Action Research: A Self-Directed Approach to Professional Development
In the Classroom with Bijal Damani
The best part about being a teacher is that you get to remain a student forever. Teachers are lifelong learners.
To be an effective educator, you must constantly pursue learning through workshops, conferences, on-site or online training modules, and seminars. Professional development can help teachers stay up-to-date with new trends and learn new techniques, strategies, and methods for dealing with various classroom challenges. But all professional development is not the same.
It's important to measure how much a teacher's classroom practices change after receiving professional development because training sometimes fails to meet the specific needs of a teacher. That is the reason that teachers may feel they haven't received the answer to the specific challenges they needed help facing, even after attending numerous seminars or workshops. This perceived deficiency can lead teachers to embrace professional development only when some reward is attached to it.
If you feel frustrated by not being able to find what you need, how about creating your own solutions? Every classroom challenge is as individual as the students in the class. Sometimes, instead of looking for solutions out there somewhere, it helps if a teacher learns to understand the challenge and experiments to find the answer that suits her class or students. Most teachers shy away from the word "research," thinking it is scholars' job to conduct research and come up with condensed data or analysis. But all of us are researchers, consciously or otherwise.
As teachers, we are always thinking about what we can do to reach out and engage students in our classes. And haven't we been experimenting by changing the way we give homework, grouping students differently, changing the classroom layout, or introducing some game or technology to see its effect on student learning? We have been doing these things for years—informally, maybe, but this is still a type of research.
Teachers can do action research by formally defining a problem, drafting a hypothesis, collecting and organizing data, and coming to a conclusion about the effect of the hypothesized change. And the conclusion you derive will be more meaningful and effective because it deals with your challenges and your solutions, keeping in mind your circumstances and resources.
Sharing of individual research among the teachers in a school is one of the most effective and inexpensive tools for teacher development. Action research can result in effective teaching, better learning outcomes, and more confident teachers. Try it in your school!
http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education_update/jul11/vol53/num07/Action_Research@_A_Self-Directed_Approach_to_Professional_Development.aspx
Tools for self-directed professional development
All professional development should be self-directed as individual teachers should have the autonomy to select how they want to use their PD resources. Just as students have different learning styles and needs, so too do teachers and thus the organization of professional development activities should reflect this. Research tells us that the most effective professional development occurs when teachers are in control of their own learning.
Teachers will be the drivers, not the driven—using objective evidence to help them improve, but never undervaluing their own experiential knowledge because of it. Professional learning communities will not be places for devising quick-fix solutions to disturbing data exposed by test score results, but places where wise and critical teachers engage with each other over their accumulated (though not unquestioned) knowledge using a wide range of data (not just test scores) to devise more powerful strategies that help all children learn. Andy Hargreaves. Five flaws of staff development and the future beyond. Journal of Staff Development 24, (July 2007) pp. 37–38.
Choices for professional development should be made carefully, involving teacher’s reflection on their practice, often including collaboration with colleagues. What follows here is a series of documents designed to help guide you through the choices associated with making your own self directed PD plan.
Developing a self-directed PD plan for teachers
This reflection form for developing a self-directed PD plan for teachers is a useful place to begin when establishing some broad PD goals for the year. What do you know about your own learning? Do you have a “wondering” about an aspect of your practice?
Reflection
1. Current strengths
My current strengths as a TEACHER are...
2. How I learn
I learn best when...
3. When I think about my practice, I wonder about areas of professional learning focus (developed by BCTF Research):
a. Teaching approaches
Preparation
Assessment
Differentiated instruction
Subject focus
Evolution of teaching to personalized learning
Classroom management / accountability
b. My role as a teacher
How I am teaching
My interactions with peers
Collaboration with peers
Interactions with students and parents
c. Context
Changes within the school
Changes at the district level
Ministry policies / documents
d. Students
Changes in learning approaches
In/out of school learning
Digital / technology use and access.
I have a lot of skills, but what do I want to know more about?
Now that you have spent some time thinking about your teaching practice in general, what specific elements of teaching do you want to focus on this year?
Inventory of elements of teaching
Check off the elements you are interested in learning more about, or add some of your own.
1. Leadership and planning
Mentoring
Lesson planning skills
Ability to pre-assess student needs
Ability to clarify learning outcomes
Long range planning skills
Understanding of different learning styles
Use a variety of teaching methods
Planning for individual differences
Unit planning skill
Developing new curriculum (units/programs)
Use of technology to enhance teaching and learning
2. Teaching skills
Clear directions to students
Good pacing of instruction
Interesting, clear, teaching methods
Explanation of objectives to students
Solid topic introductions
Use of a variety of teaching techniques
Use of questions which extend thinking
Maximization of student participation in lessons
Effective use of small groups
Individualized instruction
Effective work with special needs students
Learning centres which challenge students
Use of problem solving techniques
Effective student evaluation strategies
Effective (teacher) self-reflection
Effective approaches to student discipline
Effective skills in resolving classroom crises
3. Differentiated instruction
4. Teaching and curriculum
My teaching area
Student-teacher interaction
Teacher responses which extend thinking
Teacher responses which promote creativity
Effective counselling skills
using reflective skills
using empathy
perception checking
Building student’s self-esteem
Discipline procedures which promote student self-direction
Dealing with students with problems.
Teacher-parent communications
Effective teacher-parent conferences
Effective crises resolution techniques
Parent involvement in school programs.
Self-directed PD planning
Plan your professional development for the year by taking the information you have gathered through reflection and collaboration and, using one of the examples below, complete a personalized, self directed plan. This will help you focus the use of the professional development resources available to you on an area that you have chosen.
Many ways to grow professionally
1. Participate in a Teacher Inquiry project.
2. Attend a conference/workshop locally,
regionally/provincially/nationally/internationally.
3. Attend a workshop/conference or summer institute/course.
4. Be a sponsor teacher for a student teacher.
5. Become a BCTF PD associate, and carry on the teachers-teaching-teachers tradition.
6. Become a BCTF Social Justice associate, and carry on the teachers-teaching teachers tradition.
7. Become active in your local association.
8. Becoming a facilitator, and give a workshop locally, regionally, or provincially.
9. Begin/continue university studies, either on-line or as a member of a cohort.
10.Develop innovative programs for use in your classroom.
11. Develop an annual personal PD plan, and maintain a PD portfolio.
12. Apply for a PQT/Teacher Inquiry grant. Find information on-line at: bctf.ca/TeacherInquiry
13. Form/join a teacher research group.
14. Participate in group planning.
15. Hop on the internet through BCTF online or another PD site.
16. Job-shadow in a related work situation.
17. Join a professional organization/network:
Provincial specialist association (32 within the BCTF)
Local specialist association/Local Chapter of a PSA (See "Forming PSA Chapters")
International network (ASCD, MSCD).
18. Mentor a beginning teacher.
19. Observe another teacher, and talk together about the lesson/program.
20. Participate in curriculum development.
21. Pilot curriculum/program.
22. Read professional literature.
23. Reflect, discuss, and research for the purpose of planning individual or group ongoing professional development.
24. Develop the discipline of reflective journal keeping.
25. Serve as your school’s PD representative.
26. Share with colleagues what you found at a conference/workshop.
27.Subscribe to/read professional journals.
28. Watch professional videos.
29.Work on a provincial committee (MoE or BCTF).
30.Work on the Local Ed-Change Committee.
31.Work on your local’s PD committee.
32.Work with a colleague to discuss, observe, and critique a lesson/program (peer coaching).
33.Write