability, Power, And Deficit Thinking Hinder Pre-Service Practitioner Inquiry, Stephanie Schroeder

Journal of Practitioner Research

This study of 30 pre-service teachers’ practitioner inquiry papers explores potential pitfalls of practicing inquiry with pre-service teachers. Focusing on the types of questions pre-service teachers ask about student learning, the challenges they face when engaging in inquiry, and the weaknesses of their inquiry products, this paper finds that accountability culture in education, pre-service teachers’ lack of power in the classroom, and deficit thinking left unchallenged by instructors led to weak inquiries. Implications include the need for teacher educators to work with mentor teachers across university and K-12 boundaries, and the need to teach explicitly about the power inquiry holds …

Using Embodied Practices With Preservice Teachers: Teaching And Reflecting Through The Body To Re-Think Teacher Education, Emily Klein, Monica Taylor, Rachel Forgasz

Journal of Practitioner Research

This action research describes how three teacher educators invited preservice teachers to be in their bodies, or learn through “embodied pedagogy.” We wanted see how this pedagogy helped preservice teachers learn to reflect through their bodies, confront their own bias to cognitive ways of knowing, and ultimately begin to consider the use of embodied instructional strategies. We describe our questions, the activities we designed to help us answer them, and data collected from the first course in a pre-service teacher education program. Finally, we analyze these data and identify themes related to embodied learning and reflection and describe some potential …

Practitioner Experiences In Teacher Education Partnerships: Examining Practice In An Accredited Professional Development School, Jennifer J. Roth, Derek Decker, Donna D. Cooner

Journal of Practitioner Research

In this qualitative study, practitioner researchers used focus group methodology to collect clinical partnership stakeholders’ descriptions of their understanding of rich practitioner practice and the benefits of clinical partnerships as defined by CAEP Standard 2. These descriptions provided the data that was analyzed through a deductive and inductive coding process. It was found that stakeholders described clinical experiences as crucial to teacher candidates’ development of knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions, and identified clinical experiences as the space where theory and practice intersect. Findings also showed that stakeholders identified collaboration, mutually beneficial, sustaining and generative, shared accountability, and positive impact as …

Supervisor Facilitation Of Action Research: Fostering Teacher Inquiry, Rachel Solis, Stephen P. Gordon

Journal of Practitioner Research

This study was conducted at a Central Texas private school that offers a full curriculum exclusively for students with dyslexia. A supervisor facilitated fifty members of the school’s teaching faculty as they engaged in voluntary, long-term action research at the individual and team levels to address authentic problems of practice. The study examined the types of inquiry undertaken by the teachers as well as their perceptions of the supervisory support for, impact of, and ways to improve action research at their school. The authors conclude that the supervisor facilitating action research needs to provide ongoing support to teachers engaged in …

Differentiated Homework: Impact On Student Engagement, Gearoid Keane, Manuela Heinz

Journal of Practitioner Research

This paper describes a mixed methods practitioner research study that aimed to enhance student engagement with homework. Based on a comprehensive literature review and data from a pre-study questionnaire, a differentiated homework strategy was designed by the teacher researcher. Students were assigned homework once a week to allow them to balance homework requirements more successfully with out-of-school activities. They were given a choice of three tasks each week, ranging from lower to higher difficulty levels. Task difficulty levels were not stated, nor were tasks ordered by difficulty. Students’ attitudes towards homework improved over the course of the study and completion …

Inquiring About Inquiry: A Research Journey, Margery S. Miller Ed.D., Valerie Harlow Shinas Ph.D.

