Detached and Unsustainable: Central Tensions in Teacher Research Capstones and the Possibilities for Reimagined Inquiry

Detached and Unsustainable: Central Tensions in Teacher Research Capstones and the Possibilities for Reimagined Inquiry Ellie Fitts Fulmer and Jill Bodner Ithaca College Abstract With increased frequency, teacher education programs require candidates to engage in practice-based research capstones (e.g. Lattimer, 2012; Mule 2006). Yet, experience provides evidence that newly credentialed teachers regularly disregard the practice of teacher inquiry immediately after graduation, prompting the authors to ask, how can the teacher research thesis be better utilized to foster a career-long inquiry stance? This article highlights central tensions in the teacher research theses common in teacher education programs, and suggests a vision for change. Using narrative resonance (Conle, 1996), the authors articulate possibilities for transformed teacher research capstones that are rooted in practitioner inquiry. This argument connects with calls for reflective pedagogy of teacher education (Loughran, 2007), establishing quality in beginning teacher researchers’ work (DiLucchio & Leaman, 2012), and cultivating sustainable inquiry practices that teachers can easily draw upon (Beck, 2017; Massey, et al., 2009). Recommendations include, 1) grounding teacher research in a practitioner inquiry framework (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) as opposed to action research methodologies; 2) inviting practicing K-12 teacher researchers to be research guides; and 3) transforming expectations from an academia-oriented paper to participation in a network of teacher researchers. Through this reimagined practice of beginning teacher research, we suggest increased likelihood of cultivating life-long teacher researchers

Adolescent Literacy and Collaborative Inquiry

In a teacher education classroom in Toronto, groups of middle school students, teacher candidates, and university researchers, members of our research collaborative, the Teaching to Learn Project (Simon et al., 2014; Simon & the Teaching to Learn Project, 2014), discuss projects developed from curricula they coauthored for Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (1986). Maus documents Spiegelman’s father’s recollections of the Holocaust and the author’s own struggles to come to terms with what it means to be the child of a Holocaust survivor. Youth and teachers involved in the Teaching to Learn Project collectively worked through what historian Dominick LaCapra (1998) has referred to as the “delicate relationship between empathy and critical distance” (pp. 4–5) in the process of responding to Spiegelman’s text, a book that reflects profound human suffering. Through collaborative inquiries, the group attempted to challenge the traditional notion that curriculum is developed for students (or for teachers), and instead aimed to work with students to meaningfully engage with issues that mattered from individuals’ perspectives. We also coresearched this process. Building on a cross-site partnership between a middle school in the Toronto District School Board and our university, we involved youth and teachers in the process of inquiry. This included data collection, as well as inviting participants to document their understandings through writing, film, video, and conceptual art. This multifaceted collaboration allowed us to explore how adolescents individually and collectively imagine alternative ways of engaging with a text such as Maus, while at the same time providing a space for teacher candidates to develop pedagogical practices from listening to and collaborating with students who participated with them on our research team

Centrifugal and centripetal forces in the discourse of early years reading instruction

This thesis reports on a research project investigating how a sample of eight teachers of P2 children in Scotland encouraged dialogic interaction in their reading groups while following prescriptive policy. The research is based on a detailed analysis of the discourse of reading sessions conducted by the eight teachers, and is informed by previous research on oral language development, the role of dialogue in children’s learning, and the relationships between reading development and classroom discussion. The project uses mixed methods, applied to a framework derived from exchange structure research. Patterns of interaction have been examined quantitatively and qualitatively, with a particular focus on learners’ initiations, the making of text-life links by learners and teachers, and the extent to which these are integrated into the reading experience by the teachers’ use of contingent responses. The discourse analysis section of the findings is preceded by a preliminary examination of the teachers’ beliefs about classroom talk, and is followed by discussion of their views on the usefulness and adaptability of the research process itself as a means for enabling them to make their reading sessions more interactive. The project finds that the interactivity of the reading sessions is shaped by the teachers’ moment-by-moment decision-making about the control of centrifugal and centripetal forces in discourse; in particular, how far to allow children’s personal responses to the text to deflect group attention from the central goals of skill development and text coverage laid down by reading policy. The teachers reported their own experiences of teaching reading as being characterised by a tension between encouraging children’s personal engagement with, and responses to, reading material, and fulfilling the demands of a prescriptive curriculum within severe time constraints

Finding the Questions: A Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study of Pre-Service Practitioner Inquiry

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-SmithTeacher quality is a central concern of the profession. College-based teacher education, the core of teacher preparation in the United States, has increasingly included some form of practitioner inquiry in the pre-service program to encourage teacher candidates to be reflective, adaptive teachers who systematically and intentionally examine practice to improve pupil outcomes and continue their own professional development. While it is assumed that pre-service practitioner inquiry has a positive influence on pupils' learning, there is still little empirical evidence to support this assertion. Most empirical data on pre-service practitioner inquiry is confined to a short time period and does not examine what happens to pre-service candidates when they enter their own classrooms. Additionally, this research is generally conducted using interpretive qualitative methods. Thus, this dissertation uses a longitudinal mixed methods approach to examine what happens when teacher candidates engage in practitioner research in a pre-service program focused on inquiry with the goal of improving pupil learning. A modified sequential explanatory mixed methods design was employed as the best means of addressing this complex question. The study included data from three sources in a teacher preparation program focused on practitioner inquiry. The first analysis took a broad view of the quality and range of teacher candidates' research papers through the analysis of rubric scores for 92 teacher candidate inquiry papers in two cohorts (spring, 2006 and spring, 2007). Looking at the quality and nature of these projects, content analysis on a sample of twelve papers taken from the range of these scores was conducted. Finally, in-depth case studies of two participants were developed using data accumulated during the one-year pre-service program and through the first two years in the classroom. Findings in the quantitative analysis indicated that the rubric was reliable in differentiating among papers, but that there were fewer outstanding inquiries than expected, which were not explained by analysis of the scores. Content analysis of a sample of these papers indicated that differences were in how questions were formed; candidates' ability to interpret and use data recursively; whether and how candidates connected their learning to pupil learning; and if candidates connected their inquiry to issues of social justice in meaningful ways. The case studies showed that several factors influenced whether and how candidates moved toward the development of inquiry as stance. These factors included candidates' view of inquiry; teacher capacity; demands of curriculum planning and development; understandings of learning to teach for social justice; as well as school support and context. Overall, the three analyses in this dissertation indicated that requiring teacher candidates to engage in pre-service practitioner inquiry did not guarantee that they would understand inquiry as intended, develop an inquiry stance, or continue to inquire into practice in their own classrooms. These findings suggest implications for research, practice, and policy, which are discussed.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction