using teacher research as a basis for professional renewal

Using Teacher Research as a Basis for Professional Renewal [1]

JUDYTH SACHSUniversity of Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT In this article the author is concerned with examining howteacher research can act as a significant form of teacher professionaldevelopment, drawing on experiences gained over the past few years ofworking with teachers in the area of teacher research and collaborativeinquiry. Two projects, the Innovative Links between Schools andUniversities Project for Teacher Professional Development, and theNational School Network have contributed to the rethinking of teacherprofessionalism through the use of teacher research. The author presentssome of the issues that have emerged during the course of these projectsas they relate to the practice of teacher research as a means for teacherprofessional development.

For the past few years there has been an increasing emphasis for teachersto undertake ‘research’ in their own classrooms or schools either withschool-based peers or with academic colleagues. This research hasvariously come under the banner of ‘teacher research’, ‘practitionerresearch’, ‘collaborative inquiry’ or ‘action research’. In general, thepurpose of these activities is fourfold: (i) as a strategy for a broaderchange initiative within a school or classroom; (ii) the improvement ofclassroom practice; (iii) as a contribution to an understanding of thenature of teachers’ knowledge base; or (iv) as a basis for teacherprofessional development. Often this is done collaboratively withacademic colleagues in order to systematically investigate aspects ofclassroom practice. While I acknowledge that there are differencesbetween these terms I will generally use the term ‘teacher research’ forthe sake of simplicity and clarity when referring to these various forms ofschool-based inquiry. My aim in writing this article is two-fold: first todescribed the nature and scope of initiatives that come under the rubric ofteacher research, and, secondly, to identify some of the issues I haveexperienced as they relate to teacher research as a professionaldevelopment activity for teachers and academics.

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Journal of In-service Education, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1999

What is Teacher Research?

Over the past 5 years the experience of initiatives undertaken through theauspices of the National Schools Network (NSN) [2] and the InnovativeLinks between Schools and Universities Project (Innovative Links) [3] hasprovided a template for what is possible when school-based practitionersand academics work collaboratively in the enterprise of classroom orschool-based research. However, this kind of research practice is notwithout is critics or its problems. For example, the position taken byMichael Huberman (1996), and Marilyn Cochran-Smith & Susan Lytle(1998) provide two quite polar dimensions of the field. Huberman (1996)provides a trenchant critique of the field and brings into question whetherteacher research is research at all, by challenging the claim that it may bethought of as a new genre or that teacher research may have the potentialto generate a qualitatively distinctive body of understandings, skills anddispositions (p. 124). Huberman’s (1996) position is that if teacherresearch is research at all, it is located within what he describes as the“fairly classic genre” of interpretive research. He dismisses teacherresearch on the basis that understanding events when one is a participantin them is excruciatingly difficult if not impossible, thus negating the verypossibility of the teacher functioning as a researcher in his/her classroomsetting. He suggests that if there is even the slightest possibility that theteacher can be a researcher, then the ‘classic criteria’ of qualitativeresearch apply – that the teacher researcher is bound by rules for the“provision of evidence, consistency, freedom from obvious bias, andperceptions of the people involved” (p. 128) and must transcend the self inorder to transform an emic perspective into a “more widely shared idiom”(p. 126). While granting that teachers have “intimate local knowledge”,Huberman effectively undermines the value of this perspective bycommenting that accumulating and comparing teacher researchers’findings will keep teacher researchers “more honest” and that “minimallyreliable methods” are needed to provide “minimal safeguards againstdelusion and distortion” (p. 132). Hard and confronting words indeed.Ones that provide little guidance at the level of practice or even politics.

Cochran-Smith & Lytle’s (1998, p. 21) view is quite different. Theynote the paradoxical nature of teacher research as it is currently beingimplemented in some contexts. They comment:

the growth of the teacher research movement paradox: as it isused in the service of more and more agendas and eveninstitutionalised in certain contexts, it is in danger of becominganything and everything. As we know however, anything andeverything lead in the end to nothing of consequence. It would beunfortunate indeed if the generative nature of teacher research

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contributed either to its marginalization and trivialization on theone hand or its subtle cooptation or colonization on the other.