Journal of Practitioner Research

It is the responsibility of teacher educators to ensure that novice teachers are reflective practitioners who can critically examine their own practice. One promising practice that supports the development of this reflective stance is teacher inquiry. In this descriptive case study, the authors present data collected from three teacher candidates who engaged in classroom inquiry during a required, semester-long practicum seminar. Data included teacher candidate’s inquiry questions and written summaries of their inquiry projects. Data were analyzed using a priori codes gleaned from the competencies identified in the state-mandated teacher candidate assessment system implemented in the northeast state where the …

Syncing Our Cycles: An Inquiry-Based Coaching Model For Distant Supervision, Stephanie Schroeder, Elizabeth Currin

Journal of Practitioner Research

In response to calls for a reconceptualized approach to pre-service teacher supervision, we propose a model of distant supervision for teacher candidates that blends two evidence-based professional development practices--instructional coaching and practitioner inquiry. The fusion of these frameworks can foster inquiry communities that may ease the transition from teacher candidate to teacher of record. Citing the dilemmas inherent in distant supervision, we argue that this hybrid coaching/inquiry model of student teaching supervision is more suitable to supervision at a distance than coaching or inquiry alone. We invite both comment and critique, hoping to begin a dialogue about how practitioner research …

Building Capacity In Teacher Preparation With Practitioner Inquiry: A Self-Study Of Teacher Educators’ Clinical Feedback Practices, Sherry Dismuke, Esther A. Enright, Julianne A. Wenner

Journal of Practitioner Research

This collaborative self-study of teacher educators’ feedback practices argues for an intentional process for teacher educators to develop an inquiry stance toward our own teaching. Data sources include formative observation forms, evaluations, observation notes, debriefings, surveys, researcher journals, and layered memos. Findings define influences and shared patterns of practice. Our professional learning from this self-study built our capacity as teacher educators by informing our development of an inquiry feedback cycle rooted in representations, approximations, and decomposition of practice (Grossman et al., 2009) to intentionally model and scaffold the development of an inquiry stance toward practice in our teacher candidates.

Networking Practitioner Research: Leveraging Digital Tools As Conduits For Collaborative Work, Nicholas E. Husbye, Julie Rust, Christy Wessel Powell, Sarah Vander Zanden, Beth Buchholz

Journal of Practitioner Research

Practitioner research is a powerful stance for understanding one’s own practice and reporting out to other practitioners for adaptations within their own contexts. This article focuses on how engagement in a longitudinal, digitally-mediated community of practice supports essential work in practitioner research in regards to collective work as teacher educators. Drawing upon our own experiences, we explore the affordances of four digitally mediated communication channels (video meetings, shared file systems, text messaging, and collaborative writing) and share a series of recommendations for teacher educators interested in sustaining long-term collaborations across digital spaces. When considering the transformative possibilities of digital networks, …

Sustaining A Continuous Improvement Culture In Educator Preparation: A Higher Education Network Based On Data Wise, Sara Quay, Meghan Lockwood

Journal of Practitioner Research

Educator preparation programs across the U.S. are grappling with the best way to respond to new state policies requiring they use data to demonstrate and accelerate improvement in program outcomes. Supported by a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the educator preparation program at Endicott College integrated the Data Wise Improvement Process into its practice. Not only did the Data Wise work help improve student outcomes by engaging the Endicott team in a form of practitioner research, but it also led to the creation of a network of educator preparation programs that, since 2015, has used …

From Rigor To Vigor: The Past, Present, And Potential Of Inquiry As Stance, Elizabeth Currin

Journal of Practitioner Research

Over the years, practitioner research has been both marginalized and trivialized within the larger educational research landscape. This article challenges that exclusion by tracing the emergence and development of the inquiry stance construct. Understanding the origins of teacher inquiry can contribute to its cultivation and ultimately lend a necessary rigor—or better yet, vigor—to practitioner research. Indeed, inquiry as stance endures because it is far more than a best practice or ready-made technique. Deeply ontological and epistemological, an inquiry stance enables educators to transform their teaching for the sake of all learners in the face of an ever-changing educational landscape.

Practitioner Research In A Changing Educator Preparation Landscape: Exploring Tensions And Reimagining Possibilities, Ellen Ballock

Journal of Practitioner Research

In this opening article, Guest Editor Ellen Ballock highlights the purpose of this special themed issue of the Journal of Practitioner Research, introduces the six manuscripts selected for inclusion, and highlights how each piece contributes to building a culture of inquiry within educator preparation.

