Beginning teachers becoming professionals through action research

Abstract

This paper describes the conduct of, and acquired understandings from, a study designed to promote the professional growth of a group of beginning primary school teachers through participatory action research. The beginning teachers collaborated with university academic staff during the design and conduct of the study. A key component of the study was the formation of action research cells of participating teachers with each group focusing on particular aspects of teaching, for example, assessment, catering for gifted and talented students, and inclusivity in the classroom teaching program. The overall findings from the study, from the view of the university researchers, are presented and reflected upon in this paper. The implications of using action research for the professional growth of beginning teachers are also discussed.1

Participatory Action Research (PAR) cum Action Research (AR) in Teacher Professional Development: A Literature Review

“…This creates learning that is more specific to each teacher's classroom situations, improves educational discourse, and serves to improve the professional status of teachers. This is not far from the trend set by Ginns et al (2001), who used PAR to professionalize novice teachers. In their research, PAR was used to create collaboration between beginning teachers with university academic staff during the design and conduct of the study.…”

“…Teachers' professional growth has been described by many researchers. Fuller (1969, in Ginns et al, 2001) defined three major phases in teacher growth: 1) preteaching; 2) an early teaching phase characterized by concerns for self; and 3) late teaching phase characterized by concerns for students. In each of these phases, teaching process commence with planning, action (process), and reflection (monitoring and evaluation) parallel to what action research and participatory action research laid as foundations to reflective practice.…”

Beginning Teachers as Teacher-Researchers

“…A more recent study conducted by Ginns, Heirdsfield, Atweh, & Watters (2001) explored the role of participatory action research as a way of supporting the transition of beginning teachers from university study into the profession and enhance professional growth during the first year of teaching.…”

En torno a los discursos acerca de la formación profesional docente

“…Thus it is assumed time and again (GINNS et al, 2001;PERRENOUD, 2001;PAQUAY et al, 2014), that certain ways of teaching enhance or prevents the learning of the content knowledge, just as ertain ways of syllabus in basic teachers development give as a result certain kind of teachers, who eventually will instruct in a certain fashion which will obviously result in certain educative outcomes. Here, I find it opportune to bring up Ricoeur's "singular causal imputation" (1985/1995, p. 301).…”