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Inquiry on Inquiry: Practitioner Research and Students
Learning
Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Joan Barnatt,
Audrey Friedman, and Gerald Pine
Boston College February 2009
Will appear in a special issue on
Research on Teacher Reflectivity: The Impact on Teaching and
Learning Ed Pultorak, Editor
Action in Teacher Education Fall 2009
Contact information: Marilyn Cochran-Smith
Lynch School of Education Boston College
140 Commonwealth Avenue Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
[email protected]
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ABSTRACT
In many teacher education programs, some form of inquiry or
practitioner
research is now included in the preservice teacher education
curriculum. The intention is
to help teacher candidates become professionals who are
life-long learners who raise
questions and research their practice across the professional
career. At the same time,
teacher education evaluation has shifted from primary emphasis
on resources and
curriculum to an emphasis on K-12 student learning outcomes.
This article speaks to both
the outcomes focus of teacher education policy and practice and
the agenda to prepare
professional teachers who know how to learn from and about
teaching in an ongoing
way. The article describes an inquiry project carried out by a
group of teacher education
practitioners/researchers in order to examine how and what
teacher candidates learned
when they were required to conduct classroom inquiry focused on
students learning
outcomes. The purpose of the study was to explore the processes
and results of this new
focus and to determine whether the strengths of a long-standing
emphasis on inquiry as a
way of knowing about teaching could be retained when the
emphasis was shifted from
teacher candidates own learning to the learning of their
students. Based on in-depth
content analysis of purposively selected inquiries, the article
demonstrates that the quality
of candidates inquiries generally depended on the questions
posed, the ways candidates
conceptualized and assessed learning, and their understanding of
the recursive nature of
the inquiry process. However the article also identifies a
number of problems that were
created with the new emphasis.
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In many teacher education programs nationwide and
internationally, it is now
common for some form of inquiry to be included in preservice
preparation. Whether
labeled teacher research, action research, self-study, or
practitioner inquiry, the inclusion
of inquiry in the preservice curriculum is generally intended to
help teacher candidates
become life-long learners who raise questions and continuously
learn how to teach by
researching and reflecting on practice across the professional
life-span. This goal is
consistent with the current professionalization agenda, which,
since the 1980s, has called
for the reform of teacher preparation policy and practice to
ensure that all students in all
classrooms in Americas schools have fully certified and fully
prepared professional
teachers. A hallmark of the professional teacher is that he or
she is knowledgeable about
not only content and pedagogy, but also how to learn from
teaching in an ongoing way,
how to pose and address new problems and challenges that do not
have existing answers
(Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005), and how to integrate
and link different kinds of
knowledge to the complex problems of schools and classrooms
(Hammerness, 2006) .
Over the last decade, however, many questions have been raised
about the
professional agenda in teacher education, and in particular,
critics have suggested that
teacher education has not been properly accountable for the
learning outcomes of K-12
students (Crowe, 2008; Kanstoroom & Finn, 1999). Partly in
response to critics, but also
as part of changing notions of educational accountability
(Cuban, 2004) and changing
standards of accreditation, the emphasis of many preparation
programs has shifted from
inputs only (e.g., institutional commitment, faculty
qualifications, fieldwork,
conceptual frameworks, and the alignment of these with
professional knowledge and
standards) to outcomes (e.g., candidates demonstrated knowledge,
skill, and
dispositions as well as K-12 students test scores and other
school results). Although
there have been many critiques of the outcomes emphasis as well
as differences in
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viewpoints about which outcomes are most important and how they
should be measured
(e.g., Fallon, 2006; Zeichner, 2005), it is now widely accepted
that the effectiveness of
preparation programs and pathways ought to be assessed, at least
in part, in terms of
outcomes and results rather than simply in terms of curricula,
faculty, or resources. This
is reflected in current standards for teacher certification and
program accreditation in
place in most states (Darling-Hammond, 2000b) and in current
calls for new teacher
education research and assessments (e.g., Allen, 2003;
Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005;
Walsh & Hale, 2004).
