Research in the Classroom: Talk, Texts, and Inquiry - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872071464 ISBN 13: 9780872071469

Publisher: Intl Literacy Assn, 1996

Synopsis

This book offers examples of reflective teacher researchers in action. Classroom teachers at all stages of professional development, from novice to experienced teacher researchers, will find the observations of these authors especially helpful. "Research in the Classroom" expands our collective understanding of how we use oral and written language to learn, and it will inspire everyone interested in teacher research to continue using the classroom as a laboratory for further exploration.

About this title

About the Author

Zoe Donoahue is an elementary teacher at Lambton-Kingsway Junior Middle School, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada.

Mary Ann Van Tassell is an elementary teacher at The York School, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Leslie Patterson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA.

From the Back Cover

The teacher researchers whose work is presented in this book use teacher and student journals, conversations, storytelling, and computer networking as vehicles for teaching and learning. The authors' interests focus on the central role of spoken and written discourse between and among teachers as they participate in reflection, action, and inquiry with their students and colleagues. This volume offers examples of reflective teacher researchers in action and makes a significant contribution to the growing body of knowledge in the area of classroom research. "Research in the Classroom" will appeal to classroom teachers at various stages of their professional developmnet, from novice teacher researchers beginning their inquiry to experienced teacher researchers with an interest in social constructivist approaches to teaching and learning. This book expands on our collective understanding of how we use oral and written language to learn and provides everyone interested in teacher research with the inspiration to continue using the classroom as a laboratory for research and exploration.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Chapter 1

A few years ago I joined five colleagues to learn how to use portfolios in teacher education classes. We began what we called a "polylog," a notebook for collaborative reflection on our decision and the students' responses. The polylog immediately enriched our teaching, learning, and friendships, but the most powerful learning came several months later, as we sate together to analyze those written conversations from each person's perspective. Through that collaborative analysis and reflection, we relived our moments of decision, indecision, confusion and discovery, and we realized the power of group inquiry when it is grounded in spoken and written discourse. The polylog was the source of our reflections, which we could access again and again. It was a record of our collective reflections and provided us with a foothold for our continuing inquiry.

Many teacher researchers are using the texts and the talk from their classrooms to participate in reflective discourse. They know that learning moments are captured in the classroom, and, through discourse teachers and their students can re-see and re-search those significant moments. Teachers invite their students to join the inquiry, to use a range of tools--journals, discussions, and storytelling--and to explore and question the world around them. These teachers encourage their students to revisit texts for new insights and new questions.

What can we learn from these teachers? We can learn that discourse is a medium for inquiry and that through discourse, people working together help one another learn. But exactly what does that mean? How does it happen? What can teacher researchers do to optimize the learning potential of both themselves and their students? In exploring answers to those questions, we see that a common view of learning frames the work of many teacher researchers.

Viewing Teaching and Learning as Shared Inquiry In classrooms where teachers join students in shared inquiry and where students' discourse is valued, teachers view learning as transformational. In those classrooms, teacher researchers hold common assumptions about learning and teaching. They agree on the following: Learning is social and transactional. Learning communities are complex systems. Spoken and written discourse mediates learning. Reflective inquiry fuels teaching and learning. All of these assumptions suggest that we can find answers to our questions about teaching and learning in classroom talk and texts.

Learning is Social and Transactional Rosenblatt (1978) and Harste, Woodward, and Burke (1984) are just a few of the researchers who support the assumption that reading and learning are the result of transactions among people and texts within complex social and cultural environments. A transaction occurs when participants come together in a particular context for specific meaning-making purposes. New meanings result from the transaction, and in the process all the participants are somehow changed. A transactional approach to learning assumes that knowledge happens in the transactions among people and texts.

Each learner experiences complex transactions within himself or herself as he or she encounters questions or puzzles, reads and writes, and gathers new information to come to new understandings. As groups come together in shared tasks, the complexity multiplies. Learners enter into group transactions, and the energy level rises. Individuals may join with other individuals within the group and create two-person transactions between themselves. They may also join with several others in a single transaction to create learning transactions among the members of the larger group. All this interdependent and dynamic learning suggests that learning communities are dynamic, complex, exciting, and generative. One cycle of transactions sparks another and another. Networks of unpredictable meanings emerge from these learning communities.

Edition details

• Publisher: Intl Literacy Assn
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0872071464
• ISBN 13: 9780872071469
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136
• Editor: Donoahue Zoe, Van Tassell Mary Ann, Patterson Leslie