+

Becoming a Teacher

Researcher: Producing a

Research Project

@thecuriousgeek

independent.academia.edu/JamesSaunders4

James Saunders

Assistant Principal: Tendring Technology College

Director of Leadership and,

Research & Development: Tendring Teaching School Alliance

+Quick Introduction:

Aims of Session

Outline the processes involved in conducting a research project

Refine your research questions

Explain the educational research landscape

Provide a structure for your research

Demonstrate how you can use Digital Tools to help your

research, develop your practice and source relevant literature

(find stuff)

Share some practical tips from my own research

+Why Research?

Taking ownership of the evidence

A lot of advice and practice in education is not evidence based.

This includes:

• Authority: "Professor Jones has shown...."; "It's in the

National Strategy”

• Anecdote: "When I was at school we...."; "They do this in

Colchester and they get good results."

• Habit: "We've always done it this way”;

• Polls: "86% of the pupils said they had learnt more...”

+The Research Process

How to do research

Project Outline/Proposal – Research/Enquiry Question

Read around/Review the subject – What do others know?

Specify/Design data capture Methodology

Capture data

Analyse Data

Evaluate and present findings - What have you learnt?

Share – Knowledge Transfer

1

2

3

4

+Step 1

Develop Enquiry Question

Identify the field of enquiry - research area

Reading around the subject - come up with a research question

(Usually two to three VERY specific questions)

Design the research project - who to work with and what data

to collect

Create a timetable to plan what you are going to do

NOTE: the title and the research questions are two

different things

+Activity 1

Focusing your question

Who would I be most interested in finding out about? – Hone it

down to an individual student/class/staff

Which people do I want to work with? Do you have a specific

group in mind?

Spend 5 mins refining your purpose/question(s) to be more

specific

Feedback to the group

+Step 2

Methodology & Data Capture How will you collect data: interviewing popular (don’t transcribe

everything); focus groups useful; classroom observation; survey and questionnaire - refine q’s and think about how to collect the data. Stimulated recall – identify who to work with and film 10 mins - bring them back to recall what were you doing talk through it - record.

Ethics – A code of conduct. Bera Guidelines: https://www.bera.ac.uk/researchers-resources/resources-for-researchers

Background Reading:

Research Methods in Education. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. http://knowledgeportal.pakteachers.org/sites/knowledgeportal.pakteachers.org/files/resources/RESEARCH%20METHOD%20COHEN%20ok.pdf

Educational Research: Some basic concepts and terminology. Postlewaite, T. N. http://www.unesco.org/iiep/PDF/TR_Mods/Qu_Mod1.pdf

Doing Your Research Project. Bell, J. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doing-Your-Research-Project-Researchers/dp/0335215041

+Activity 2

Re-Focusing question & methods

Does your question need further development.

What could you do to collect data?

Discuss in pairs/threes

Feedback to group – question and methods

+Step 3

Analysis/Findings

What is the story/narrative that the quantitative or qualitative

data is telling you? - what are you being told and how does it fit

into your research (the literature and landscape). Are there

links or new areas to develop? Does it confirm or refute existing

knowledge?

What you actually discovered – this does not always fit in with

what you thought you would discover. That is not a failing – it’s

about developing knowledge.

+Step 4

Present Findings

Why is it important to share

What are the interesting issues and ideas which emerged? How did your findings make you think about your teaching and learning – in ways different from the start or confirming your beliefs?

How to present and Share. Presentation; Video; speech, or paper.

What would you say to your readers about how they might use this research?

Further opportunities

Present at conferences – CPD/TTSA/CamSTAR/Leading edge/IOE/national/international

CamSTAR certificate - You can extend work to a 2000 word or equiv paper – this could be a portfolio of student work, analysis or commentary.

Could take it further to CPD masters credits for Cambridge - MEd

+John Hattie

+Hattie, Meta Analysis

& Effect Sizes

Rather than sifting through research papers themselves (with

the problem of biased selection), teachers make use of

professional research reviews.

There are several hundred of these, but, when we select only

the methods which are the most effective, we find a handful of

practical, but highly effective, ways to improve the learning of

our students.

+What is

Meta Analysis

Is simply the technique of searching for all the existing research

reports on a particular issue, and combining them to get an

overall result.

Hattie is probably the best known meta- analyst in education.

His work draws on ‘a total of about 800 meta-analysis, which

encompased 52,637 studies [.....] these studies are based on

millions of students’ (Hattie 2009:15)

+Education Endowment

Foundation

+EEF

The DIY Toolkit

Demonstration of Website and Toolkit

+Where to Begin- A quick overview

Sources of Research Google Scholar – site:www…. “???” filetype:pdf “???”

Academic Journals – Taylor and Francis, SAGE (not free)

tandfonline.com uk.sagepub.com

Conference Papers (Often Free)

Academia (Free) academia.edu

Education Endowment Foundation

educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk

JSTOR jstor.org

OECD oecd.org

National College Gov.uk

NFER – National Foundation for Education Research nfer.ac.uk

CUREE – Centre for Use of Research & Evidence in Education

curee.co.uk

University Education and Social Science Faculties

Youtube – conferences; TEDx talks; presentations

Twitter & teacher blogs, http://www.workingoutwhatworks.com/

+Structuring Projects

Enquiry Introduction/ Research Question

Context (why this research and why now?)

