Ed. 286: Action Research as Professional Development
(aka Professional Development as Inquiry)
Instructor: Sharon Feiman-Nemser
Place: On-line
Time: Wed, 7-9
Synchronous sessions: Jan. 10 & 24; Feb. 7 & 14; Mar. 14 & 21; April 11 & 25.
Asynchronous weeks: You will move your work forward during “asynchronous” weeks which will periodically include 1:1 meetings with me.
781-736-2946 (office), 781-985-6247 (cell)
The word research suggests that the researcher is proving something, frequently to someone else…While research has the right literal meaning – to look again—its connotations may be wrong for what teachers are doing. We are not researchers in other people’s classrooms, looking for proofs and generalizable truths, but reflective practitioners in our own classrooms, searching for insights that will help us understand and improve our practice. That does not exclude us from finding generalizable truths, although we may not know when we have found them. (Glenda Bissex, 1996, p. 14.Inquiry is a core tool teachers evoke when making informed and systematic decisions. Through the inquiry process, teachers can support with evidence the decisions they make as educators and, subsequently, advocate for particular children, changes in curriculum, and/or change in pedagogy. Inquiry ultimately emerges as action and results in change. (Nancy Dana and Diane Yendol-Hoppey, 2014, p.27).
What you do about what you don’t know is, in the final analysis, what determines what you will ultimately know. (Eleanor Duckworth, 1987, p. 68).
Researching teaching differs from reflective teaching in its necessary commitment to discipline, or explicit method used in gathering and analyzing data, and to the fact that this commitment can be publicly told. (Donald Freeman, 1998, p. 187).
Goals and Learning Outcomes
This seminar is part of the “teacher leadership as instructional improvement” strand in the Ed. M. in Teacher Leadership. The overarching goal is to foster a learning stance (aka inquiry stance) toward teaching and teacher leadership. This means developing the habit of turning “wonderings” into questions and gathering evidence to shed light on those questions. It also means being reflective about your decisions and actions, and their effects on students, teachers and the school.A secondary goal is to deepen your practice as a teacher leader through action research. By conducting a study of your facilitation practice, we hope you will refine your skill as a facilitator of teacher learning and come to see how action research can be a powerful form of professional learning.
Marilyn-Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle (2001) explain how, through professional learning and action research, questioning can become part of teaching and the culture of teaching:
A legitimate and essential purpose of professional development is the development of an inquiry stance on teaching that is critical and transformative, a stance linked not only to high standards for the learning of all students but also to social chance and social justice and to the individual and collective professional growth of teachers (p. 46)
As a result of this course, you will strengthen your ability to --
- Study your practice in systematic ways;
- Facilitate professional learning to improve teaching and learning;
- Develop and share knowledge of practice with colleagues.
Overview of Learning Activities
During the Fall, you learned about practitioner action research and began to think about studying your own practice as a teacher leader. This semester you will conduct a focused study of some aspect of your practice as a facilitator of collaborative professional learning. This means investigating a version of the general question below or a question focused on some relevant aspect:
How can I facilitate productive discussions with my colleagues that foster teacher learning and lead to improvements in teaching and learning?
Each person’s study will be modest in scope. The expectation is that you will analyze 2 sessions related to your teacher leader initiative, including at least one transcript of a complete session, along with some complementary data such as agendas, exit tickets, interviews with colleagues. By analyzing records of practice (e.g. audio or video recordings), you will gain insights into your practice as a facilitator of teacher learning and identify some new actions to take in the future. Focusing our inquiries on a common question also allows for collective learning about effective facilitation of teacher learning and how to think about and manage some facilitation challenges and dilemmas.
You have already worked on framing one or more questions about your facilitation practice and reviewed some relevant literature. You have also uploaded videos of your work to Edthena. Besides building on the work from Fall semester, we will rely on existing records of practice as much as possible. (Depending on the quality and quantity of the videos you uploaded to Edthena, you may have to collect some new data early in the Winter term.)
Much of the course will run as a workshop, providing you time to share work-in-progress and get feedback and suggestions
Structure and Activities
The course is organized into three units which will blend into one another. Below is a brief description of each unit and the work products you will produce in each unit.
Unit 1: Preparing for Data Analysis (Jan. 10-Feb. 7)
The first unitspans the first four weeks of the semester. During this time you will finalize your research question and sub-questions, catalogue existing data or collect new data, select one session for close study and transcribe that session. We will also read some research on facilitation that may inform your practice as well as your research.
You will produce two work products. The first is research memo #1 (aka inquiry brief) in which you present the main question (and any sub-questions) driving your inquiry, explain what the question means and why it is important to you, identify the session you plan to analyze first and why you chose it and indicate what additional data you would like to analyze. You will transcribe the session you identified in preparation for the second unit.