In this article, using examples and insights from my involvement in theNSN and the Innovative Links projects, I am mindful of the paradox andcaution identified by Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1998) and argue that teacherresearch has the potential to act as significant source of teacher andacademic professional renewal and development because learning standsat the core of this renewal through the production and circulation of newknowledge about practice. The type of teacher research I have hadexperience with through the NSN and the Innovative Links project iscollaborative in its application because the teacher-researcher has notbeen working alone in this kind of work. This is in stark contrast to thetype of work that Huberman seems to be referring to. My experience hasbeen a collaborative enterprise in which teachers and academiccolleagues work together, each providing different kinds of expertise andinsight to the research project.

However, on the basis of my experience I suggest that teacher researchis not without health warnings. Two issues provide the basis for myhealth warnings: first, how do you overcome the cultural differencesbetween school-based practitioners and academics to facilitate aclimate of professional reciprocity and, secondly, whose researchquestions are investigated?Before attempting to answer these questions it is first necessary todefine some terms. I have used the terms practitioner research,collaborative inquiry and action research interchangeably, but recog-nise that there are substantial differences between the three. Let metake some time to identify characteristics of these three forms ofteacher initiated school-based inquiry. I deal with teacher inquiry,action research and collaborative research, respectively.

School-based Teacher Inquiry

School-based teacher inquiry is primarily concerned with understandingand improving practice, and can be seen as a way for teachers to knowtheir own knowledge (Lytle & Cochran-Smith, 1994) that is, to make theirknowledge explicit and problematic. Accordingly it provides teachers withappropriate skills and practical possibilities to move beyond anunreflective and uncritical view and practice of professionalism. Carter &Halsall (1998, p. 73) writing from a school improvement perspectiveclearly identify some of the essential characteristics of teacher research.For them teacher inquiry:


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x is grounded in data which has been systematically collected andanalysed for a clearly defined purpose;

x undertaken by teachers, though sometimes with the support of externalcritical friends;

x focuses on professional activity, usually in the workplace itself;x has the purpose of clarifying aspects of that activity, with a view to

bringing about beneficial change, ultimately to improve studentprogress, achievement and development;

x it may focus on both teaching and learning at the classroom level, andsupporting organisational conditions and change management capacity.

The primary aim of school-based teacher inquiry is two-fold: first, it isconcerned with understanding and improving practice, and secondly it is away for teachers to come to know the epistemological bases of theirpractice.

The Innovative Links project in particular has demonstrated howteacher inquiry provides teachers with opportunities to break withconventional wisdom about the nature of practice itself and, in so doing,provided opportunities for them the rethink how they can improve theirpractice. Moreover, there is clear evidence from this project that whenteacher inquiry is complemented by academic research then new types ofknowledge can be produced and new forms of teacher and teachereducator professionalism can be initiated. As Soltis (1994) observes, suchprojects provide teachers and academics with opportunities to develop acommon language, and multiple conceptual frameworks for exploring andreflecting upon what happens in classrooms.

Through projects facilitated by the NSN and the Innovative Links,teachers and some of their academic colleagues have developed new skillswhich have enabled them to take an active role in their own professionaldevelopment. Among others these include:

x establishing and developing new roles (critical friend, resources person,sounding board, advocate, etc.);

x establishing new structures (advisory groups. course writing teams,paper-writing teams);

x working on new tasks (proposal writing, documenting practices,curriculum planning, public presentations);

x creating a culture of inquiry, whereby professional learning anddissemination is expected, sought after, rewarded and an integral andongoing part of institutional and personal life.

Overall, teachers who participated in the project did develop new skills:collecting and analysing data, publicly presenting their research tobroader audiences and developing a process which could be extrapolatedacross other areas of school improvement. Through the acquisition ofsuch skills, teachers gained a clearer idea of their own and other’s workpractices. As to whether this observation can be generalised across whole

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staff is uncertain. Certainly, reporting on research did help overcomeproblems of lack of cooperation from colleagues. because it documentedindividual and collective professional development, and made it visible.This is an important point, for as Altrichter et al (1993, p. 178) claim “inthe long term, research knowledge developed by individual teachers candevelop a collective knowledge-base upon which individual members ofthe profession can draw and which will form a bond between them”.Indeed, when extrapolated to individual teachers and academic colleaguesopportunities may well arise for new forms of association and newpractices for professional renewal will emerge.