This article speaks to both the outcomes focus of teacher
education policy and
practice, on one hand, and the current professionalization
agenda, on the other. The
article begins by briefly clarifying the concept of practitioner
inquiry in teacher education
and considering related literature. Next the article describes a
study of inquiry in one
teacher education program as a way to assess the impact of
teacher education and
examine the process of learning to teach. The inquiry project
was carried out by a group
of teacher education practitioner-researchers in order to
examine how and what teacher
candidates learned when they were required to conduct classroom
inquiry focused on
students learning outcomes. The purpose of the study was to
explore the processes and
results of this new focus and to determine whether the strengths
of a long-standing
emphasis on inquiry as a way of knowing about teaching could be
retained when the
emphasis was shifted from candidates own learning to the
learning of their students.
Specifically the study examined what happened when candidates
were required to
conduct classroom inquiry that focused on students learning and
what the implications
were for the local program as well as teacher education more
generally.
We demonstrate that the quality of candidates inquiries
generally depended on
the questions posed, the ways candidates conceptualized and
assessed learning, and their
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understanding of the recursive nature of the inquiry process. We
conclude, however, that
although helping teacher candidates focus on students learning
is important, a number of
new problems and issues were created.
Framing the Study
As the title of this article suggests, the study described here
can be thought of as
inquiry on inquiry. In other words, as members of the teacher
education research group
who are the authors of this paper, we engaged with our
colleagues in systematic inquiry
about the processes and outcomes of our candidates inquiries.
This double-layered
aspect of inquiry on inquiry sharpened the questions we asked
and prompted us to turn
on ourselves the same expectations for learning from reflection
and analysis of the data of
practice that we held for the teacher candidates we taught.
Theoretical Framework
The conceptual umbrella of practitioner inquiry, or practitioner
research, refers to
a variety of educational research modes, forms, genres, and
purposes (Anderson, Herr,
and Nihlen, 1994, 2007; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2004, 2009;
Zeichner and Noffke,
2001), including action research, teacher research, self study,
narrative inquiry, the
scholarship of teaching and learning, and the use of teaching as
a context for research.
Although these stem from different historical and
epistemological traditions, they also
share several common features that link them and also
distinguish practitioner inquiry
from more traditional forms and paradigms of education research
(Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 2004, 2009).
With practitioner inquiry, the practitioner (e.g., teacher,
teacher educator, school
administrator, adult literacy educator) simultaneously takes on
the role of researcher,
which contrasts with conventional research on K-12 teaching and
teacher education. In
many versions of practitioner inquiry, as is the case with this
study, collaboration, in the
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form of joint discussions of methods, data analysis, and
writing, is a prominent feature. A
key assumption is that those who work in particular contexts
have significant knowledge
about both what the problems and questions are and, through
systematic data collection
and analysis, how to solve those problems within that particular
context.
As this study illustrates, the boundaries between inquiry and
practice blur when
the practitioner is a researcher and when the professional
context is a site for the study of
practice. Practitioner inquiry uses intentional and systematic
ways of gathering and
recording information and documenting experiences such that
inquiry is planned and
deliberate, rather than spontaneous (Stenhouse, 1985). With
practitioner inquiry, the
systematic examination and analysis of students learning (and/or
other educational
outcomes and issues) is often interwoven with examination of
practitioners own
intentions, reactions, decisions, and interpretations. This
makes it possible for practitioner
researchers to produce richly detailed and unusually insightful
analyses of teaching and
learning from the inside. Practitioner inquiry makes the work of
teaching and learning
public and open to the critique of a larger community.
Inquiry and Teacher Education: Related Literature
There is a rich and growing body of research that describes and
theorizes the use
of inquiry, teacher research, or action research as a way to
enhance the learning of
teacher candidates and their students. Over the last 25 years or
so, a number of
preparation programs in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, the
Netherlands, and many other places have used inquiry to
encourage teacher candidates to
engage in critical reflection, develop a questioning stance,
understand school culture,
construct new curriculum and pedagogy, modify instruction to
meet students needs, and
become socialized into teaching by participating in learning
communities. This work in
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teacher education is generally consistent with the larger
theoretical framework for
practitioner inquiry outlined above.
