The lessons Miller (2010) learned about smart swarms of collectives of bees, termites, ants may be compared to its potential for human smart swarms in working cooperatively as well as individually.
Relating smart swarms to practitioner research:
The same is true of human groups: we add something authentic and original to the table, something that springs from our unique experience and skills—not by blindly copying others, taking advantage of others, or ignoring our better instincts. At times this means paying our fair share, sacrificing for the good of the group, or accepting the way things are done. At other times, it means standing up for what we believe in, lobbying for a cause, or refusing to go along with the crowd. In either case, the best way to serve the group, it turns out, is to be true to ourselves. (p. 268)
Smart swarms is what practitioner research is all about. Owning that part of your classroom experience where you want to make a difference, change something, explore it beyond its present reality. In this way the practitioner researcher becomes more than just a graduate student in a master’s program. Practitioners become the change agents, the author, the investigator, the warrior, the judge, the artist and the explore, as vonOeck aptly names these different perspectives.
The change needed in education is occurring in classrooms where teachers are owning their own practice as in a grass roots effort. As Dolores Huerta, activist alongside Cesar Chavez said, change happens from the bottom up, not from the top down. The reform within education will emerge from teachers creating a critical mass of teaching practice in their own classrooms.
Practitioner Research is closer to reform than we think:
1. teacher-centered practice as a grass roots movement relying on the expertise of teachers in their own classrooms;
2. Heterarchical, decentralized role of making informed decisions about best practices for their learning and teaching. Practitioner research is professional development in action.
3. The National Writing Project (NWP) has been encouraging teachers professionally for 30 years supporting their professional voices and practice all the while recognizing their teacher stories about their students, their teaching, their participation in professional learning communities that lead to meaningful student achievement beyond standardized tests.
Practitioner research is the smart swarm of collective agency of teachers learning from each other’s practice, finding inspiration and support among each other.
The word research originates from the French word recherché meaning to investigate thoroughly; careful or diligent search; studious inquiry or examination (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 1003). Teacher research has a sustained history evident in the work of educators such as Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Dewey, Montessori and more recently, Nancy Atwell, Lucy Calkins, Donald Graves, Collins, Delpit, Dillard, Hill, Hubbard & Power, Ladson-Billings, Lawrence-Lightfoot, Moraga & Anzaldua, Torres & Noguera, Witherell & Noddings among others. Early on, Lawrence Stenhouse promoted the idea that successful teacher research is nurtured within a research community. The systematic methodology of using student observations to improve learning and teaching efficacy is still relevant (Hubbard & Power, 2012).
Teacher practitioner research honors teachers as professionals who are experts in their own classrooms. Teacher research reclaims the professional power and expertise educators possess. Practitioner research is known as: action research, practice-centered inquiry, teacher research, teacher-as-scholar, practical inquiry, classroom inquiry, and storytelling school of research. Practitioner research reflects the ability to contribute to student success and learning within reflective practice.
Teacher voices, as collected wisdom, are a refreshing backdrop to the preoccupation of standardized, high stakes testing currently dominating educational landscapes. It is in practitioner research where the richness and power of student stories unfold. Students become co-researchers who observe, analyze and interpret learning environments while moving toward profound understandings of each other and themselves.
Reflective Teacher Practitioners are ethnographers in their classrooms. Such teachers describe their learning environments, along with what is and is not working. From their struggles to teach effectively and become better educators, their questions are borne. Teacher inquiries reflect who they are as teachers and learners, understandings of their funds of knowledge, and what is bugging, nudging or tugging at them in their evolution as professional educators who have a fundamental commitment to upgrading their pedagogy.
In the master’s program at The University of New Mexico’s Teacher Education Department, licensed teachers enjoy the privilege and responsibility of choosing a reflective practitioner research inquiry to pursue over two semesters; it is an authentic and professional capstone experience. What has repeatedly emerged from teacher practitioner narratives is an embedded sense of social justice. As “reconceptualists,” teachers challenge the status quo, while recognizing bias, censorship, racial proclivities, and colonialist attitudes (AERA, 2017). They problematize inequalities within the curricula they teach; detect disparities in educational systems and seek to influence policy makers who establish the rules governing our profession (AERA, 2016).
During the research process, reflective teacher researchers embark on a Hero(ine)’s Journey. In the process, they are reiteratively transformed. Spiraling toward advanced levels of awareness, clarity and vulnerability, teacher researchers tell their research stories. According to Nikki Giovanni, "If you want to share a vision or tell the truth, you pick up your pen and take your chances." The most common methodologies used in teacher research are case stories and autoethnographies.
Autoenthnographies and case studies consistently emerge as methodological conduits for teachers to position their stories alongside student narratives in reflective teacher practitioner research. Sarah Bitah (2009) recognized the play of words in poetry as a way to engage her struggling readers in first grade. Julia Charles (2008) focused on storytelling and play to promote oral language development with her kindergarteners. Veteran teacher Rita McGrath (2013) chose autoethnography when she mentored her daughter, a first-year teacher who struggled simultaneously to teach and earn her teaching license. Rita recognized that stress coupled with a lack of experience may lead her daughter to give up teaching altogether. Yesica Romero (2017) intertwined her own experiences as a bilingual student with her Navajo high school students in her English class. Melissa Nakai (2017) confronted the challenge of calling social services to protect a student. Tammie Yazzie explores the question: How does being a Navajo teacher influence student learning?
Case studies also provided a vehicle for narratives more conducive to the storytelling storytelling approach. Debra Martinez (2008) articulated her school experience as a bilingual student when challenged with teaching a monolingual Spanish speaking kindergartener in her classroom. To meet their students’ cultural and linguistic learning needs, Gladys Tracy (2006) and Judith Benally (2007) each wrote a case study about a Navajo student as a way of understanding student strengths in culturally situated contexts. Navajo language teacher Betty Williams (2012) told the story of a kindergartener learning Navajo language and culture to be able to communicate better with his grandmother. Dana Murray (2014) conducted home visits for second grade students in her classroom as a way of making deeper connections with them. High school Spanish language teacher Maritza Reyes (2015) documented teaching AP Spanish for the first time with her bilingual students. Christine Hubbell (2013) recognized the imbalance of culturally relevant reading materials for her American Indian students within her classroom library. Lydia Aranda (2012) explored language acquisition through three-generations of a Spanish bilingual family. Misti Phelps (2010) advocated for one of her special needs language impaired students in securing a computer assisted technology devise for him to communicate. Juanita Begay (2015) prepared materials and learning engagements for a student with Down’s Syndrome in her fifth grade classroom.
Teacher practitioner research is efficacious for good teaching. In the current educational landscape, to practice what is professionally effective for students requires courage. Teacher practitioner research provides agency and voice in a time of professional stress, burnout, and oppression. According to Vicki Holmsten (2010):
”Here’s the bottom line—teacher-researchers are teachers with questions who are committed to the process of observing, collecting some sort of data, and then are willing to struggle with analysis of what they are seeing, even while they understand that there will never be conclusions or answers to their questions. Teacher-researchers, like all good storytellers, have a compelling need to share their stories in multiple conversations. The retelling and reworking of the conversations add layers of richness to the work and deepen our understanding of what happens in classrooms. In this world possessed by a mania for standardized test scores that actually mean very little, these stories are ongoing conversations that can keep us connected to what is really important in what we do in classrooms.” (personal communication, April 6, 2010)
Keywords: teacher practitioner research, social justice, critical pedagogy, action research, research art of storytelling
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