Action Research

Action research has often been the preferred methodology for teacherresearch because, it aims to give teachers practical methods to developknowledge from their experience and to make a contribution to the sharedknowledge of the profession (Altricher et al, 1993). Since it providesopportunities for theory building, it also facilitates teachers overcomingsome of the apprehension they have about theory and its role in helpingthem to understand their practice. Elliott (1991) describes teachers’apprehension of theory:

Teachers feel ‘theory’ is threatening because it is produced by agroup of outsiders who can claim to be experts at generating validknowledge about educational practices. Phenomenologicallyspeaking, from the perspective of teachers, ‘theory’ is whatresearchers say about their practices after they have applied theirspecial techniques of information processing. As such it is remotefrom their practice experience of the way things are. To bow totheory is to deny the validity of one’s own experience-based craftknowledge. (p. 45)

Within school contexts action research can be seen as a potent means offacilitating teacher involvement in change initiatives occurring in theirschools, as well as validating teachers’ theories in practice. This is animportant issue because as Schratz & Walker (1995, p. 107) argue “Onlytheory can give us access to unexpected questions and ways of changingsituations from within”. In the Innovative Links projects, action researchwas viewed as one method for teacher inquiry, because it provided amethodology for teachers to investigate and improve their practice inclassrooms. Ideally, this type of research invites teachers to question thecommon assumption that knowledge for and about teaching should beprimarily “outside-in”, that is, generated at the university and then used inschools (Lytle & Cochran-Smith, 1994).

The experience of the NSN and the Innovative Links projects hasmade it clear that the process of action research has enabled teachers tobegin to ask critical questions about their practice and to undertake


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systematic means of inquiry in order to understand or improve theirpractice. Professional conversations have emerged between groups ofteachers and academics involved in research projects about the nature ofpractice and theory. Schratz & Walker (1995, p. 108) capture the nature oftheory, its relationship to practice and the changing of practice:

Often we talk as though ‘theory’ were some kind of optional extra– a little used switch on the researcher’s dashboard to be used,perhaps, only when driving on campus. Here we are suggestingquite the opposite – that theory is implicit in all human action.

The challenge for those of us working with teacher researchers is torecognise that there are two different forms of theory. One kind of theorytakes its authority from the academy and the other kind is implicit ineveryday life (Schratz & Walker, 1995, p. 112). In our work in schools weneed to acknowledge this and provide opportunities for the insightsgained through understanding everyday life to filter into our dailypractices in classrooms in schools and universities.

Collaborative Inquiry

Collaborative inquiry is what occurs when teacher educators andpractising teachers engage in processes of collaboration which articulateacademic research and practitioner research. This articulation meansthat:

x teachers find out what is of value in the cross-contextual kind ofresearch to their action research efforts, and accordingly can situatetheir reflective practice in a wider context of information and analysis ofschool reform;

x academic analysts not only become directly acquainted with what itmeans be engaged in continuous improvement in teaching and learningin a specific context, but become aware of what teachers regard asimportant and relevant and why. This helps to ensure that whenacademic communication is oriented toward practitioners it is informedabout the needs and requirements of practitioners and practicesettings. (Yeatman & Sachs, 1995, p. 58)

Collaborative inquiry, is neither simple nor easy. Because it makes newdemands of both communities of researchers it necessarily assumes anexperimental aspect. This was certainly the experience of participants inthe Innovative Links project. As a prime consideration for success of suchendeavours it is important that neither partner asks the other to becomethe same as them. Instead, each partner needs to come to respect and

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appreciate the difference between them and the different roles they playin the education enterprise.

This became clearly evident during the reporting and documentingphases of the various projects. It should be clear that the demands ofreporting and documenting are quite different, depending on what type ofresearch is in view. Action research, for example, demands different kindsof documenting and reporting from orthodox academic research. For theformer the kinds of documenting and reporting are likely to be intrinsic tothe action cycle of continuous improvement. Within school-based contextsthe reporting of action research often belongs to relatively ephemeraltypes of communication represented in talk and dialogue. The reporting ofacademic research, on the other hand, is likely to take the form of formaltalks or conference presentations, written publications and academicpublications.

Whose Questions Get Asked?

A central but unacknowledged dimension of school-based research,whether conducted by teachers and academics collaboratively orindividually is the issue of whose questions get put on the researchagenda? This issue stands at the core of many successful or failedresearch attempts. If the research questions are posed by outsiders, inmany cases academic researchers then the research outcomes often havelittle effect on the classroom practices of teachers and the learningoutcomes of students in schools. Alternatively, research that isundertaken on an equal basis between teachers and academics, where theresearch questions are posed collaboratively can have a significant impacton classroom practice.

