This paper addresses education reform efforts, specifically the need to improve schooling by improving the status, power, and working conditions of teachers through professional development programs. Two issues which continue to undermine the authenticity and social value of efforts to promote teacher development are addressed: (1) underneath the…

This paper, which is intended to assist adult literacy practitioners interested in conducting research about their programs, discusses the four stages of the action research process: identifying questions to guide the research, collecting information to answer the questions, analyzing the information collected, and sharing the results with others.…

This paper reports on a 2-year study of changes that occurred in one instructor's teaching of an introductory undergraduate course on teacher education across four semesters. The study includes the voice of the instructor and four other participant-investigators. The course underwent three important modifications: (1) adding a technology emphasis,…

This handbook explores ways that very different value orientations (individualism, associated with the mainstream culture, and collectivism, associated with immigrant Latino cultures) lead to very different expectations of child development and schooling. It also offers many examples of ways to bridge the cultures of home and school through…

This book presents information on action research for teachers and administrators. Chapter 1, Reflective Professional Practice, discusses reflective professionals, urges active use of solitary dialogue and personal journals to enhance reflectiveness, delineates concerns of maturing educators, and summarizes meditative steps of reflective practice…

When student and novice teachers see themselves as learners or researchers and spend some of their energy trying to understand their students and their students' perspectives, they become less attached to pedagogical techniques and move quickly to a responsive and reflective way of teaching that is more commonly associated with experienced…

Teachers engaged in action research are involved in a process that focuses on how they and their students construct and reconstruct learning experiences, thereby extending professionalism and creating additional learning opportunities for students. This paper describes the evolution of an action research project involving an elementary school…

This investigation monitored the perceived effectiveness of a professional development program, called Facilitating Effective Learning and Teaching, in improving teacher practice. The program assumes that improvement is likely when the participants understand and value the learning process and themselves as learners and teachers. Program…

This portrait of a high school literature classroom is one of a series of several such portraits which depict diverse classroom settings of high school literature, and which result from the second year of a teacher-research project in the greater Albany, New York area. This article portrays teacher Mr. McCabe and his eighth grade class in their…

Teachers who want to act professionally need to participate in the decision making process. Sound knowledge of current theories is essential as is sound knowledge of students' needs as related to the goals of education. Of particular importance is the willingness to try out alternative approaches and to evaluate the effects of different strategies…

Discusses concerns the developers of a "teacher as researcher" seminar had in creating studies and activities for the participants, including how to foster equality in relationship between the professional researchers and the teachers, discovering what kinds of support teachers need as researchers, and fostering ownership of studies and…

This publication presents reports on four small-scale research projects conducted by educators that helped them explore ways of "doing literacy" and "doing literacy research." Focus of the projects was to learn more about how to do research by completing a work-based project related to literacy. "Teaching and Researching…

An adult educator in Butler, Pennsylvania, noticed that, although students who took the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) seemed highly motivated to improve their basic skills in mathematics and spatial relations, only 2 of her 20 students who took the GATB made a concerted effort to develop their vocabulary. Thinking that those two students…

Sixth-grade teachers from diverse content areas and specialized fields came together as teacher-researchers to infuse principles of literacy/language learning across the curriculum, targeting low-achieving students. Through reflective inquiry, they gained insights into new strategies as they revised their roles from content area teachers to…

Describes how the personal narratives of Vivian Paley led one early childhood specialist to surprising insights about the ways young children and adults learn. Focuses on the role of children's storytelling and playacting in supporting thinking, classroom discipline techniques, and using children's thinking to improve one's teaching skills. (KB)