Critical studies in teacher research: Teacher voice and the classroom

Taylor A Norman, Purdue University

Abstract

Teacher research, also known as `action research' or `practitioner research,' is educational research performed by and for the classroom teacher. Teacher research provides itself as a space where stories of classroom inquiry and observation can exist. This study works with teachers, intimately, to gauge their feelings towards and reactions to teacher research. The use of a communal teacher workshop reports the teachers' compliance or resistance to research projects written by them, for them. In order to depict the teachers' reactions, though, the story of its fruition must also be told. Through the use of field-based discourse analysis (Bloom, et al., 2008), the teachers' narratives are provided and analyzed in order to understand their involvement with teacher research (Emihovich, 1995; Barone, 1995). The teachers' stories are brought forth in this study in order to understand why teachers and how teachers reflect. First the study asks—do teachers engage in reflection? Second, can that reflection be called teacher research? And, last, how do we get teachers to write their own research studies based on their reflective experiences? During the workshop teachers engaged in theoretical readings about teaching, and met once a week to discuss these readings in connection to their classroom practice. Through the stories told during the teacher workshop and the research inquiry, this study gives voice to the experiences of the researcher and the involved teachers. While discussing theory in connection to classroom practice, a contradiction was revealed between the two. By way of teacher research methods and narrative inquiry tactics, experimental teacher research is suggested as a bridge between theory and practice.

Degree

M.S.Ed.

Advisors

Alsup, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Educational leadership|Pedagogy

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