Typically, the type of research which is academic driven iscommunicated in a form that speaks to academic audiences rather thanpractitioner researcher ones. I am not suggesting that all school-basedresearch need to addressed to practitioner and academic readers. Rather,I am suggesting that academic and practitioners need to negotiate thenature of the research and how it is to be published. If cultures ofcollegiality and professional reciprocity are to be valued and practiced inthe interactions between the two parties, then the ground rules forassociation must be negotiated, practiced and then renegotiated. Oftenthis is no simple task. The pressures of time and the need to ‘get theresearch out’ make this a difficult task. However, if the collaborative workis to continue then making public some of the taken for granted aspects ofcollaboration need to be made explicit. Goodwill, a commodity very oftenexploited in these types of research activities may well run out and bothacademic researchers and practitioners will be the poorer for this failure.Indeed, it is often failure to recognise the differing cultures betweenacademic and practitioner researchers that create unnecessary tensions in


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this kind of research enterprise. It is to the differing cultures that I nowturn.

Acknowledging the Different Cultures

Following on from the above observation about different forms ofreporting research one of the health warnings for academics andschool-based practitioners working collaboratively is ensuring that eachdoes not demand the other to become like the other. This is particularlythe case when issues about theory emerge. Professionally andexperientially, the school-based practitioner has different types ofexpertise from their university-based colleagues and vice versa. At thecore of these differences are quite distinct work practices and cultures.For academics autonomy is a strong feature of their work practices andmeans that they have more control over their time than perhaps many oftheir school-based colleagues whose work practices are regulated more bybureaucratic and legal statutes. Another dimension of difference betweenthe two are systems of reward. For academics it is demonstratedperformance across teaching research and administration/service. Theresearch dimension is not seen as a core feature of teachers’ performance.

At the core of developing the field of collaborative research betweenacademics and teacher researchers is the idea of reciprocity in particularrecognising that the work cultures, histories and expectations’ of teachersand academics are different. It has become clear to me that that manyacademics have worked hard to cross the divide between school andacademic cultures. Their own experience in schools may well help tofacilitate this. Many were sensitive to and conscious of the multipledemands being placed on teachers, and that in many cases researchprojects were being done on top of already heavy and demandingprofessional lives. Unfortunately, in many cases the reciprocity or thedesire to cross the divide was not demonstrated by teachers. They oftenshowed disinterest in academic work or the demands that were placed onus in our work. This may well be because unlike the academics who ‘knew’and had lived in a school culture, the experience of universities byschool-based colleagues was that of a student, either as an undergraduateor a postgraduate. Understandably, their perceptions were of a powerdifferential which may well block the possibility of a reciprocal gaze.Alternatively, they may genuinely not be interested in the academicculture, the workload and the multiple demands of teaching research andadministration which sets limits, both in time and energy to whatacademics might actually do with their teacher researcher colleagues.Nevertheless, the issue of recognition of the nature and constraints on theothers’ work is significant because it does help to create a more equal andgenerative climate.

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The theory/practice split stands at the core of the culturaldifferences between school and university staff. The view that experiencecounts and theory doesn’t is a common comment when one engages indiscussions with teachers. The words of a teacher involved in the InnovateLinks project best presents how one teacher responds to thetheory/practice issue:

Theory can sound OK and even be OK in practice but the crunchoccurs at the chalk face – demands on teaching teams areenormous as teachers have to continue with all existing routinesand responsibilities as well as assuming numerous NEW roles andresponsibilities. (School contact person, Innovative Links Project)

An ethic of practice which dominates teachers orientation to their workoften creates tensions between teachers and their academic colleagueswhen undertaking collaborative work. This pragmatic orientation emergesas a result of having to respond to multiple demands on their time andenergy. I would suggest that it is the exigencies of classroom life thatreinforces a pragmatic view rather than an anti-intellectual stance on thepart of teachers. Again the words of a teacher reinforce this position:

Academics tend to see things differently from teachers who areusually too overworked to contemplate and reflect on their work.Their input is extremely valuable, but there is resistance towardsthem from some staff. (School contact person Innovative LinksProject)

In this case, it is the competing demands of working in schools that is seento prevent teachers from researching and systematically documentingtheir practice. However there is some equivocation by this teacher, whovalues seeing things differently herself, but who can also recognise thatthese different interpretations may not be appreciated by all of hercolleagues.

