In last week’s post, we started to explore the idea of teachers and leaders as researchers of practice. We learned that educational practitioners have a unique insider perspective and should make research a part of the work. In this week’s post we’ll focus on a five step process you can follow to study, improve and innovate your practice.
1. Start with yourself. The best approach to studying your own practice is to uncover your beliefs and values as a teacher and learner. By spending time thinking about the question, “How did I become the teacher I am today?” you will provide yourself with the grounding for future questioning and reflection on your practice.
I have used this approach with success in my graduate course Teacher as Inquirer. Teachers in the course imagine they are going to write their teacher autobiography. Recalling memories of particular contexts, encounters with teachers throughout the lifespan who have been influential, and particular learning and/or teaching experiences, learners draft a table of contents followed by a brief summary of each chapter. Read more about the assignment if you are interested in further detail.
The activity has consistently received positive feedback such as this. “Writing the autobiography and reflecting back on my educational past really put things into perspective for my work in the course and classroom. I never had the chance to sit back and truly think and reflect on all the twists and turns, reasons and signs that lead me to the place I am currently in my career.” In order to inquire into your practice it is valuable to first inquire into yourself as an educator. I hope you’ll give it a try!
2. Ask questions…lots of questions. What is the problem of practice you’d like to change or make better? Start with these simple questions: What am I doing (or not doing)? Is there something I can improve? How might I improve? Why should I improve?
Is there a concept your students consistently find challenging? Is there an “uncommon dot” you’d like to bring into your district because you know it will benefit your learners? Author Warren Berger suggests we start uncovering our challenges by asking three kinds of questions: Why…? What if…? and How?.
As a new superintendent, one of the ways our new Assistant Superintendent, Lynn Fuini-Hetten, and I have been studying our practice and the practices of our district is through the entry plan process. After spending many months talking to students, teachers, parents, board members, community members and other administrators, we generated a series of questions about improving teaching/learning, communication and community. We started with many Why? What if? and How? questions that will be narrowed down to become the foundation of future action plans.
3. Learn everything you can about your challenge. You’ve identified a challenge in the form of a question. Now it’s time to start uncovering answers! In the age of abundance, it’s never been easier to research great questions. In the process, you will access traditional means, such as books, articles and colleagues, but don’t forget to harness the power of digital to support your learning. It’s never been easier to make connections with other minds addressing the same challenges. Find the experts and those with the same challenges by reading blogs, listening to podcasts, searching Twitter and participating in Twitter chats.
At the start of this school year, Lynn and I shared a keynote at our district Opening Day: Uncovering the Uncommon Dots. As our stakeholders move to more clearly articulate a vision for our classrooms in 2020, we challenged our staff to take risks and identify those practices common in the outside world but not yet common in our schools. In our research to identify the “uncommon dots,” our Innovate Salisbury team has been reading various books and connecting with the authors through podcast interviews. As you can see, we are leveraging technology resources (Twitter, podcasts, blogs, etc.) to make connections with experts to learn as much as we can in the quest to answer our questions about a vision for 2020.
4. Develop and implement action plans, collect and analyze data. Take what you’ve learned from your research and create an action plan. What will you do? How will you implement your plan? What will you look for to determine whether the plan was effective or not? How will you examine the data to come to useful conclusions?
A year ago we noticed that most of the learning opportunities provided to our students fell on the substitution/augmentation levels of the SAMR model. As a result of uncovering this challenge, two questions emerged: (1) What are the critical factors of success for our teachers who are creating transformational learning experiences (modification/redefinition levels of the SAMR model)? (2) Which factors of success can school and district leadership foster? After researching the challenge and working with experts, including SAMR model creator Ruben Puentedura, we developed and implemented an action plan that articulated data sources and a plan for collaborative analysis. As a result of implementing the action plan, we have identified six (6) critical factors of success and are now developing action plans at the building level to support those factors in all of our teachers.
5. Reflect and share. Since this isn’t academic research, reflection doesn’t have to be in writing; it can be in any format that works for your learning, including robust conversations. During reflection you will think about what you did during the research process, make judgements about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of what you did, and, most importantly, plan for your future work. It’s important to note that during the reflection you’ll want to go back to your initial work uncovering your beliefs and values. This earlier work will undoubtedly guide your interpretations and pay great dividends! It’s also worth noting that practitioner research is an iterative process – you likely won’t get it right the first time. In fact, you may outright fail on the first try. And that’s okay.. With robust reflection, you’ll figure out what to change for the next time around. Finally, depending on your audience, share out your work. Others addressing the same challenge will be appreciative. Consider sharing your work on social media as well.
In my undergraduate and graduate classes, reflection is a key component since so much of what we do is grounded in action research. I like to use a reflection protocol borrowed from Howard Rheingold.
Describe the experience objectively. (What did I do, see, read, hear, etc.?)
Interpret the events. (Explain what feelings you had and why you had such feelings. Include connections with other learning or life experiences. Include hypotheses by answering the question: What might this mean? Evaluate what you observed, making judgements.)
Plan how this information will be useful to you. (What concrete recommendations for future inquiry can you give yourself?)
Whether teacher or leader, the above process can be applied to any problem of practice in any role. Remember, your research need not have all the trappings of academic research – formal literature reviews, correct APA citations and written final reports. This is practitioner research after all. It’s research by practitioners, for practitioners. What you will have, though, is a great question of practice, a plan you can act on, data to analyze, articulated outcomes and a plan for next steps resulting all the result of rigorous reflection. You’ll also have achieved the ultimate goal of improved practice!
Interested in learning more about practitioner research? I recommend these resources:
- Anderson, G. L., Herr, K., & Nihlen, A. S. (2007). Studying your own school: An educator’s guide to qualitative practitioner research.
- McNiff, J & Whitehead, J. (2012). All you need to know about action research.
Which steps outlined above do you connect with most? How will you approach studying your practice in the year ahead?
Connect with Randy on Twitter and on the TLTalkRadio podcast!
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