Practitioner Inquiry: Exploring Quality in Beginning Teacher Researchers' Work (original) (raw)

2012, I E Inquiry in Education

Using well established research protocols, teachers identify a concern, develop a research question around that concern, and plan and implement a change designed to address the concern (Lattimer, 2012, p. 2). Teachers often complete a review of the relevant literature before collecting and analyzing data, and then write findings, conclusions, and implications. In most conceptualizations of the teacher research model, data analysis to understand the impact of the change results in a cyclical process of planning, implementation, observation, analysis, and reflection (Stanulis & Jeffers, 1995). Sagor (2009) contends that these sequential actions or "habits of mind" are the core of the teacher research cycle and "the daily routine of the reflective practitioner" (p.10). For the purpose of this article, teacher research is defined as "the systematic and intentional inquiries of K-12 teachers and prospective teachers about their own schools and classrooms" (Fries & Cochran-Smith, 2006, p. 950). Teacher research is "a type of inquiry that aims at discovering, developing, or monitoring changes in classroom practice through interrogating one's own and others' practices and assumptions" (Atay, 2008, pp. 139-140). Though teacher research is usually conducted by individual classroom teachers, according to Fries and Cochran-Smith (2006), "Collaboration is a key feature, and the role of community is critical because this is the context in which knowledge is constructed and used, as well as the context in which knowledge is opened to the scrutiny of others" (p. 950). When teacher researchers publish or present