Not surprisingly, the idea of practice dominates teacher workhowever, it became clear during the various Innovative Links projects andNSN work that for many teachers the distance and objectivity of theacademic is seen to be a valuable resource. This resource enablesschool-based practitioners to ‘see anew’ and to challenge the conventionalwisdom of experience (Sachs, 1997).

Compounding the issue of the different cultures for academics is thatoften this type of work, namely teacher research, is not recognised byuniversities in terms of their reward structures. Working collaborativelywith teachers, valuable as it might be for the renewing and enhancementof the profession and of individuals within it, does not fit with theexternally imposed requirements of the ubiquitous research quantum. Inthe current higher education climate in Australia the research quantum asmeasured by research/publication output and successful competitive


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research grant bidding brings much needed financial resources to facultieswith diminishing resources.

Practitioner Research and Academic Research

School research and university research serve different purposes andhave different tests for truth when evaluating the product of research, andare inclined to approach methodological issues from different points ofview. Put quite bluntly teachers and teacher educators are likely to havedifferent needs and requirements of research. For teachers, research willhave, as its main focus, the improvement of practice such as the specificexamination of issues of immediate concern to a particular classroom orlearning setting. Alternatively, academic research is concerned withvalidity and generalisation. Academic research may be at the macro- orthe micro-level, its primary concern is not the iterative feedback forimprovement purposes but rather could be described as being orientatedto the cross-contextual patterning of school efforts at improvement. Theirsis a research effort driven by the demand of cross-contextual ormeta-analysis not one driven by the demands of effective doing in thespecific context in action (Yeatman & Sachs, 1995).

To this end a distinction should be made between academic researchand practitioner research. Indeed, while each serves different interestsand purposes they can enrich the other and should do so. However, whenthese two different types of research are lumped together under thegeneric category ‘research’ and their differences lost sight of, we are notable to enquire into this relationship of mutual enrichment, what it lookslike and how it should work (Yeatman & Sachs, 1995).

If teachers come to see research as relevant to their practice this isbecause the research is driven by the requirements of practice in specificcontexts and its continuous improvement. In many cases this kind ofresearch comes under the rubric of ‘action research’.

Teacher educators as academic researchers may be involved withquestions of improving practice in schools especially as it relates toenhancing student learning outcomes. However, their research tends to beoriented to the cross contextual patterning of such school efforts atimprovement.

As Somekh (1994, p. 371) points out, the kind of epistemological testsof these different kinds of knowing are quite different. For teachers thevalue of action research resides in (a) how the ideas test out in practiceand can be refined or modified through practice, and (b) the fit betweentheir experimentation and what other teachers report of their experience.

The experience of the various projects in action made it quite clearthat when there is a distinction made between academic and practitionerresearch, it is then possible to focus attention on how these two types ofresearch can be articulated, and for what purposes.

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Documenting and Reporting Practitioner Research

Teacher research, in general, and the Innovative Links project, inparticular, provided teachers with the opportunity to make theirknowledge public and to open their knowledge and practice to variousforms of reflective dialogue.

Given that in many cases substantial change and professionallearning took place by teachers and academics alike, a variety of formsneed to be developed to disseminate the findings of the research tomultiple audiences. Teachers’ stories. or snapshots of learnings providemuch needed detail on what is happening at the level of individualprojects not only to project participants, but to other interested parties aswell. The publication of these stories has provided an impetus for otherschools to get their stories out into the public domain.

The story of any project needs to be told so that others, inside andoutside of the particular community, can have access to its achievementsand learnings. The detail in which this story may be told may vary, and theexperience of the project confirmed this. In some cases it was detailed, fullof rich descriptions of processes, procedures and outcomes. In othercases documentation was less detailed, providing information in the formof brief accounts of successes and achievements. The work of the WesternMelbourne Roundtable which was associated with the Innovative LinksProject is an exemplar of teachers writing about their practice. The writingdeveloped as part of this project encouraged teachers to be self reflective,not about educational practice, but also in relations to widercircumstances, constraints, and opportunities in and beyond theworkplace. The genre of the writing was that of case reporting, which werefirst hand accounts written by practitioners who reported their practicalexperience.Such writing can serve a variety of purposes, within individual schoolsand across schools and systems:x To compile a public body of professional knowledge though

descriptions of classroom practicex To explain the outcomes of teaching and learning through the reflection

on experiencex To identify and generalise the underlying principles arising from

individual events within classroomsx To provide a basis for the implementation of personal theories and

strategies which lead to change and improvement in teaching andlearning. (Western Melbourne Roundtable, 1997, p. 13)

The experience of the project made it clear that documenting andreporting action research can take a variety of forms. However, it issignificant that the learnings of the projects get extended beyond those


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who were the participants, and out into a broader professional and publicdomain. What the public domain is, in any instance, depends on the levelof the project which is addressed. It can be more or less inclusive.However the least inclusive level of documenting and reporting – the localpublic domain of the particular school as a learning community – is no lessimportant than the more inclusive levels. This needs to be addressed sothat teachers find their own appropriate forms of making public theirprofessional learning through various kinds of documentation andreporting.

