Category Archives: practitioner inquiry

An honor and a real push!

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Thank you so much to Professor Michal Zellermayer and the members of the Action Research and Self Study Interest group at the Mofet Institute!

Yesterday I had the honor to present my article for Journal X to the members of the group. Most of the participants are experienced teacher educators and researchers and all have a real interest in the sort of research I am doing. The atmosphere in the group is very supportive, and even though I was the first to present this year, I did not feel threatened or pressured at any stage.

As I approached the front of the room I asked myself a number of questions:

How will my work be accepted?

How does my research fit in under the category of Action / Participatory research?

How will I react to the criticism I will… may hear?

Was this text appropriate for this framework?

and last but not least…

Did I make a mistake volunteering to be the first?

I will begin by answering the last question – No! I certainly did not make a mistake, Presenting my article and receiving thoughtful and intelligent feedback from this group was  an incredible honor and supplied me with a lot of material to think about and work on. The changes which were suggested in the structure of the article are similar to those that my supervisors would have suggested (I suppose).

Professor Zellermayer directed the group to look closer at the article using the characteristics of Action Research papers based on the work of McNiff and Whitehead and the analysis proved very useful. The main criticism which arose is that I haven’t spelled out the “What is my concern?” which is motivating my study in general and this article in general. This is one of the differences between a paper which fits in as a chapter in my PhD to  a journal article which must stand on its own. This of course is something to consider in every article I attempt to create.

According to Professor Zellermayer and the members of the group, The article should begin with the answer to  “What is my concern?” . Again and again I find myself being pulled back to opening my writing with more traditional academic styles and material on the context of the study, where really what I should be doing is plunging my reader into the study with the kind of professional texts which are at the heart of my work. The same thing happened when I wrote my paper for my confirmation process.

I have to take off my doctoral student cap now and replace it with my teacher cap. I hope to continue this reflection on the wonderful feedback I received yesterday as it had motivational value as well as a real push in a positive direction. I received many comments pointing to the strong points in my writing and  also concrete comments in the direction of improvement.

Have a nice day!

 

 

Thought provoking and exciting day!

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Yesterday I was only at school for an hour in the morning to start the week off in a routine manner, to let the kids see me and to meet with two parents about a fight which raged in grade 6 on Thursday afternoon. At nine o’clock I got in the car and drove to Tel Aviv. The trip was smooth and I only got stuck in a traffic jam at the very end, when I was very close to the Mofet Institute.

From the moment I entered the room I felt comfortable; there was no sense of something threatening. People were very welcoming and it really didn’t matter that I didn’t know anyone or that this was my first time attending these Interest Groups connected to qualitative research.

The first session was about action research and was run by Professor Michal Zellermayer. I have followed Professor Zellermayer’s work since the days of the whole language approach and since I was a leader of professional learning in the  “Bezavta” program. I have read some of her work on action research and her presence leading the group was what first attracted me to join. Many of our research interests overlap and I believe we have many other similarities connected to our practice.

After an introductory hour where each participant (14) presented herself and her connection to action research, Professor Zellermayer lectured for an hour on the direction the meetings will take and based this on an example frm one of her studies. I sat in awe of the proceedings. I heard the ideas and the concepts I have been processing in my reading and in my conversations with Graham and Scott, in the same language, even though the session was held in Hebrew. These connections between my study interests and progress “over there” to my professional context “over here” are crucial for me at this point. Each time I come into contact with respected academics who are doing the kinds of work I feel comfotrable with, I am able to see clearly the possibility of moving to work in the Israeli academic field at some stage.

The emphasis in this group will be on the writing of action research and that is a theme that I have yet to study. At the moment I am writing my texts in an intuitive manner and leaning on the feedback from GP & SB. We were directed towards the work of McNiff, which I will indeed return to and engage with in the next month.

Professor Zellermayer made an interesting comment about publication. She suggested taking a section of a study and beginning to write and revise small sections of it for publication in smallish journals. She described the process where you receive feedback and publish and then expand and deepen the work on the theme in the form of another article. This continues until there is a fully cooked, expertly developed article which may be published in one of the top ranked journals. I hadn’t ever thought of returning to one of the pieces I have published but I’m sure that if I did now there would be obvious ways to continue from it and develop the ideas. I have changed so much since the writing of them that it shouldn’t be too hard to find loose ends to attach to.

I have to get ready to go to school now, changing back into my everyday role. The sessions yesterday breathed life into my desire to continue my research, to finish my PhD and to find a way to devote myself to those interests in a more intensive fashion. I am waiting in anticipation for the next meeting.

Research as a political act

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In my confirmation report (2011) I wrote:

While negotiating the nature and content of my professional learning courses, I have recently come to understand that this study cannot
remain apolitical, if it ever aspired to do so. Teacher education is involved in politics and as I have discovered through my readings (e.g. Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Kincheloe, 2003; McWilliam, 2004; Price-Dennis, 2010) teacher practitioner research is in essence a political practice, even if its participants didn’t intend it that way at the outset. Teachers who critically explore their professional environment and their practice, teachers who reach out to their peers and share experience in search of collaborative learning,
are making a statement about who they are as professionals and how they wish to be seen by others.

This morning I read an article  in preparation for the lecture by Professor Bar Shalom that I will hear tomorrow at Mofet. The authors, Bar Shalom and Krumer-Nevo, claim that all research is political in nature. This is indeed interesting, as it is a far broader way of relating to the political goals and influences of research. The authors explain:

“Research is a political act since it not only reflects existing reality, but also influences and creates reality, whether by supporting, affirming, and reinforcing existing reality, or by criticizing it and advocating change. The researcher’s position regarding reality influences their choice of subject and the questions they raise, as well as the selection of research procedures to be applied. The words the researcher chooses in order to describe their findings and conclusions structure the object/subject addressed by their research and the balance of power between these (Ife, 1997)” (p. 237).

It seems that if this is the case, then a distinction must be made between those researchers who acknowledge this political side to their work and those who do not. Researchers setting out to achieve social change are usually more open and explicit about the way they are hoping that their work will influence the lives of their participants and their communities. In my study I write explicitly about my intention to sound the voices of classroom teachers whose knowledge is often overlooked in the educational research arena. The political nature of my own study is a theme I need to explore more thoroughly in the coming year. .

Bar Shalom, Y., & Krumer Navo, M. (2007). The usage of qualitative methods as means to empower disadvantaged groups: The example of the Kedma School in Jerusalem. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 2(1), 237-244.