Practitioner Research For Educators

Practical, accessible and up-to-date, this book draws directly on the work of teachers and other professional trainers concerned with programs for continuing professional development.

This book is a guide to research methods for practitioner research. Written in friendly and accessible language, it includes numerous practical examples based on the authors' own experiences in the field, to support readers. The authors provide information and guidance on developing research skills such as gathering and analysing information and data, reporting findings and research design. They offer critical perspectives to help users reflect on research approaches and to scrutinise key issues in devising research questions. This book is for undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers and practitioners in practitioner research development and leadership programmes. The team of authors are all within the School of Education at the University of Glasgow and have significant experience of working with practitioner researchers in education.

The authors show how being able to conduct and understand research is vital for the professional development of teachers.

Appropriate for novice and experienced educators alike, this indispensable book explains how practitioner research can be used to solve instructional problems and improve student achievement.

Extensively revised, this new edition provides the theoretical underpinnings of practitioner action research as well as the "how-to" information necessary for classroom application.

There is now a widespread expectation that teachers and coaches should be reflective practitioners, an expectation written into national standards of education in many countries. This innovative book introduces the methods by which teachers and coaches can conduct research into their own professional practice and therefore become more effective reflective practitioners, improving their students’ learning as a result. As the only book on practitioner research that focuses specifically on the unique challenges of working in a physical education or youth sport environment, it uses real-life case studies and applied practical examples to guide the reader through the research process step-by-step. Examining the what, why and how of four key research methods in particular – action research, narrative enquiry, autoethnography and self-study – it provides an expert analysis of the strengths and limitations of each method and demonstrates how conducting reflective research can produce tangible results in improving both teaching and learning. This is an invaluable resource for all those interested in enhancing their professional development as students, practitioners or researchers of physical education and youth sport.

In this long-awaited sequel to Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge, two leaders in the field of practitioner research offer a radically different view of the relationship of knowledge and practice and of the role of practitioners in educational change. In their new book, the authors put forward the notion of inquiry as stance as a challenge to the current arrangements and outcomes of schools and other educational contexts. They call for practitioner researchers in local settings across the United States and around the world to ally their work with others as part of larger social and intellectual movements for social change and social justice. Part I is a set of five essays that conceptualize inquiry as a stance and as a transformative theory of action that repositions the collective intellectual capacity of practitioners. Part II is a set of eight chapters written by eight differently positioned practitioners who are or were engaged in practitioner research in K–12 schools or teacher education. Part III offers a unique format for exploring inquiry as stance in the next generation—a readers’ theatre script that juxtaposes and co-mingles 20 practitioners’ voices in a performance-oriented format. Together the three parts of the book point to rich possibilities for practitioner inquiry in the next generation. Contributors: Rebecca Akin, Gerald Campano, Delvin Dinkins, Kelly A. Harper, Gillian Maimon, Gary McPhail, Swati Mehta, Rob Simon,and Diane Waff “Cochran-Smith and Lytle once again prove themselves to be among the best at melding theory and practice. Instead of merely making the case for practitioner inquiry they go the next step to show us exactly what this genre brings to our field—rigor, relevance, and passion. The interplay of conceptual clarity and powerful exemplars make this a text we will read well into the next decade.” —Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin–Madison “Once again, Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle point the way to new and hopeful understandings of practitioner research. Rather than blame teachers for all that is wrong with education, they and their fellow authors remind us that if school reform is to have any chance of fulfilling its stated goal of equal opportunity for all students, teachers must have a significant voice in research, policy, and practice. With its focus on social justice and its view of practitioner research as transformative, this is a powerful and welcome sequel to their classic Inside/Outside.” —Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst “Inquiry as Stance should be a blockbuster. This brilliant sequel re-calibrates relationships between practitioner inquiry and social justice.” —Carole Edelsky, Professor Emerita, Arizona State University “This optimistic and generous book is sure to become a central reference for teacher-researchers in K–16 schools and their colleagues and supporters throughout the system.” —Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Director, National Programs and Site Development, National Writing Project, University of California, Berkeley “This view of the intellectual and personal work of teaching is a major counter to the contemporary emphasis on testing and packaged curricula.” —Cynthia Ballenger, reading specialist, Cambridge Public Schools “Once again Cochran-Smith, Lytle, and their colleagues bring us an invaluable book on the enormous possibilities of practitioner research.” —Luis C. Moll, College of Education, University of Arizona

`This is a very simple but notable piece of work....they have done a service to education in providing evidence (and there is remarkably little elsewhere) that continuous professional development does pay off in terms of a better education for pupils in schools' - School Leadership and Management Much debate currently concerns the value of education research : how is it perceived by practitioners and students ? How useful and relevant is it ? Who best carries it out ? Can it be free from political influence ? While practitioner research is widely advocated, little is known about its effect on individuals, teams and the institution. In Practitioner Research in Education, the au