Listserv Archives

Dear TNPIers:

We are ready to start our next TNPI listserv conversation. The moderator for this month is MetLife Fellow Bill Laraway--representing the TNPI affiliate in Santa Clara County (CA).

As per our reading schedule distributed this fall, the readings (yes, there are two--but they're both relatively short!) for this month are:

“Teacher-Researchers: All Dressed Up and No Place to Go?” by Christene K. Bennett. The URL for the article is: http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/edlead/9310/bennett.html

-AND-

"Research: Holding Up a Mirror?" by Debra Viadero. Education Week
[online]. June 12, 2002. The URL is: http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=40research.h21

As usual, you can get immediate access to these readings by clicking on the links pasted above.

Thanks so much. We're looking forward to a great conversation with Bill at
our helm!

Ellen and Peter
National Headquarters
March 12, 2003

I am passing on this interesting article in a recent Education Week, even though there are parts of the analysis I find weak, because I think it indicates a debate which TNPI should be aware of, and perhaps even try to intervene in. The authors represent a 'middle ground,' such at is, in the great debates over education; Andrew Rotherham, for example, is the education person for the New Democrats, the centrist to conservative grouping of Democrats which include the Clintons [Bill & Hillary], Gore, Lieberman, etc. The article’s address is: http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=26fleischman.h22

It would be an interesting exercise, I think, to craft a teacher's response, from teachers actively engaged in research. There needs to be some deconstruction, I would suggest, of what constitutes "scientific" research.

Leo Casey
New York City
March 18, 2003

I’d like to begin this conversation with the following question:
As a teacher researcher, how does your district support your involvement?

I think this will be a very interesting conversation.

Bill Laraway
Santa Clara County, CA
March 18, 2003

Our district feels teacher research is so important we spent our first three days of in-service on how to find the question and then follow up procedures.
Our district has purchased research materials and many reference manuals from the experts in our fields of interest.
However, the down side of this is that our district mandated we would all participate and that has met some strong resistance.
The research our group has documented this year has shown significant positive results, and we have asked permission to pursue it for the next two to three years to establish a baseline and confirm our findings. It is exciting!

Anel Brodie
Wyoming
March 18, 2003

I think it is great that Wyoming supports teacher research with such vigor, but to mandate it is a huge mistake. That will just encourage a great deal of poorly done research and put this whole movement of teacher research in a bad light.
Practitioner research needs to be something stems from a special interest, not an assignment!

Barbara Hampton
Miami
March 18, 2003

Hello from Windy Los Angeles...

I would have to agree with Barbara, mandating teacher research would not be the most effective way to improve practice and build knowledge. Teachers that don't buy into the value of it may just go through the motions and turn in something that they don't care about. Good teachers conduct informal research in their classrooms every day. They may not see it that way, but they do. To require that every teacher come up with an action plan and then conduct more formal research can be a bit intimidating for some teachers. Maybe a way to ease teachers into research would be to ask them to collaborate on an issue. (Either by grade levels or interests). My feeling is that you want the process to be authentic (& meaningful); therefore, it should come directly from the interest and needs of the teacher conducting the research.

I do think it's great Anel that your district provides inservice in teacher research. I think they are more progressive then many districts. In Los Angeles, teacher research is still pretty new. I don't think the district as a whole has introduced TR as a form of professional development, although there are small pockets. At my former school last year, the principal allowed a group of us to conduct action research projects in lieu of the traditional stull (evaluation that was traditionally a lesson or portfolio). The principal was so thrilled with the results that she is making it an option for all permanent teachers being stulled. Not many of the teachers choose that option, but the ones that had gone through the process said they would definitely go through it again.

One way my local district has supported me is to assist me with introducing TR to other teachers and recognized TR as a valid form of professional development. For the past two years, they have approved salary point credit classes for TR. The teachers that got their feet wet last year in Action Research 101, are now eager to do more formal classroom inquiry. Teacher research can be a powerful form of PD, but it takes time. I introduced TR to The Early Literacy Club three years ago. Although they were interested, they did not feel ready. So, instead, we focused on other topics. Last year some of the network members conducted TR for the first time. Some teachers typed up their findings, while others just shared their results orally. This year some of the same teachers are ready to go a little further by writing and presenting their research more formally. It takes time, but once teachers are aware of how to conduct research, they are usually hooked.

Take Care!