Unit 2: Data Analysis (Feb. 14-March 28)
The data analysis unit spans the next six weeks of the term and constitutes the heart of our work. Analyzing data means getting your data to “talk to you” and figuring out what thedata “say.” This is not a linear process and there will be times of uncertainty and confusion. If you keep at it, ask for help and trust the process, valuable patterns and insights will emerge.
You will each have a research partner. Getting inside your partner’s research (and having your partner get inside your action research project) will position you to give and receive helpful feedback.
The main work of the unit is analyzing 1-2 sessions, with special attention to your facilitation moves, and if time permits, analyzing some complementary data (e.g. agendas, exit cards, interviews with colleagues). You will bring data to class, share preliminary analyses with your research partner, consult 1:1 with me.
You will try out and write up two different analyses of the transcript you prepared – one based on ideas that emerge from a close reading of the transcript itself (grounded coding) and a second using some concepts or categories gleaned from your reading (a priori coding). You will write up these analyses in research memo #2 where you describe your data analysis journey.
I will read and give feedback on a draft of this memo. You will also get feedback from your research partner. Then you will revise your research memo and submit a final version which describes the data you analyzed, how you went about it and what you found. Only the revised version of research memo #2 will be graded.
Unit 3: Going Public (April 11-May 2)
The third unit, which spans the last three weeks of the course, is a time to frame the main findings from your study, consider their implications for your practice as a teacher leader and share what you did and what you learned. This will take several forms.
You will each present your research to some group of colleagues at your school. The audience could be small and informal (e.g.a handful of interested teachers, administrators) or larger and more formal (e.g. a department or faculty meeting) or anything in between (e.g. your PLC or grade level team). You will also present your study to each other and hopefully to some coaches and program instructors in our last synchronous class meeting.
Finally you will write up an executive summary, drawing on research memos #1 and #2. This is the final graded product of the course.
A detailed description of each written assignment and assessment criteria can be found on Latte.
Readings and Resources
We will do some common reading including several chapters from the book you used in the Fall semester: Dana, N. and Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2008). The reflective educator’s guide to professional development: Coaching inquiry-oriented learning communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Other readings will be posted on Latte.
Requirements, Expectations and Grading
Across the semester, you will produce a variety of “products.” Some will be graded (G); others will be ungraded (UG). The “ungraded” work will be factored into the assessment of your preparation and participation.
It is critical that you prepare for and participate in synchronous and asynchronous work. This will insure your individual progress and learning, and contribute to the quality of our joint learning. Grades will be based on your preparationand thoughtful participation, the quality and timeliness of your work, your diligence and responsibility in staying on top of the work, your initiative in seeking help from instructor and colleagues and responding to feedback.
The chart below identifies the allocation of points for graded and ungraded work.
Graded Work / Ungraded WorkPreparation and participation , includes ungraded work (30 points)
Research memo #1 (20 points)
Research memo #2 (30 points)
Executive summary (20 points) / “Homework” (e.g. responding to readings, sharing data, responding to partner’s memo)
Transcript
Drafts of research memos
Presentation to colleagues
.
Be sure to communicate by email if you anticipate missing a class or need an extension. In the former case, propose how you will make up the work; in the latter case, propose a date when the work will be turned in.
According to Brandeis guidelines for a 3 credit course, you are expected to spend a minimum of 7 hours per week preparing for class and working on various assignments.
FIX
Exceeds / 95 / A / 93%-96%Meets / 91 / A- / 90%-92%
Meets / 88 / B+ / 87%-89%
Approaching / 84 / B / 83%-86%
Approaching / 80 / B- / 80%-82%
Academic accommodations
If you need academic accommodations because of a documented disability, please get in touch with me and send a letter of accommodation as soon as possible. If you have questions about documenting a disability or requesting academic accommodations, you should contact the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Letters of accommodation should be presented at the start of the semester to insure provision of accommodations. Accommodations cannot be granted retroactively.
Academic integrity
Academic integrity is central to the mission of Brandeis University. As stated in the Rights and Responsibilities Handbook: “Every member of the University community is expected to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty. A student shall not receive credit for work that is not the product of the student’s own effort.” Examples of penalties for a student found responsible for an infringement of academic honesty are (a) no credit for work in question; (b) failure in the course; (c) the traditional range of sanctions ranging from disciplinary warning through permanent dismissal from the University.
It is one of the chief obligations of each member of Brandeis’ academic community to understand and uphold the University’s policies regarding academic honesty. Allegations of academic dishonesty by undergraduate or graduate students are reported to the Office of Student Development and Conduct for adjudication within the Student Judicial System
Outline of Synchronous and Asynchronous Sessions[1]
UNIT 1: PREPARING FOR DATA ANALYSIS
Synchronous session 1, Jan. 10: Introducing the Course1
[1] This syllabus represents my “best guess” about how to organize and pace our work. Since this is the first time I am teaching action research on-line and to fulltime teachers, we will likely have to make some adjustments in the schedule.