Efforts to make inquiry the centerpiece of teacher education
assume that teachers
learning is a process that occurs over time rather than at
certain points in time. From this
perspective, how teachers become socialized into teaching and
learning is assumed to
have a critical influence on their emerging interpretations and
practices, their sense of
responsibility as educators, and their students learning. With
practitioner inquiry, the
larger project is about generating deeper understandings of how
students learn and
enhancing educators sense of social responsibility in the
service of a democratic society.
In teacher education, practitioner inquiry is sometimes, but not
always, explicitly linked
to larger social justice and social equity agendas.
Although there are a number of articles that conceptualize or
describe inquiry and
teacher learning at the preservice level, the empirical research
on its outcomes is much
thinner (Grossman, 2005). However, the empirical literature on
the promises and
problems of inquiry in teacher education appears to be growing.
Some key examples
include: Oylers (2006) volume, Learning to Teach Inclusively:
Student Teachers
Classroom Inquiries, written with her preservice inclusion study
group; Cochran-Smiths
(1991, 1995, 1999) program of research on inquiry as a way to
help student teachers
address issues of diversity and social justice in order to teach
against the grain; Valli and
Prices analyses of the intended and unintended consequences of
encouraging preservice
teachers to engage in action research (Price, 2001; Price &
Valli, 2005; Valli, 1999; Valli
& Price, 2000); and Boston College efforts to construct
inquiry as both process and
legitimate outcome of teacher education (Barnatt, 2008; Barnatt,
Cochran-Smith,
Friedman, Pine, & Baroz, 2007; Cochran-Smith, 2003). In
addition, there are a number of
studies of the role of inquiry in the development of preservice
teachers ideas and beliefs
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about teaching, learning and diversity (e.g. Hyland &
Noffke, 2005; Levin & Rock, 2003;
Rock & Levin, 2002) and about the relationships between
inquiry and/or reflection and
identity and learning in various settings, including
professional development schools (e.g.
Crocco, M., Bayard, F., Schwartz, S., 2003; Freese, 2006; Mule,
2006; Schultz &
Mandzuk, 2005).
The literature on inquiry in preservice teacher education
clearly points to its
benefits, but also alludes to some of its costs, including time
investment, difficulties with
sustainability, continual need to nurture partnerships with
schools, and added demands to
an already-crowded curriculum. However there continues to be
little research on the
consequences of inquiry, particularly its connections to
students learning. The project
described in this article addresses this need.
Inquiry on Inquiry
The inquiry reported here is one of six studies that make up an
evidence portfolio
created by the Evidence Team of the Boston College (BC)i
Teachers for a New Era
(TNE) initiative.ii The portfolio includes both qualitative and
quantitative studies,
designed to complement one another and provide a rich picture of
what it means to
examine the effectiveness of teacher education and the process
of learning to teach.
Research Site
For more than 15 years, teacher education programs at BC have
used inquiry as a
way to encourage teacher candidates reflection, rethinking of
beliefs and assumptions,
and decision-making based on analysis of classroom data. The
culminating project is a
classroom-based inquiry conducted in the student teaching
classroom. Prior to changes
described here, the project required candidates to pose a
question, collect multiple
sources, and reflect on and analyze the data to guide
instruction and future practice.
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As in many other programs where inquiry is a central activity,
although the
faculty had long assumed that inquiry contributed to the
learning of teacher candidates
and indirectly to the learning of their students--we had not
examined this assumption
empirically. That is, we assumed that inquiry encouraged teacher
candidates to reflect on
their emerging practice as professional teachers, raise
questions about common school
arrangements and practices, rethink curriculum and instruction,
and begin the life-long
process of learning to teach by treating practice as a site for
inquiry. However we had not
empirically documented teacher candidates learning or tied this
to the learning of their
students. In addition, an informal review of candidates past
inquiries indicated that many
focused on reflections about one child, aspects of school
culture, or a particular teaching
unit without focusing directly on students learning.