Teacher Research for Professional Renewal

There are many reasons for participating in teacher research. As indicatedearlier, these include: opportunities to promote change to improvepractice and student learning outcomes, to contribute to knowledgeconstruction which, in turn, enhances the status of teachers byformalising the knowledge base of the profession. There are two othersthat are closely intertwined: teacher research in collaboration withacademic colleagues gives teachers and academics the opportunity toprovide each other with an outsiders point of view, seeing each other’sprofessional world as stranger if you like. This, in turn provides the basisfor informal and ongoing professional renewal for both parties. Let meelaborate what I mean by each of these.

Maxine Greene (1995) observes that not being submerged inexperience allows one to live more fully, more consciously, more aware ofcontingency, choice and the ‘otherwiseness’ of daily life. In a schoolcontext this could mean that one of the contributions an academic mightmake in a collaborative enterprise is to point out aspects of practice thatteachers who are immersed in the hurly burly that characterises life inschools might overlook. Thus, the potential to ask questions about thenature of practice and encouraging teachers to elaborate theirperspectives or theories in action regarding their own and others’practice, could provide a provocation for new practices and opportunitiesto emerge. Opportunities for ‘seeing anew’ emerge from both formal andinformal conversations. The professional development opportunities foracademics emerge as they become involved in understanding the nature oflife in schools. By engaging in collaborative work with teachers their own‘theories’, both academic and ‘everyday’ come to be debated andchallenged. New forms of professional association emerge, which onoccasion can be challenging because of multiple demands being placed onacademics to contribute to the overall project of teacher professionalismand enhancing the status of the teaching profession. The strength andpotential of these activities is, as Noffke (1997) points out, that knowledgeis constructed collaboratively by teachers, students, administrators,parents and academics with the end of local developed curriculum andmore equitable social relationships. The contribution that action

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researchers make to knowledge is not narrowly technical, nor is it theproduction of ‘findings’, but rather the raising of fundamental questionsabout curriculum, teachers’ roles and the ends, as well as the means ofschooling. Furthermore, as Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1998, p. 32) argue:

Like other efforts that interrupt the formal/practical andtheory/practice distinctions, this work challenges the very idea of aknowledge base, and, drawing primarily on historical and politicalanalyses, makes problematic some of the key concepts indiscussions of teacher research, knowledge production andknowledge use.

The professional development potential of such activities lie not so muchin the idea of skill development by either teachers or academics, butrather in the opportunity that new forms of association have to disruptprevious taken for granted understandings of the world of practice and ofthe nature of knowledge in use. Furthermore, the opportunity that newforms of association between teachers and academics have to raisequestions about whose interests are served by the implementation of newpolicies and curriculum practices, what are the effects and implications onteachers work practices and, as Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1998, p. 33)observe:

teacher research can help to question and reinvent the whole ideaof a knowledge base, disrupting the existing relationships of poweramong knowers and known – who decides what ‘knowledge’ and‘practice’ mean? Who decides how knowledge ought to beinterpreted and used in order to improve practice? Who decideswhat kinds of ‘change’ and improvement’ are possible/desirable inschools and universities?

These and others are important questions. They move the debate ofteacher research and academic collaboration onto new levels. They movebeyond traditional technical notions of professional development andcreate spaces for new kinds of conversations to emerge. They provideopportunities for academics and school-based colleagues to be engaged inpublic critical dialogues and debates about the nature of practice and howit can be communicated with others and continually improved.

At the core of all of this is new forms of collaboration betweenteachers and academics Soltis (1994, p. 255) puts it well:

Genuine collaboration will not only require new teachers in newschool cultures and structures, but also new teacher educators, newcultures in schools of education, and altered university structuresfor academics changing the culture and structure of the schoolsmay look like a very difficult task, but not totally impossible.

