“The power of sharing stories from many classrooms will add to our knowledge of teaching and learning.” ~ Vicki Holmsten ~
Teacher practitioner research honors teachers as professionals who are experts in their own classrooms. Teacher reclaims
the professional power and expertise educators have in their ability to contribute to student success and learning through
the professional power and expertise educators have in their ability to contribute to student success and learning through
their reflective practice. Practitioner research is known as: action research, practice-centered inquiry, teacher research,
teacher-as-scholar, practical inquiry, classroom inquiry, and storytelling school of research (Academic Exchange Quarterly:
Teacher Action Research, 2017, ¶ 1). Since teachers assume the narrative voice in the telling, the best way to describe this
type of research is the storytelling school of research wherein teachers are recognized as experts in their own classrooms.
They are participant observers in the field of their own classrooms. They are reflective practitioners who look at what is
happening and think about how to help their students become more successful by improving their own teaching. Practitioners
talk with other teachers about their practice, their questions, their trials and tribulations in ongoing conversations and support
each other.
Teacher practitioner voices, as collected wisdom, are powerful, compelling and authentic backdrop to the preoccupation of standardized, high stakes testing, and push down curriculum currently dominating educational landscapes. It is in practitioner research where the richness and power of students’ 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 respective 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 students’ 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. Nikki Giovanni admits: "If you want to share a vision or tell the truth, you pick up your pen and take your chances." Case stories and autoethnographies are among the most common narrative methodologies.
Teacher practitioners learn from each other as they pursue their own classroom adventure stories. They are vulnerable and receptive in learning alongside their students as co-researchers in the process. Seymour Papert provides his analogy of the significance in teachers learning alongside their students.
As a professional learning community, we are united in: inquiring about our teaching; reflecting on our relationship with writing; extending ourselves as learners; recognizing students as stories and storytellers; and, acknowledging that writing is processual.
• Recognizes teaches as experts and participant observers in their own classrooms.
• Acknowledges students and teachers as collaborators in the research.
• Focuses on reflective practice about student learning and improving one’s teaching.
• Involves dialogue with other teachers about their practice in collaborative groups to share inspiration and findings.
• Resists conclusion-next steps questions.