Embedded Files
"Of all the roles, the role of the interpreter and gatherer of interpretations is central" (Stake, 1995, p. 99)...."The aim of the researcher is not to discover...for that is impossible, but to construct a clearer reality" (Stake, 1995, p. 101 in The Art of Case Study Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications)
Dr. Rebel Palm's Research Resources
Sarah Kostelecky Research Resources
Miscellaneous Research Resources
Teacher Practitioners (Fall 2020)
Charrette Panel (Fall 2020)
Family Presentation (January 2017)
Oral Proposal Presentations (November 2016)
Family Presentation and Family Night (January 2016)
Oral Proposal Presentations emaze (November 2015)
Thank you, Teacher Practitioners (Fall 2015)
SHARED KNOWLEDGE CONFERENCE (April 6, 2017)
SHARED KNOWLEDGE CONFERENCE (April 11-13, 2016)
SHARED KNOWLEDGE CONFERENCE (April 23-24, 2015)
Oral Proposal Presentations (November 2014)
Thank you, Teacher Practitioners (Fall 2014)
Thank you, SJC Reference Librarian (Fall 2013)
Congratulations, Teacher Practitioners (Fall 2013)
Oral Proposal Presentation in Alb. (November 2013)
Teacher Practitioners Panelists (Fall 2013)
Thank you, SJC Reference Librarian (Summer 2012)
Intellectual Histories (Fall 2015)
Intellectual Histories (Fall 2014)
Intellectual Histories (Fall 2013)
Intellectual Histories (Fall 2012)
Information Searching Summer Workshop (Summer 2012)
Oral Examination Photo Album (Spring 2012)
End of Semester Photo Album (Spring 2011)
Oral Proposal Presentation (Fall 2011)
Summary of Teacher Inquiries (excerpt)
UNM Graduate Student SPOTLIGHT
Spring 2014 Teacher Practitioners
Spring 2015 Teacher Practitioners
Spring 2016 Teacher Practitioners
APA STYLE
FV Research Process
Reflecting on the Process
"Anyway, what's the point of setting a goal that's easy." Australian Extreme Surfer Mark Visser
"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"In truth I have no idea what I'm doing. Writing a novel is a lot like falling in love. No one knows what they're doing." Author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Ann Brashares
“That’s the beauty of this [teacher research], teachers looking at their own practice.” UNM Teacher Educator Tom Keyes
"Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and it will come naturally." --David Frost
Advice Herman Klein gave to Mr. Castro, poet:
He told me never to rush when I am writing. If you don’t take time, it gets too turbulent. There will be too much foam. This is why I tell Anthony to write more slowly. I tell him, ‘Your mind is like a crowded room. Let your stories come quietly and calmly. There will be a time for every thought to make its own escape....“I don’t like overcertainty. The dirt of doubt and ambiguity is where the ore is hidden” (p. 242). [Kozol, J. (1995). Amazing grace: Lives of children & conscience of a nation. New York: Crown Publishers]
Reflection on Research Design:
Concerning qualitative work, Hammersley & Atkinson (1995, p. 24), describe research design as “a reflective process operating through every stage of the project” (as cited in Maxwell, 2005, p. 2). Maxwell continues:
The activities of collecting and analyzing data, developing and modifying theory, elaborating or refocusing the research questions, and identifying and addressing validity threats are usually all going on more or less simultaneously, each influencing the other. This process isn’t adequately represented by a linear model, even one that allows multiple cycles, because in qualitative research there isn’t an unvarying order in which the different tasks or components must be arranged. (p. 2)
Architect Lloyd Wright subscribed that “the design of something must fit not only with its use, but also with its environment. You will need to continually assess how this design is actually working during the research, how it influences and is influenced by its environment, and to make adjustments and changes so that your [research] can accomplish what you want” (Maxwell, 2005, p. 3).
