Research on Teaching and Teacher Research: The Issues That Divide

Abstract

Neither interpretive nor process-product classroom research has foregrounded the teacher's role in the generation of knowledge about teaching. What is missing from the knowledge base for teaching, therefore, are the voices of the teachers themselves, the questions teachers ask, the ways teachers use writing and intentional talk in their work lives, and the interpretive frames teachers use to understand and improve their own classroom practices. Limiting the official knowledge base for teaching to what academics have chosen to study and write about has contributed to a number of problems, including discontinuity between what is taught in universities and what is taught in classrooms, teachers' ambivalence about the claims of academic research, and a general lack of information about classroom life from a truly emic perspective. This article proposes that teacher research has the potential to provide this perspective; however, several critical issues divide teacher research from research on teaching and make it difficult for the university-based community to acknowledge its potential. The article also proposes that in order to encourage teacher research, the educational community will need to address incentives for teachers, the creation and maintenance of supportive networks, the reform of organizational patterns in schools, and the hierarchical power relationships that characterize much of schooling.

Conceptualization, Measurement, and Improvement of Classroom Processes: Standardized Observation Can Leverage Capacity

“…Seeking to better comprehend the components of effective teaching, process-product research in the 1970s and 1980s examined associations between classroom process variables and student achievement. In terms of observational methods, approaches typically focused on specific teacher behaviors (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990;Smith, Waller, & Waller, 1982), for example, using frequency counts to evaluate how the quantity of teaching related to the amount students learned (Brophy, 1986). Other examples include work by Borg (1979) and Good, Grouws, and Beckerman (1978) examining associations between achievement and the number of pages in a curriculum presented to students; studies focused on teachers' time allocation (Brophy & Evertson, 1976;Fisher et al, 1980;Stallings, 1975); and studies of classroom management behaviors (Brophy & Evertson, 1976;Coker, Medley, & Soar, 1980;Good & Grouws, 1979).…”

Examining the University-Profession Divide: An Inquiry into a Teacher Education Program’s Practices

“…Instead, student teachers come to believe that "observation is a means, not an end" (p. 14), placing priority on what they learn in the field. This challenge is magnified by the lack of involvement teachers in the field have with the generation of research in teaching (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990). Consequently, the field is both critical of and denied access to, the university.…”

“…This raises concerns of power as it results in shifting the control of what is taught from the field to the university. Literature regarding this divide or chasm in teacher education is just as prevalent (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990;Cuenca, Schmeichel, Butler, Dinkelman, & Nicols, 2011;Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1983;Friedrichsen, Munford, & Orgill, 2006;Grossman & McDonald, 2008;Martin, Snow, & Franklin Torrez, 2011;Smagorinksy, Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004;Smith & Avetisian, 2011;Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998;Williams, 2014;Zeichner, 2010;Zeichner & Miller, 1996;Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). We acknowledge that this persistent metaphor of a divide is also born out of both student teacher misconceptions of teaching and negative perceptions of teacher education programs.…”

The Mathematics Curriculum

“…Some researchers do attempt to address directly the kinds of knowledge about teaching that teachers themselves can provide (Cochran-Smith andLytle 1990, 1993), considering the types of knowledge that teachers bring to their vocation in terms of practical knowledge of content, students, and pedagogical possibilities Connelly 1987, 1991;Connelly and Clandinin 1985, 1988Elbaz 1983Elbaz , 1991. Some also consider the kind of knowledge arising from reflection on practice (Schon 1983(Schon , 1987(Schon , 1991.…”