The Art of Classroom Inquiry: A Handbook for Teacher-Researchers

Groundbreaking when first published, The Art of Classroom Inquiry has become the classic book on the subject, helping tens of thousands of preservice and inservice teachers discover successful ways to conduct research in their classrooms. Thoroughly updated to reflect current thinking and technologies, this revised edition continues to show teachers how they can carefully and systematically ask and answer their own questions about learning. In crisp, jargon-free prose, Ruth Shagoury Hubbard and Brenda Miller Power present the nuts and bolts of classroom research strategies—interviewing and notetaking techniques, methods for categorizing data, online support, hands-on activities for testing research methods and honing skills, plus much more.

Hubbard and Power have worked for 15 years with teacher-researchers from across the country. In The Art of Classroom Inquiry they give teacher research a human face, from preservice and beginning teachers at work in their classrooms to veterans with suggestions and examples to share. The stories of individual growth demonstrate why and how teacher research is transforming the ways teachers view themselves and their classrooms. And each chapter of this book shows how to get there, including:

• getting started—deciding what to investigate and how to frame questions
• designing the research to fit your area of investigation
• gathering data in the midst of teaching
• making sense of that mountain of data
• reviewing the literature and the implications of others' research on your findings
• converting research for sharing with a wider audience
• creating a teacher-research network and support group.

Ruth Shagoury Hubbard (Ph.D., University of New Hampshire) is the Mary Stuart Rogers Professor of Education at Lewis & Clark College, where she coordinates the Language and Literacy Program. She works with students of all ages, from preschool through adult learning situations, teaching in classrooms as well as conducting workshops across the United States and Canada. Her current research focuses on language and literacy acquisition with diverse student populations.

Brenda Miller Power (Ph.D., University of New Hampshire) wrote this book while a professor at the University of Maine, where she taught courses in literacy methods and teacher inquiry. She is author of 12 books, including Long Roads, Short Distances: Teaching Writing and Writing Teachers and Parent Power: Energizing Home-School Communication, both published by Heinemann.