As we made changes to the inquiry project, we wanted to stay
true to our
theoretical framework for inquiry and to its bottom line
goalteachers deeper
understandings of their own and their students learning,
students enhanced learning and
life chances, and educators stronger sense of teaching for
social justice. In doing this
study, one of our underlying concerns was whether the strengths
of practitioner inquiry as
a way of knowing about teaching could be retained when the
emphasis was shifted to the
collection of multiple data sources to document students
learning.
Research Questions and Design
The study asked these questions:
(1) When happens when teacher candidates are required to engage
in inquiry
focused on students learning?
(2) What kinds of research questions do candidates pose about
teaching and
learning and how do they connect these to theory, pedagogy and
practice?
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(f) How do candidates use the inquiry process to guide
curriculum and instruction
in the short and long terms?
To address these questions, the study used a mixed methods
research design, with three
separate but related analyses, one quantitative and two
qualitative. The first was a
quantitative analysis of 46 inquiries randomly selected from a
pool of 110 inquiries
conducted by teacher candidates and scored using a 100-point
rubric with four categories:
Teacher as Researcher, Content and Pedagogy, Pupils Learning,
and Learning to Teach
for Social Justice. The rubric was developed over time by the
faculty with training to
establish inter-rater reliability. This analysis examined the
range of rubric scores for
teacher candidates as well as differences/similarities among
cohorts of students in various
subject areas, school levels, and rubric categories. The second
analysis was a qualitative
content analysis of the research questions in the 46 inquiry
projects, which identified five
major themes that captured the essence of the questions and
their relationship to learning
issues. The third analysis was a qualitative, in-depth content
analysis of 12 inquiry
projects purposively selected from the sample of 46 used in the
first and second analyses.
Given the space limitations here, this article concentrates only
on the third analysis.iii
Content Analysis of Inquiry Papers
The point of close analysis of 12 inquiry papers was to use
in-depth qualitative
content analysis to explore how candidates posed questions,
reflected on and analyzed
classroom data, and fostered students learning in their
classrooms. To insure a range of
quality in the inquiry papers, two from each ten point spread on
the scoring rubric from
the first analysis were selected across elementary and secondary
levels and including
teacher candidates in special education. Based on multiple
readings by a team of
researchers, these 12 papers were coded according to the
following categories: Inquiry
Question, Conceptual and Theoretical Framework, School/Classroom
Context,
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Participants, Intervention(s), Data Sources, Student Learning,
Social Justice, Findings,
Modifying Curriculum and Practice, and Implications. Then
matrices were constructed to
identify major elements and types of evidence, and key excerpts
were highlighted.
Pairs of researchers then worked from the matrices to analyze
each paper in detail
with ongoing review by the team to refine and establish
uniformity across researchers.
Preliminary analyses of individual papers were constructed
through a multi-step process:
individual papers were reviewed using the eleven categories
listed above, followed by
team discussion of each paper in light of emergent themes in the
group of papers.
Simultaneously, emergent themes in the group of papers were
considered and revised in
light of preliminary analysis of each individual paper. Through
this iterative process, the
team identified larger themes, which were reviewed and modified
based on a systematic
search across the papers for confirming/disconfirming evidence.
An overall analysis was
done to develop a deeper sense of how teacher candidates
inquiries varied and to identify
key aspects that discriminated stronger from weaker papers.
Teacher Candidates Engaged in Inquiry
Collectively, the 12 inquiry papers amounted to more than 400
pages of narrative
and appended information (e.g., lesson plans, students work
samples, classroom
assessments). We were particularly interested in how candidates
framed questions, how
they documented and made sense of students learning, whether and
how they used
evidence to make immediate decisions about teaching, and how
they connected these to
larger issues related to diversity and social justice, which are
major themes of teacher
education programs at BC. We found that there were three major
cross-cutting aspects
that discriminated stronger from weaker papers: questions posed
and how/whether these
were embedded within larger theoretical frameworks related to
teaching and learning;
what data sources teacher candidates used and what they counted
as evidence of students
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learning; and, how they understood the research process itself
in relation to short and
long term decisions and interpretations of teaching and
learning. In the pages that follow,
we explore each of these and provide exemplars of stronger and
weaker inquiries.
Framing the Questions: The Need for a Theoretical Vision.
