Fostering Teacher-Conducted Research

Abstract

Recognizing the many benefits of teacher-conducted research, policymakers are beginning to promote classroom research as a way to encourage innovation and achieve significant school improvement goals. To foster teacher-conducted research, they are endorsing staff development in formal research procedures and providing access to the technology and resources necessary to conduct classroom research. Many schools are also providing teacher researchers the opportunity to collaborate with other educators and researchers through such innovative approaches as release time for collaborations with colleagues and research partnerships with universities. Supported by such policies, the teacher-as-researcher movement is gaining momentum, and teacher researchers are playing a key role in linking research and practice to school improvement.

The teacher-as-researcher movement is based on teachers liberating themselves from ideas imposed solely by others outside the classroom. In a sense, it constitutes an acknowledgment that teaching belongs to teachers and that as the experts about their own practice, teachers are the ones most able to understand and refine their work (Oberg & McCutcheon, 1990, p. 142-143).