Collecting Rich Data provide “a full and revealing picture of what is going on” (Becker, 1970 as cited in Maxwell, 2005, p. 110). Interviews warrant “verbatim transcripts not just notes on what you felt was significant. For observations, rich data are the product of detailed, descriptive note taking (or videotaping and transcribing) of the specific, concrete events that you observe (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 1995 as cited in Maxwell, 2005, p. 110).
Triangulation – collecting information from diverse range of individuals and settings, using a variety of methods (Maxwell, 2005, p. 112).
Maxwell (2005) refers to Wolcott’s insightful wheelbarrow metaphor in developing a proposal: Make sure all parts are properly in place before tightening (p. 137).
Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. [2nd ed.]. Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol. 41. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
I have the privilege to walk beside you during this reflective and introspective journey as you look more closely at yourself as a teacher and learner in your classroom with your students. This is a liberating time for you to think independently, reflexively, and creatively.
I have the privilege to walk beside you during this reflective and introspective journey as you look more closely at yourself as a teacher and learner in your classroom with your students. This is a liberating time for you to think independently, reflexively, and creatively.
Your coach, fan, advocate & guide......................Frances
WELCOME UNM Teacher Practitioner Cohort Members
2012 EDUC 513 Reflective Inquiry
In your capstone experience this year you will have the opportunity to reflect on your own teaching and intellectual history and to tell the story of a particular practitioner research project in your classroom. You are in a reflective stance now as you refelct on sharing your teacher reflections. Writing and researching will become a focus of this semester and we will help you to support your learning and researching skills.
During the summer 2012, thank you for participating in the Information Searching for Teachers workshop designed especially with your research needs in mind. UNM Reference Librarian Kathleen Keating assisted with our understanding of database searching and the ZOTERO research management tool, which you are ready to use this year. The following is a note from Kathleen(kkeating@unm.edu):
I so enjoyed meeting you and your students yesterday. If they need anything, I will try and help them. I will look forward to seeing their presentations in the Fall. We will invite Kathleen to your proposal presentation and oral examination presentations (6/28/12).
Let's roll up our sleeves as we start reflecting, writing, reading, talking and thinking about our teaching and learning selves........Frances
WELCOME
2010 UNM TEACHER PRACTITIONER COHORT MEMBERS
to LLSS 501 Practitioner Research.
During your capstone research project you will have the opportunity and are invited to tell the story of your learning throughout your UNM master's program and the impact it has had on your teaching and learning in your own classroom. Your teacher practitioner project will become a way to reflect on and share the journey of your learning as your intellectual history. Above all, this will be personal and professional storytelling at your best. The journey is different for each of you, as it should be for any kind of learning is personal and emotional. Your practitioner research story will honor the learning relationship you have with your students. In this process you will also have opportunities to engage in conversations with other colleagues face-to-face and through reading educational literature in supporting and investigating your ideas and questions.
During this year you will draw on your course content and what you have learned, your prior knowledge, your expertise and your curiosity and drive to want to know in professional, personal and intrinsic ways.
When I was in education, I admired writers like Howard Gardner, Tom Dooley, Bertrand Russell for they found something they were passionate about. I hoped to find for myself – to come into my own, so to speak- that same kind of passion about something- a topic, a question. I searched during my masters and I have completed two and almost three of them. I realized my passion was asking questions and more recently coaching others in asking their own questions. My role is your coach, your advocate, your spokesperson, your promoter, your editor. The syllabus provides a framework of a landscape but you are the driver, initiator, creator. You must assume the driver’s seat in your practitioner research process. Above all it is a process. This may be the first time in your academic career, where you really own it.
In practitioner research you are ethnographers in your respective classrooms, describing your learning environments, what is working and what is not working as well for them. From your struggles to teach effectively and become a better educator, your question is borne. Your research is a question of who you are, what your classroom is like, who your students are and what seems to be bugging, nudging or tugging at you in your evolution as an educator from an intrinsic need to know.
Your particular style will emerge in the way you tell your research story. ABOVE ALL, you must realize that this is YOUR RESEARCH STORY. As Nikki Giovanni says, "If you want to share a vision or tell the truth, you pick up your pen and take your chances." Research takes courage and conviction and this is your hero(ine)'s journey that only you can do. This process will transform you in some or many ways-in the ways you need to spiral toward another level of awareness and clarity in becoming an effective teacher practitioner.