There was considerable variation in how teacher candidates posed
and framed
research questions and where those questions came from. Some
questions were prompted
by individual interactions with problematic students. Others
emerged from themes in
candidates own journal reflections, while still others were
prompted by cooperating
teachers comments about students needs or curricular
preferences. A few were guided
by research studies that had had an impact on candidates. Some
of these issues and ideas
were transformed into productive inquiries that were highly
rated on the scoring rubric;
others were not.
Our analysis revealed that stronger inquiry papers posed
questions that began with
classroom tensions, but also thoughtfully integrated experience,
beliefs, and
theories/research into a conceptual framework, rather than
simply raising questions about
the impact of a particular technique. Zumwalt (1989) and
Darling-Hammond, et. al.
(2005) have argued that what Zumwalt called a curricular vision
of teaching is
essential if beginning teachers are to function as professional
decision makers. Without it,
as Zumwalt suggests, they tend simply to pursue what works
rather than what could be:
If prospective teachers do not understand that questions of what
and why are
as central to teaching as the understandably pressing questions
of how, not only
is the range and quality of their decision-making drastically
limited, but teaching
can easily drift into a meaningless activity, for students as
well as for teachers. (p.
174)
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The strong inquiry papers transformed candidates reflections and
perceived classroom
tensions into questions embedded within something akin to
Zumwalts curricular
visiona kind of theoretical vision that linked particular
teaching methods or
classroom interventions with larger understandings of students
as learners, classrooms as
cultures, and the possible worlds open to students.
For example, one candidate posed the question, What happens to
student
attitudes toward mathematics and student learning when I
differentiate instruction in my
fifth grade math class? In framing this question, the candidate
described an initially
chaotic classroom situation, wherein the advanced students
refused to go
unnoticed...they were loud, disruptive, and changed the course
of instruction. Because
math instruction incorporated a whole-class model, the candidate
frequently felt forced
to speed up lessons because a select, vocal group of students
typically picked up concepts
immediately even though these advanced students constantly cut
off other students in
order to state the correct answer. This prevented the candidate
from teaching effectively,
causing other students in the class to refrain from answering
questions and increasing
the pace of the class, leaving some students clearly behind. To
develop her question,
this candidate first gathered more evidence, monitoring in
particular the behavior of one
student who always waved his hand vigorously, stood up, and made
noises and
declared the situation bootleg when he realized he could do
nothing to get himself
called on. Although this frustrated the candidate, she also
figured out the essence of the
dilemma, noting that a child who had the potential to be a
tremendous resource had
become the bane of the teachers existence because he was totally
bored and fed up with
the lesson. To a lesser extent, this applied to others as
well.
To articulate a clear, researchable question that accounted for
the diverse learners
in her classroom, this candidate drew from current literature
and visited a classroom
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known for its differentiated math instruction. As she developed
the question, she used the
research to identify elements of instruction that could be
differentiated, articulated a
schedule for frequent assessment, and modified instruction based
on assessment data. She
also collected data about students attitudes toward math,
developed a skills pretest to
better group students, and integrated homework results into her
plan. She also developed
learning stations through which students rotated as their
performance improved, creating
a learning environment that was flexible and met the needs of
diverse learners. This
candidates research question helped her crystallize the
connection between experience
(including her visit to an exemplary classroom), beliefs,
observations, and development
of a theoretical perspective about learning. The theoretical
vision here was clear, as was
the candidates emerging understanding of the relationship
between students classroom
(mis)behaviors and their opportunities to learn. The candidate
did not blame students for
disrupting the class. She identified their assets as learners
and deliberately restructured
the classroom routine to provide for them and othersrich
learning opportunities.
In contrast, a paper from among the lowest scores, posed this
question: What
happens when I teach my students grammar using their own
writing? This question
emerged from the candidates beliefs and experience and from
comments by the
cooperating teacher about the students lack of writing skills,
as the candidate indicated:
I believe that many students have difficulty learning grammar. I
have observed
that often when grammar is taught out of a textbook with no
reference to actual
class writing assignments, such as essays and short paragraphs,
students have
trouble translating concepts they learn from grammar lessons
into improvement in
their own writing. I myself find that examples given in grammar
reference books
or textbooks usually cannot help me with the difficulty I am
having in
constructing a given sentence.
