Laura Weis
Current Event #2
Examining the Experiences of Three Generations of Teacher Researchers through
Collaborative Science Teacher Inquiry
Summary:
This article is a research article on active research projects. It explores active
research collaboration through the eyes of three generations of teachers. It summarizes
teachers’ experiences with action research. This study looks at teachers who have
completed or participated in 1-2 action research projects, teachers who have never
completed or participated in action research projects, and teachers who are leading action
research projects for the first time or multiple times. This project focuses on
collaborative action research which means that teachers join together to take action in
response to different issues and concerns regarding their teaching practice. The leaders
of this project were from rural, urban, and suburban schools in Massachusetts. The
teachers had all been teaching for over 10 years and were considered experts in their field
of science. The teachers recorded their feelings about the action research project and
analyzed the outcome. Then, teachers reflected on the benefits and weaknesses of action
research. Some teachers struggled with it, but then realized that the benefits of
collaboration outweighed the negatives. Each teacher focused on one particular aspect of
their teaching practice.
Analysis:
This article is strong because it only has one variable: school types (urban,
suburban, rural). It keeps the rest of the variables the same including location in the US,
amount of time teaching, and gender. It also keeps the courses taught similar within
science. The article asks the participating teachers the same questions and looks at their
answers objectively. It includes information that one participating teacher gave that is
not favorable towards action research.
This article is weak because it does not discuss the weaknesses in action research.
The study does mention that careful planning and coordination is required in order to
create collaboration groups that work well together and are successful. However, it does
not provide guidelines as to how to establish these groups. It does say that teachers
should be involved in creating the groups and that this empowers teachers to be more
confident.
This article implies that collaborative action research to improve teaching
practices can empower teachers and be beneficial. However, action research
collaboration requires time and effort from the participants and requires that participants
remain professional. Participants cannot become too personal or political or else the trust
that is needed to have a collaborative action research group is lost.
Reflection:
I think the collaboration between other science teachers is always necessary and
important. Collaborative action research can be beneficial to improve individual teaching
practice. Talk to your colleagues and share ideas. It is important to establish regular
meetings where ideas are shared and to establish protocol for those meetings. Too many
times I have been at structured teacher planning time or department meetings where we
have wasted the time discussing irrelevant personal items and have not discussed our
teaching practice. Those ideas are the most relevant to my practice.