What First-Year Teachers Really Want From Principals During Their Induction Year: A Beginning Teacher Study Group's Shared Inquiry, Patricia J. Norman, Sara A.S. Sherwood

Journal of Practitioner Research

University teacher educators have a role to play in helping their graduates manage the transition from formal teacher preparation to independent teaching. This study focuses on a shared inquiry that five first-year elementary teachers conducted while participating in a monthly study group facilitated by two teacher educators from their teaching preparation program. The novices regularly perceived a lack of support from their campus administrator, including failing to give the beginning teachers permission to carry out teacher research projects they had designed. After analyzing the degree and kinds of support that they did or did not receive from their principals, the …

A Framework For Reflective Practice, Diana L. Moss, Claudia Bertolone-Smith, Teruni D. Lamberg

Journal of Practitioner Research

Teaching involves making constant choices and orchestrating interventions that impact purposeful teaching and learning. Finding time to collect information and develop solutions for a teaching challenge can be problematic. Teachers may feel pressure to shift instructional practices without incorporating purposeful reflection. We developed a reflection framework and tested it in a middle grades classroom over a two-week period, and employed practitioner research to investigate the potential of allowing for deep reflection within the middle school structure. We investigated how the framework impacted the teacher’s ability to reflect and adjust based on student learning in the classroom. We conclude that sophisticated …

Creating Laboratories Of Practice For Scholarly-Practitioners: How Leaders Learn Through Action Research Of Clinical Supervision, Ian Mette, Teresa Starrett

Journal of Practitioner Research

The purpose of our work the past three years has been to understand how clinically rich laboratories of practice can be created that allow aspiring administrators hands-on experiences in order to learn how to provide effective supervision to teachers. Through our cross-university collaboration, class members in our Educational Supervision courses have been provided an action learning structure and experiential learning opportunities to develop their own concepts of educational supervision. The two primary goals of our work were to understand a) how aspiring administrators identify when to apply directive versus nondirective supervisory behaviors (Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, 2014), and b) analyze …

Collaborating Across National Boundaries For Narrative Teaching And Learning, Haji Karim Khan, Theresa Y. Austin

Journal of Practitioner Research

University faculty members always learn through their collaborative engagement in teaching and research. This article reports on collaborative efforts between a Pakistani and US university professor to develop and teach a graduate seminar on narrative inquiry. We used a self-study approach to record, analyze, and report on our experience of teaching narrative inquiry in a graduate research course. We used our reflective journals, course outline, course description, session plans, class-notes, and students’ reflections as data for analysis. As a result, we developed our analytical stories of experiences under several themes.

Findings showcase insights arising from philosophical (ontological and epistemological) underpinnings, …

Clinical Field Experiences Of Nontraditional Pre-Service Teachers: Issues And Beliefs, Melanie Diloreto

Journal of Practitioner Research

According to the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE, 2010), effective teaching practices and good clinical experiences share a mutually beneficial relationship. Additionally, according to research reported by AACTE (2010), an important link exists between future P–12 student-achievement and effective clinical practices experienced by pre-service teachers. This case study sought to determine experiences deemed effective or important by nontraditional pre-service teachers while engaged in fieldwork completed in an elementary and/or middle school classroom setting. Four themes were derived from the qualitative data obtained through semi-structured interviews of four junior or senior teacher education students engaged in clinical field …

The Persuasive Art Of Responding, Diane Barone, Rebecca Barone

Journal of Practitioner Research

This practitioner research study looked at how elementary students created persuasive arguments in response to their reading of Doll Bones. Students frequently used settings to ground their arguments. This study suggests that having students persuasively respond to reading serves as a bridge or scaffold to persuasive writing.

Coach And Evaluator: Exploring How To Negotiate Both Functions In The Role Of Supervisor, Andrea T. Scalzo Willson

Journal of Practitioner Research

The tensions of engaging in both coaching and evaluation have driven this inquiry examining my practice as a university supervisor. I explored the ways I define the tasks that allow me to supervise in ways that align with my beliefs, while at the same time perform my duty as an evaluator. In order to examine my practice and the ways that I engage in evaluation and coaching as a supervisor, I considered those tasks in which I enacted such practices. Further, I envisioned a “hybrid” practice where both roles have a place and function while improving pre-service teaching practice.