Literature Review

Methodology inc. ethics

Findings (data & analysis)

Discussion/Recommendations & Conclusion

Examples

http://www.hinchingbrookeschool.co.uk/camstar/Sparked2/HTML/#/1/

http://www.kegs.org.uk/leading-edge-and-learning-lessons/2628.html

https://learninglessons.kegs.org.uk/

+Next Step

Update the shared document with a refined and more focused enquiry question. – familiarise yourself with the shared files

Add links to research that you have found – this maybe useful for others - Provide a short summary of what it says – this can be shared with staff via newsletter. Correctly reference using Harvard http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm

Keep in contact with me and each other to discuss your progress and ask any questions

Want to know more? Attend JPD twilight on Thursday 6th

November

+Social Networks

+Research Project Outline

Blogospheres and Tweetonomics

How do teachers use digital social media

tools (DSMT), including Twitter?

What impact do DSMT have on teacher

professional practice and student

achievement?

Is there a correlation between online PLNs

and effective PLCs?

+Blogospheres & Tweetonomics

What does the Literature say?

What are Professional Learning Communities – PLCs?

A network of professionals that promotes sustained learning for the core purpose of improving pupil learning and outcomes.

Why are they important?

Two major shifts occurring in the world are having a significant effect on how we work together, influence change and lead our organisations. The first shift is from a world of fragmentation to one of connectivity and integrated networks. The second shift is from an industrial to a knowledge era.......All of us need to explore new ways of working that keep pace with this networked knowledge era.

Allen & Cherrey (2000) in Jackson & Temperley (2006)

+Professional Learning Communities

Effective PLCs contain the following key elements:

shared values and vision;

collective responsibility for pupils’ learning;

collaboration focused on learning;

individual and collective professional learning;

reflective professional enquiry;

openness, networks and partnerships;

inclusive membership; mutual trust, respect and support.

Bolam, et al. (2005)

+Blogospheres & Tweetonomics

What does the Literature say?

Professional Learning Communities

What educators are looking for today in school reform initiatives

are those that result in not only improved teaching, but also in

overall school improvement and student learning...student

learning improved when teachers worked in PLCs.

(Ruebel, 2012)

+PLNs

Personal Learning Network

a PLN is a group of people with whom one connects,

communicates and collaborates in the sharing and exchanging of

information and ideas, and through whom one increases one's

knowledge and understanding of topics of interest.

(Novak, 2012)

+Personal Learning Networks

How are teachers using DSMT to support their own professional development?

Elias’ (2012) identifies five themes:

practice;

resources;

question;

social;

unknown.

research articles and lighter reading; reports and data: headlines and ‘best bits’; conference tweets; blogs; discussions, and resources

+Methodology

What I needed to find out

Are teachers aware of PLNs and PLCs?

Do teachers use digital social media tools?

Which digital social media tools are most popular?

How are teachers using digital social media tools?

How do teachers connect to each other?

What impact has the use of digital social media had on teacher

professional development and student achievement?

+Google Forms

Data Capture

+Practical Findings

Quantitative DataPrimary Use

40% Share & Collaborate

27% Research

13% Resources

Most Teachers are interested

in Resources

Reasons to connect

53% Shared Vision & Values

60% Quality of posts

53% Similar Field

Impact

80% Impact on PD

73% Impact on Pupil Achievement

+Qualitative Data

The unscientific Wordle.net

+Findings

Teachers identified DSMT to impact:

strategy; leadership; classroom/teaching; collaboration, and

physical networks.

DSMT have the most impact on the individual practice of the

teacher.

It has given me information earlier than my school..and loads of

online support.’ ‘I have read far more online blogs, research

papers and also books.’ ‘I have also had support from people on

Twitter when I was working in a SM school.’

+Findings

I have met some fantastic and inspiring educators. I have found out about research, ideas etc. I have implemented activities in my classroom that have been shared via twitter and/or at teach meets/conferences. I have begun to work collaboratively with people. I have organised a teach meet at my school for local educators.

‘[I] changed the type of information I share with my teams, increased my personal wider perspective of education and tried to use this wider vision to shape strategic planning.’

Lots of different ideas, teaching tweaks. Attended Teachmeets, and notably the first ResearchEd conference. I have read and discussed books with EduBookChatUK. Learned more about pedagogy and cognitive psychology, which I try to implement.

+Further Resources – Next Steps

www.edudemic.com/guides/guide-to-twitter/

http://teachertoolkit.me/2014/08/01/10-tips-for-tweeting-

teachers-by-teachertoolkit/

#ukedchat #edchat #edtech #sltchat #cpchat + many others

+

+

@thecuriousgeek

independent.academia.edu/JamesSaunders4

Any

Questions?

Would you like

to know more?