So, our goal during this Fall semester will be preparing your research stories. In the Spring, you will continue telling and writing your story while conducting a systematic inquiry project in your classroom. I am privileged enough to be your guide.
Frances Vitali
YOUR RESEARCH JOURNEY
Journey Reflection
Your Practitioner Research process is analogous to going on a journey:
For example, in planning my sailing trip, I looked in travel books and brochures providing background information about the possibilities of what it looked like, points of interest, what to bring (and not bring), customs requirements, local foods, cultural lifestyles and possible itinerary of places to visit.
I talked to people who had been there and asked about their experiences and their favorite places and points of interest.
I looked at maps and read about the history of the islands. There were national parks that were in the ocean! I snorkled, sailed and learned sailing terms that were not part of my past experience.
All of these contributed to a fascinating journey and gave me ideas of what to do on the next trip and a hunger to know and learn more about sailing and different parts of the country.
I correlate my sailing trip with your teacher journey, in that you have many resources to inform you about your research trip. Just as I did not want to limit myself by just reading brochures, maps and travel guides, I talked to others who were knowledgeable about where I was going because they had been there. I valued their expertise. So no one method was more valuable than the other for they all contributed to the richness of the trip.
Enjoy the twists and turns of the geography along the way. You may have a determined itinerary, yet during your travels, you may make impromptu junkets not anticipated and those will be just as valuable as those planned. Things may not go smoothly: you will get flat tires; run out of gas, as in my case; become lost; or find miraculously and serendipitously a secret gem. All of a sudden you find out something that is there that you did not expect in your journey. Upon your return you will be changed because of your experiences. Those experiences become the stories you will tell to family, friends and colleagues, if you are lucky, again and again. You may return to the same location time after time, or venture out to a related place or totally change your destination altogether. As with many notable experiences, you will want to record and share about the journey: what you learned, those who joined you, those who contributed to the journey and your reflective insights.
Your idea is a journey! Do not confuse your journey with destination, for your journey becomes more exploratory as a time to notice, to discover.Destination becomes only a stopping point, a resting place, a point of departure, for who ever knows their true destination, really! Journey and process are synonymous with change. So, welcome to your port of entry called the journey, the question. Enjoy where it leads you and trust the process and yourself along the way.
Happy Sailing..................Frances
Visit our Research Corner Blog
Teacher practitioner research honors teachers as professionals who are experts in their own classroom. The current climate and landscape in education tends to devalue teacher experience with prescriptive teaching and scripted texts and high stakes standardized testing. Teacher research reclaims 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.
Your course of action......
Practitioner research is action-oriented inquiry that takes place in the researcher’s own classroom, work or social setting. Practitioner research is seen as a way to explore questions that arise in one’s own practice and/or school; it is seen as a new approach to professional development, transformational learning and educational change. Because researchers are also participants in their own project, this form of research differs from more traditional quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Practitioners will read, analyze and synthesize research by other practitioner researchers as well as design and implement a project of their own.
This capstone experience is not a testimony of intelligence but a processual documentary of yourself as an educator committed to the act of learning about yourself and your students. This capstone process involves authentic learning involving change, transformation, creative thinking, academic writing, learning alongside your students, challenging your teaching and learning paradigms, and risk taking.
Accept this new experience with the natural fascination of inquiry rather than with fear and anxiety. You are conducting your classroom research for your professional and personal self - not your instructor or your UNM faculty members. This research journey is yours and reflects your authentic, sometimes vulnerable self, as a practitioner trying to do something. It will be messy and please do not try to make it any prettier than it happens because it will be contrived and not an accurate telling of your students' story. As the author and storyteller of your teaching and learning, and that of your students in your classroom, this takes courage, conviction, dedication, integrity, and ethics.T he perspective of yourself as teacher practitioners invites new ways of thinking that will transform yourself as a researcher and educator. Welcome to your next challenge in your heroine's journey.
