Teachers engaging in and with research: bonding, bridging and linking (original) (raw)
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The need for capacity-building in teacher education in the UK has been raised as a serious issue by a number of commentators. Tensions about the place of research in teacher education have persisted for many decades, but following changes to the core funding mechanisms in the UK, the maintenance of education research bases within many universities has become increasingly tenuous. This paper provides an analytical account of an initiative conducted by the Teacher Education Group (TEG) to build research capacity in teacher education. With reference to a review of the national contexts for research in the UK and research on teacher educators, the article argues that, in order to build research capacity initiatives we need to provide motivation and new types of networking opportunities for researchers, as well as developing their expertise. In developing this argument, the article also explore the relationships between national policy changes, institutional research cultures and individual habitus and agency in research capacity-building. The paper also describes a new initiative in England, the Teacher Education Research Network (TERN)
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The ‘teacher as researcher’ premise is being strengthened by the development of new systems for teaching and learning and by new understandings about how teachers best learn. Our view is that the coupling of this phenomenon with teachers engaging in research on their teaching practice is a powerful organising element for schools dealing with change in the 21st Century. This chapter highlights the teacher’s increasing role in the development of educational knowledge for today’s classrooms
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2013
Across the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) initial teacher education (ITE) is under active development, with its content, location, control and quality often the focuses of sustained debate. Statutory and professional requirements for the sector inevitably reflect differing assumptions about teaching, teacher knowledge and governance. In exploring ITE across the four jurisdictions, this paper reviews policies and practices through two major focuses: first, the relationships between the declared teacher Standards (competencies/ competences) and research-informed teacher education provision; second, the ‘turn or (re)turn to the practical’ in teacher education, including policy declarations, changes in practices, and emphases and effects of the discourse(s) of relevance.
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This paper explores the professional learning needs identified by teacher educators in Higher Education Institutions in Scotland, with a particular focus on their “researcherly dispositions” (Tack & Vanderlinde, 2016), and identifies some of the implications for the professional learning of teacher educators more broadly. The Scottish data were part of a wider European wide study conducted by the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development (http://info-ted.eu/), and were drawn from a survey based research (Czerniawski, Guberman and MacPhail, 2016), and follow-up in-depth interviews with university based teacher educators (MacPhail et. al., 2018). The data from 61 questionnaire respondents and 11 interviews revealed recognition of the multi-faceted nature of the role, the self-determined nature of professional learning, the need for support in becoming a teacher educator, and disparity and tensions in being research active despite an expectation, although to varying degrees,...
The Infrastructure of Educational Research in Scotland
European Educational Research Journal, 2007
This article offers a descriptive and analytical account of the current state of educational research in Scotland, viewed against the background of constitutional change within the United Kingdom and debates about the nature, function and quality of research activity and output. It starts by considering how to undertake the task in hand and argues that it is necessary to draw on a combination of institutional, developmental and interactive approaches. Thereafter the relatively disappointing Scottish results in the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise are reported to set the scene for subsequent efforts to improve research capacity. The role of the Scottish Executive in determining research priorities, commissioning projects and using the findings of research in helping to inform policy is outlined, taking account of important structural changes following devolution. A key development has been the Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS), a collaborative university-led initiative, funded jointly by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Funding Council (previously the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council). This consists both of substantive research networks and a capacity-building programme of research training for beginning and developing researchers. Established research centres, with different histories and emphases, are described in order to raise issues about the balance between applied research, linked to policy priorities, and fundamental research which seeks to develop new theories and models. The role of the Scottish Educational Research Association, which has links with the British and European Educational Research Associations, is considered. Various attempts by different bodies to promote teacher engagement in research are also described. In the final section an attempt is made to assess what progress has been made. It is concluded that while the overall climate for the conduct of educational research has improved, providing real opportunities to demonstrate the value of research, there remain a number of challenging problems. These include: issues of research quality; inadequate opportunity to undertake fundamental (as distinct from applied) research; tensions between the demands of teacher education programmes and universities' research aspirations; the risk of 'collaboration' becoming 'consensus'; and the absence of a developed international perspective. Approaches There are several ways of approaching the task of describing the infrastructure of educational research in Scotland post-devolution. • Institutional. A straightforward approach would be to describe the various institutions involved in commissioning, funding, conducting and disseminating research-the Scottish Executive, non-departmental public bodies (such as Learning and Teaching Scotland, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority), the universities, local authorities, voluntary organisations, and private consultancies. This would lead to a clear but perhaps simplified and static view of the situation. It would run the risk of defining educational research in terms of 'what happens' rather than in terms of some more considered view of the kind of knowledge that research aspires to produce. Moreover, the interconnections between the different institutions, their relative power in shaping the agenda, and the way in which their
2019
This paper considers how empowering teachers to reach for success in partnership with a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the North West of England can affect learning in the classroom. Evidence based research is the focus of this study which focuses on working with teachers engaging in their own research beyond initial teacher education. The paper presents the views of senior managers and teacher researchers engaged in a one year professional learning programme to consider impact in the classroom. Partnerships with mentors and partnership schools enable us to consider the key implications for the professional development of teachers and call upon the evidence through both reflections and evidence of classroom practice. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how collaboration has encouraged professional practice to support classroom based teaching and teacher efficacy and effective practice. Three areas are considered, firstly the nature and views of educational research, secon...
Teachers as Researchers: Case studies in educational research
The Teacher as Researcher: Case studies in educational research, 2014
What does it mean to be a ‘teacher researcher’? This book explores this question by showcasing examples of what teachers are doing when they act as a teacher researcher. While classroom teachers have always collected information and read to improve their teaching knowledge the concept of ‘teacher as researcher’, in the traditional researcher sense, is a relatively new concept in schools and classrooms. This book showcases how teachers from across the globe are contributing to the field of educational knowledge by acting as a ‘teacher researcher’. The central premise of this book is that when teachers act as a teacher researcher they engage in a powerful professional development strategy: one that increases their individual and collective teaching capacities, which in turn, engages them in school reforms and innovations which enable teachers to deal with short and long term educational challenges.
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Teaching Education, 2020
This paper reports on the background, context, design, and findings of a collaborative research project designed to develop a future roadmap for strengthening an Australian research-rich and self-improving education system. Building on the BERA-RSA Inquiry into the role of research in the teaching profession in the UK (Furlong, 2013), the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA), Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE) initiated a national study across education systems and jurisdictions to identify ideas, issues, challenges and opportunities to strengthen teacher education and education policy development through research. The mixed-method study, inclusive of focus groups and an on-line survey collected data from pre-service teachers, teachers, academics and leaders across schools, universities and education departments. A set of recommendations highlight the need for research literacies to be embedded at all stages of a teachers' career and that the profession would benefit from professional learning strategies where teachers are positioned as both critical and discerning consumers and active producers of research. The importance of teachers being able to respond to data within their own set of contextual factors was a key message.