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Here the candidate seemed to equate good writing with accurate
grammar, focusing on
mechanics and punctuation. Although her effort to connect
grammar instruction to
authentic writing is important and was informed by research, she
did not link this to her
own classroom observations or to examples of students work.
Neither her question nor
her instruction addressed the complexities of developing
effective writing or writing
pedagogy. In the inquiry paper, this candidate reported that she
had conducted mini-
lessons on selected grammar errors, but she did not indicate how
or why she selected the
errors. She then instructed students to find and fix errors.
Unlike the question in the
math example above, this grammar question was rather nebulous
and did not connect
experience, beliefs, observations of students, and research in
ways that were guided by a
more general theoretical vision.
Of course there were also some inquiry projects that fell into
the middle of the
range between the strongest and weakest papers. In general,
though we found that a major
distinction between strong and weak papers was how and whether
the question was
connected to a larger theoretical or conceptual vision about
teaching and learning.
Teacher Learning/Student Learning: What Counts?
Because encouraging teacher candidates to focus on students
learning was a
major part of our rationale for altering inquiry requirements,
we examined how they
conceptualized and assessed learning and what they counted as
evidence of students
learning. Not surprisingly, we found that academic learning was
the focus of most inquiry
papers, including content knowledge in various areas,
comprehension and
communication skills, and literacy or math skills. However, many
papers also considered
social and emotional learning goals, such as decision making,
social interaction and
participation, understanding a diversity of perspectives, and
respect for others.
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Interestingly, we discovered that in a number of cases, how
candidates
conceptualized student learning was more contingent on how
learning was measured
within pre-existing curricular packages in use in their student
teaching classrooms than
on what candidates had learned about how people learn in their
preservice program. We
found that candidates used a wide range of data sources,
including informal and
formative assessments, such as observations, checklists, and
instruments constructed by
candidates themselves, as well as highly structured formal
assessments, such as
standardized unit tests and assessments that were part of
curriculum packages. Informal
data sources included students writing samples, comments and
questions during
discussions, homework assignments, grades, observations, journal
reflections, teacher-
made surveys, quizzes and tests, student and staff interviews,
and socio-grams.
As noted above, the distinction between stronger and weaker
inquiry papers
depended on attention to multiple forms of academic and
non-academic learning,
teaching strategies that were appropriate and flexible enough to
encompass multiple
levels of learning, and reflections focusing on candidates
learning as a result of inquiry.
To illustrate, we provide two figures that highlight the
learning goals and activities for
two inquiry papers, one scored substantially higher than the
other. In both figures, the
wording in the columns under each heading is taken directly from
the candidates own
writing. The stronger paper (Figure 1) described the candidates
use of non text-based
primary sources to increase students content learning in the
humanities and to develop
critical and historical thinking skills. This candidate
conceptualized learning as doing
history, which involved analysis of primary and other documents
along with discussion.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
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To document students learning, the candidate represented in
Figure 1 used a
variety of data sources: a pre-post survey, analysis of the
level of historical thinking of
class questions and comments, student work samples, classroom
observations, and
journal entries. The candidate also analyzed classroom
observations and students work
to assess key elements of doing history, including
corroboration, observation, attending
to context, sourcing, inferring, question posing, and providing
evidence. This candidates
methods for assessing students learning were closely tied to the
way she conceptualized
learning in the first place:
The history classroom has been an excellent place for me to
connect to
students experience and knowledge, and sadly I dont think that
that is
utilized as often as it should. I found that doing history in my
classroom
benefited all my students. I also found a correlation between
the use of
non-text base primary sources in my class and the quality of
historical
thinking, analyzing, writing, and discussion. The implementation
of non-
text base primary sources increased this classs level of
engagement,
content learning, and vital skills.From this study I learned
many things
about myself as a teacher and about my students as learners.
She also linked her enhanced understandings of how people learn
and the
relationships of teaching and learning to students
performance.