As teacher practitioners, you have the privilege and responsibility of choosing a research question of focued interest and passion to pursue over two semesters. This capstone experience will challenge you to think beyond the boundaries of the usual graduate class assignments and course exercises to engaging in your own learning quest that is designed, generated, implemented and narrated by you. In the process you will begin to own your research direction, focus and motivation. Since you may be pursuing different research questions, you must begin to trust yourself, your experience, your expertise in acknowledging your creative learning processes and not comparing yourselves to each other as much as challenging yourselves to do your best.
Welcome to your Quest----ion!
"...the beginnings of creative endeavors are linked to one of the many 'languages of thought'.
The choice of such a language, or inner symbol system, is not always a conscious one. It is embodied in the history of an individual, beginning with his or her efforts as reflection that first developed in childhood. But the transformation of what is heard, seen, or touched is dependent upon the individual skill of the human mind in representing experience as images, as inner speech, as movement of ideas. Through these varied languages of thought, the meanings of these experiences are stored and organized.
Experienced thinkers' reports and recollections aid in the depiction of varied transformations that lead from the young child's play to the formation of a powerful, internal mode of representation. Of central importance to the formation of language for thought, and to the development of one's talent, are the varied apprenticeships of intellectual and artistic work."
John-Steiner (1985). Notebooks of the mind: Explorations of thinking, New York: Harper Row Perennial Library, p. 8.
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John-Steiner's quote is a way to introduce your QUEST for your question as an artistic process drawing from the rich reserves of your talented lives. As you search for your question, remember to search for what has been and what is meanigful to you and use these metaphors to make connections. (Johann Gutenburg's printing press merged the wine press and coin press into something new that is still revolutionizing the world.)
Enjoy the process and the art of discovering your practitioner research question this Fall semester in LLSS 501. To a transformational semester for us both!
Frances Vitali, your practitioner research guide
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The word research originates from the French word recerche meaning to inviestigate thoroughly; careful or diligent search; studious inquiry or examination (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 1003).
The word research was coined in the 1870's by reformers of Cambridge and Oxford universities who wanted to make these institutions more than a place for teaching but a place of learning. Scholarship referred to creative work carried out in a variety of ways and places and its integrity was measured by the ability to think, communicate and learn (Ernest Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered).
Teacher research has a long history evident in the work of educators such as Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Herbart, Montessori and more recently, Nancy Atwell (Hubbard & Power, 1999, p. 5-6). The systematic methodology of using student observations for understanding students to improve learning and teaching efficacy is credited to Herbert, Montessori, Atwell and now you. It was Lawrence Stenhouse in England who realized that successful teacher research is nurtured within a research community.
Welcome to the practitioner research movement. You are now in it and part of a research community.
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A QUESTION!
In 1997, I asked children at Lake Valley Navajo School in first, second, seventh and eight grades to define what a question meant to them.
The first and second graders anchored their definition within contexts which were very practical and relevant to them. They explained within the context of a situation, each wanting to define question within the context of his or her own situational story. You go to the store and you want to buy something, you see if you have enough money to get it was one situation given, for example.
The seventh and eighth graders defined question responding with emotional charactersitics identifying feelings of happiness, sadness, frustration and anxiety. In knowing or finding the answer, words such as happy, no worries, serious, smart were offered. In not finding a solution to the question, words such as nervous, stressed, angry, give up, scared were offered. These older students collectively defined question as: "When you don't know something; when you're curious and want to know more. Then you get anxious, feel weird, then get scared. You accummulate information and do your research."
The seventh and eighth grade Navajo instructional assistant suggested a metaphor in describing the question state explaining: "that if you don't know and want to know something, you are hungry. To seek out the answer is the only way to satisfy your emotions. Your brain is hungry for facts and information." What happens if you don't find the information, I ask? His reply: "Then you will be starving for information."
Eat up and enjoy the delicious questions of your research.
Frances
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