Jane Fung
Los Angeles
March 19, 2003

I am not a teacher, but a district administrator. Although the linkage is not as "tight" as it could be, we do support teachers in "action research" in several ways. We have had a cohort of about 20-30 teachers for the last several years who are pursuing an MA in Teacher Leadership through our local university. As part of their culminating project, they have to complete an "action research project." Each of these teams of Acton Researchers has been encouraged to select research topics that are related to either their individual school or district initiatives. Many of the research projects and their results have been integrated into the work of the school and the district.

However, we do not solicit teacher researchers to investigate district issues outside of the MA program. We have and do continue to support one teacher as part of a county TNPI research team.

This is the district perspective. And there are variances at the school level. At one school in particular, all teachers are expected to be conducting some form of site-based research as part of their "community of learners" philosophy.

Thank you,

John Erkman
Santa Clara County, CA
March 19, 2003

Our district, the East Side Union High School District in San Jose, CA, offers four distinct MA programs offered at school sites in order to promote professional development and teacher research. All of these programs require teachers to choose a research topic to improve some aspect of their school. Our district also supports national board certification (which has a research/reflection component) by paying for most of the application fee.

In order to formalize the decision making process, all administrators/coordinators were trained in the cycle of inquiry process last year. District and school site administrators always appreciate teacher research in order to assist them in data driven decision-making. This process has been long in coming, but has caught enough momentum to become standard operation—it’s not going away!

Robert Ibarra
Santa Clara County, CA
March 19, 2003

Boy, it's nice to read that there are districts that support teacher
research. My district does not provide any support, even though they
are aware of my participation in the project.

Bill Laraway
Santa Clara County, CA
March 20, 2003

Hello, fellow TNPIers! Ellen asked Jane and me to post a copy of our letter to Education Week, which we wrote in response to the article Leo posted last week (Research into Practice). So, here it is!

To the Editor:

As classroom teachers and researchers, we feel compelled to respond to the March 12th article "From Research to Practice." While we agree that the authors are asking important questions (How desirable is evidence-based practice in education? and Why do educators and policy leaders frequently fail to utilize education research?), we feel that their proposed solutions miss the mark in at least two areas. First, the "education-knowledge industry" described by the authors leaves out a very valuable, and untapped, source of education knowledge--practitioner-researchers. Second, the authors state that "Educators . . . will have to learn, accept, and apply what 'best evidence' demonstrates to be effective." Our question is, whose "best evidence?" And why is the burden placed on educators to learn, accept and apply?

Educational research is not like other sciences. Teaching and learning are incredibly complex. What may have been shown to be an effective method in one part of the country or with one group of students may not transfer to another. There are too many variables involved to "scientifically control for" them all and make any definitive claims about what works and doesn't work in every single classroom setting.

We think researchers should make their data and results accessible, as advocated in Education Week's March 19th article, "Scholars Aim to Connect Studies to Schools' Needs." This article emphasizes that "One of the big problems in educational research is that people haven't understood the need to take research one step further and translate it to usable knowledge." It also advocates "ongoing collaboration between researchers and practitioners, so that researchers address the questions front-line educators are asking." These ideas make a great deal of sense to us, as we have engaged in action research in our respective classrooms for the past five years. Our research results have informed our own practice and that of numerous colleagues both at the local and national level through our work with Teachers Network Policy Institute (TNPI), conference presentations, committee memberships, and publishing. Educators can read our results and weigh our information against their own contexts, because we address relevant questions and produce data that is both accessible and usable, as well as understandable. We wonder why our work, and that of our practitioner colleagues, continues to be overlooked as a source of understandable and usable knowledge about teaching and learning.

We were delighted to see Ellen Meyers' eloquent description of TNPI (March 26th) and the important forum it provides for the teacher voice in policy research and decision-making. We encourage practitioner researchers to seek out opportunities to make their voices heard. After all, classroom teachers are the true educational experts.

Jane Ching Fung, MEd, NBCT
Milken Educator, 2002
Los Angeles, CA

Gail V. Ritchie, MEd, NBCT
Fairfax County Teacher of the Year, 2000
Fairfax, VA

March 26, 2003

Dear TNPIers:

I just wanted to let you know that you can now read Ellen’s letter to the editor of EdWeek (as referenced in Gail Ritchie’s March 24th listserv posting) by going to the press clips area of the TNPI web site (teachersnetwork.org/tnli/press/clips.htm) and clicking on Whither Teachers? Trying to Be Heard.

I encourage you to read this uplifting letter if you haven’t already. It’s a testament to you and the important, groundbreaking work you do!

Thanks,


Ben Iddings
Program Associate, National Headquarters
March 27, 2003