In contrast, the weaker inquiry paper (Figure 2) described a
candidates efforts to
improve the multiplication skills of fourth graders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This candidate used a narrower range of activities and assessments
to document students
learning. For example, in her pre-post survey, all but one of
the eight questions were
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about students feelings (e.g., Do you like math? Does math make
you nervous?). Only
one question assessed students understandings (i.e., When I
multiply, I know what is
going on: most of the time, some of the time, never), and none
asked students about
when, why, or how they understood. This candidate used three
similar drills for
increasing knowledge of multiplication facts. Although most
students improved over
time, there was almost nothing in the data sources that got at
what, how or why students
were or were not learning. When we looked closely at the work
samples the candidate
included with the inquiry paper, we noted that students had had
the option of skipping
math facts they could not remember, thus gaining speed with
familiar items without
necessarily learning new facts. However, the candidate seemed
unaware of this, and it did
not appear she had gained insight about learning by engaging in
inquiry:
One of my methods was simply prompting a student with a flash
card and
moving on to the next. I allowed them to talk during this time
with each
other because I felt that it was important to have a context
when trying to
memorize so having laughter and joking present amongst peers is
helpful.
Consistently, what distinguished stronger from weaker inquiry
papers was capturing
complexity in student learning, matching teaching strategies and
measures to broad
learning goals, and using the inquiry experience as a
springboard for further learning
about learning.
Learning from Classroom Research: Recursivity or Rigidity?
As we have made clear above, we were interested in whether, what
and how
teacher candidates learned from the classroom research they did,
especially since the
overall goal was for candidates to develop inquiry as a way of
knowing that would guide
them over time. Not surprisingly, close analysis of the 12
papers revealed a range of
responses along these lines. Some papers contained rich and
insightful analyses of
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classroom data, revealing the way teachers learned from practice
and how they used their
evolving understandings of students learning to guide their own
thoughts and actions in
an ongoing way. Other papers were disappointing to us as teacher
educators, with little
evidence that candidates had learned from their inquiries about
students perspectives or
strategies they might use to support them, and there was little
discussion of the
implications of their inquiries beyond completing the inquiry as
a program requirement.
In an address to educators, Ann Berthoff (1986) once railed
against the
privileging in government funding initiatives of basic
scientific research and the
exclusion of studies focused on practical classroom application
or studies of curriculum,
course design, or sequences of assignments. She adamantly
declared, We do not need
new information. We need to think about the information we have.
We need to interpret
what goes on when students respond to one kind of assignment and
not to another, or
when some respond to an assignment and others do not (p. 30).
Berthoff championed the
importance of research by teachers, highlighting especially the
recursive nature of
classroom inquiry, which she referred to as REsearch: REsearch,
like REcognition, is a
REflexive act. It means lookingand looking again (p. 30,
punctuation in original).
Berthoffs point helped us understand some of the differences
between stronger and
weaker inquiry projects. We found that underlying differences in
what and how
candidates learned from classroom research were differing ideas
about research and
inquiry themselves. Some candidates had rich and recursive
notions of the inquiry
process, understanding research as looking and looking again.
Others had a more linear
view of classroom research as a scientific process, unconnected
to their ongoing
choices about what to do and how to work with students. This
applied across elementary
and secondary levels, across content areas, and across general
and special education.
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19
For example, one elementary candidate introduced strategies
based on
accountable talk (Dudley-Marling & Michaels, 2005) into a
first grade literacy program
over a period of four weeks. She focused on how students
responded to texts with the
goal of enhancing their capacity to be accountable in the sense
of making cogent
arguments based on textual evidence and logical reasoning. She
used a close, careful
analysis of the students talk and her role to guide her own
teaching on a day-by-day
basis. Based on transcriptions of the groups talk, she looked
for evidence that students
were using higher-level thinking skills to make claims about
texts and whether her own
talk was scaffolding their skills. Referring to one
transcription, she wrote:
It is clear that my role as a teacher in the first few turns of
the discussion was
critical. Not only did I inadvertently lead students to only one
interpretation of the
question, but I failed to clarify the meaning of Jennas
contribution What I
could have done instead, is ask Jenna to re-voice her
contribution, so that I might
better understand her thinking. I could also ask questions for
clarification (e.g.