Was The Professional Development I Conducted In South Africa Evident In Teachers’ Practices Many Years Later?, Darlene Demarie

Journal of Practitioner Research

I conducted professional development by working alongside the teachers I hired at a child development center in South Africa. I spent one year and 9 months there while I was a Fulbright CORE Scholar from 2007 to 2009. After 8 years with only two short visits back, the digital tools (photographs and videos) I used and reviewed with teachers at the time of the professional development also helped me to assess the impact of that professional development. I saw how it influenced the teachers' practice and noted what was similar and what had changed over the years.

A Pre-Service Math Teacher's Analysis Of Practice Through The Lens Of Research, Andre Vaquero, Laura D. Sabella

Journal of Practitioner Research

Understanding the prior knowledge and schema students bring to a lesson is important (Veenman, 1984), and without that crucial understanding, a teacher can create a gap between what students can actually learn and what the teacher is trying to teach (Schraw, 2006). After a pre-service math teacher realized valuable instructional time was wasted when students could not follow his instruction, he undertook this study to examine scaffolding as a problem of practice. In a high school Algebra 1 class, he taught a series of lessons during a unit on rational functions with a focus on understanding student foundational knowledge and …

Impact On Student Learning: Monitoring Student Progress, Deanna T. Vaccaro, Laura D. Sabella

Journal of Practitioner Research

Monitoring each individual student’s learning can be a challenge. It is easy for a teacher to ask the whole group a question, but doing so is not an effective strategy to determine an individual student’s progress. In Florida, student teachers are required to ask the question, “What is my impact on student learning?” as a part of his/her final internship experience. This study takes place in the final internship of a Secondary English Education major’s eleventh grade English Honors class at a high performing, high achieving high school in one of the largest school districts in the country. A class …

Maximizing Learning And Engaging Students In Elementary Social Studies, Autumn Handin, Jessica Leeman

Journal of Practitioner Research

Social studies has historically been marginalized in elementary school classrooms, with little instructional time devoted to the subject (Houser, 1995; VanFossen, 2005). Pressed for time, teachers frequently turn to teacher-directed methods that promote passive learning and perpetuate the perception that social studies is a boring and irrelevant subject in the lives of students (Zaho & Hoge, 2005). If social studies instruction is to be meaningful, teachers must utilize active learning strategies that encourage social interaction and discourse. Brain-based learning strategies connect pedagogy with cognitive neuroscience, allowing students to “learn more quickly, retain and recall more, and enjoy learning” (Kagan, 2016, …

Social Studies In The Elementary Classroom: Helping Students Make Sense Of Their World, Lauren Clark, Angela Hooser

Journal of Practitioner Research

This paper documents my journey as a preservice teacher engaging in practitioner inquiry to make social studies more meaningful for my first grade students. I begin by briefly introducing my background with social studies as an elementary student and my growing interest in making improvements to my own social studies instruction. Next, I provide information on the data I collected and the social studies lessons that I designed and taught. Then, I discuss three themes identified from the data that encapsulate the most important learning related to planning and engaging students in meaningful social studies lessons. Finally, I share reflections …

Engaging In Practitioner Inquiry And Critical Dialogue To Explore Student Engagement In A Fifth-Grade Classroom, Bailey Brown, Steve Haberlin

Journal of Practitioner Research

Classroom management and student engagement remain a top concern among emerging teachers In this article, we, a preservice teacher in her final internship in an undergraduate elementary education program, and a university supervisor, engaged in inquiry and critical dialogue to explore how various instructional strategies impacted student engagement in a fifth-grade classroom. The teacher collected qualitative data through interviews, photographs, surveys and observational notes and searched for thematic patterns within the data. To further challenge her beliefs, assumptions and perspectives as an educator, the teacher and supervisor participated as critical friends by engaging in reflective dialogue about her practice and …