The future challenge then is to create the political and professionalconditions where new cultures emerge, and are sustained in schools andfaculties of education where teacher research is rewarded and respected.


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At present this kind of research is seen to be at the margins of theresearch enterprise in universities.

Conclusions

In this article, I have drawn on my experience working with teachers toundertake collaborative school-based research. My involvement with theNSN and the Innovative Links projects has provided me with a variety ofsignificant experiences. Importantly, these projects have contributed asmuch to my own professional development, as well of those of theteachers with whom I worked. For myself this kind of work made merethink issues around and consequences of whose questions get asked.Certainly, when I tried to impose my own research agenda on the activitiesI participated in with teachers, it became quite clear that my questionsoften had little relevance to the exigencies of classroom and school life.Importantly for me these interactions made me rethink the types ofquestions I posed, to reconsider the purposes of the research, both formyself and the teachers and finally, to re-evaluate issues of how teachersand academics can work collaboratively in the broader project ofrevitalising the teaching profession. I am not describing a ‘road toDamascus’ experience, but I am describing a form of useful and importantacademic professional development which might otherwise go unnoticed.

Often this kind of activity is seen as a significant form of teacherresearch, and it is. What I have been suggesting here is that teacherresearch undertaken in collaboration with academic colleagues is also asignificant form of academic professional development. Seen as suchacademics can learn a great deal which contributes to the broader goal ofimproving their own practice, but also that of their students, many ofwhom will become the next generation of teachers.

Correspondence

Judyth Sachs, Faculty of Education, University of Sydney, Sydney, NewSouth Wales 2006, Australia ([email protected]).

Notes

[1] A version of this article was presented to the Northern Territory Institute forEducation research forum Darwin, 22-23 May 1998.

[2] The NSN is a reform network which involves over 200 schools across primary,secondary, state, Catholic and independent sectors in all Australian states. Allschools associated with the NSN are bound together by a common set ofprinciples, ideas and ideals which are based on the question “what is it aboutthe way schools are organised that gets in the way of student learning?”

[3] The Innovative Link project has provided the opportunity for 14 universities,across 16 campuses, representing all Australian states and one territory to be

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involved in a project that has as its core feature the idea of partnershipsbetween practicing teachers on a whole school basis and university basedteacher educators. This is approximately one third of universities in Australiainvolved in a coherent teacher professional development project. Added tothis are some 100 schools which include state, independent, Catholicrepresentatives and some 80 academic associates. See Sachs, 1997, Reclaimingthe agenda of teacher professionalism – an Australian experience, Journal ofEducation for Teaching, 23(3),pp. 263-275 for more detail about these projects.

References

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Carter, K. & Halsall, R. (1998) Teacher research for school improvement, inR. Halsall (Ed.) Teacher Research and School Improvement: opening the doorsfrom the inside. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (1998) Teacher research: the question that persists,International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1, pp. 19-36.

Elliott, J. (1991) Action Research for Educational Change. Buckingham: OpenUniversity Press.

Greene, M. (1995) Releasing the Imagination: essays on education, the arts and socialchange. San Francisco: Jossey Bass

Huberman, M. (1996) Focus on research moving mainstream: taking a closer look atteacher research, Language Arts, 73, pp. 124-140.

Lytle, S. & Cochran-Smith, M. (1994) Inquiry, knowledge and practice, inS. Hollingsworth & H. Sockett (Eds) Teacher Research and Educational Reform.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Noffke, S. (1997) Professional, personal and political aspects of action research, inM. Apple (Ed.) Review of Research in Education. Washington: AERA.

Sachs, J. (1997) Reinventing teacher professionalism through innovative links,Education Action Research, 5, pp. 449-462.

Somekh, B. (1994) Inhabiting each other’s castles: towards knowledge and mutualgrowth through collaboration, Educational Action Research, 2, pp. 357-381.

Schratz, M. & Walker, R. (1995) Research as .Social Change: new opportunities forqualitative research. London: Routledge.

Soltis, J. (1994) The new teacher, in Hollingsworth, S. & Sockett, H. (Eds) TeacherResearch and Educational Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Western Melbourne Roundtable (1997) Teachers Write: a handbook for teacherswriting about changing classrooms for a changing world. Ryde: National SchoolNetwork.

Yeatman, A. & Sachs, J. (1995) Making the Links: a formative evaluation of the firstyear of the Innovative Links between Universities and Schools for teacherprofessional development. Perth: Murdoch University.


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using teacher research as a basis for professional renewal

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