What do you mean by ___? Can you explain ____?), thus making
Jennas
reasoning not only more accessible to me, but to the other
students as well.
This candidate used inquiry to understand the meaning students
were making of text. In
doing so, she demonstrated her understanding that inquiry is
recursivethat is, it
involves a repeated, almost unending process of asking
questions, looking carefully at the
data of practice, altering practice based on new insights and
ideas, asking new questions,
and so on.
We found evidence in some of the inquiry papers that candidates
insights based
on recursively asking questions and modifying practice sometimes
became guiding
principles or large interpretive frameworks. The teacher
candidate above, for example,
used what she was learning about facilitating discussions to
rethink her practices on a
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20
daily and more long-term basis. In another example in a
completely different context, a
special education candidate wanted to increase the expressive
communication of an
autistic child who was fully included in a preschool setting.
Based on daily analysis of
behavioral interventions and a tally of the childs responses,
the candidate worked with
colleagues to adjust the interventions until the child had
achieved a very good rate of
participation in the social greeting segment of the morning
routine. Although this highly
behaviorist intervention is very different from examples where
candidates are trying to
understand students understandings, the special education
candidate had a similar
recursive understanding of classroom inquiry as did the
candidate doing accountable talk.
Both understood teaching as inquiry and inquiry as recursivethat
is, they understood
that teaching is a process driven by questions and continuously
responsive to the data of
practice.
Some of the candidates among the 12 we concentrated on did not
seem to work
from these ideas about inquiry. In fact, a few had what might
even be called rigid
conceptions of inquiry and research, which prompted them to make
what we perceived as
odd or inappropriate decisions. As mentioned, one secondary
teacher candidate, for
example, launched an initiative to improve students writing by
having them correct
grammar errors on worksheets and then in their own writing. The
data she was collecting,
however, indicated that her students could not locate errors in
their own writing, as
instructed, even if they were able to do so on worksheets.
However, the candidate was
seemingly oblivious to her own data showing that students made
little to no improvement
with the approach she was using. Instead of altering daily
practice in response to this, she
persisted in the grammar lessons and concluded her inquiry in
exactly the same place she
started: I continue to believe that the basic model with which I
began this study may
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21
prove an effective teaching technique. I intend to try something
similar to these
interventions in my own classroom.
Along somewhat similar lines, an elementary candidate introduced
a routine
wherein following initial instruction, students had quizzes
every day. Prompted by the
notion that she could not tamper with her research design by
re-teaching the processes,
the teacher persisted in this activity even when it was clear
that some students needed and
wanted more instruction, including one child who explained
exactly what he did not
know how to do. She wrote, I made a conscientious decision to
prohibit explanations
beyond simple statementsThe only other suggestion I had for
these students was to ask
a classmate or someone from another class during their free
time. This kind of response
was exactly the opposite from that which we, as teacher
educators, hoped to find and
expected of a teacher who was able to learn from continuous
reflections on the data of
practice. Here the candidates strong residual ideas that
research and science were
about experiments that could not be interfered with once begun,
seemed to trump the
idea, which was emphasized in the program, that inquiry is an
integral and ongoing part
of decision making in teaching. Across school levels and subject
areas, we found that
what distinguished stronger from weaker inquiry papers was the
development of a
conception of inquiry as an ongoing and integral part of
everyday teaching as well as a
way to support longer-term reflection on many issues related
teaching, learning, and
schooling.
Conclusion: Tensions and Tradeoffs
As noted in the introduction, the analysis offered here is part
of an inquiry on
inquiry in the sense that it represents the efforts of a group
of teacher educators who
engaged in inquiry about the outcomes of a newly-focused inquiry
project completed by
the teacher candidates who were their students. As we suggested,
this nesting of teacher
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22
candidates inquiries within our own inquiry about the processes
and outcomes of the
new project sharpened our questions and obligated us to turn on
ourselves the same
expectations we had for our teacher candidates. We wanted them
to develop an inquiry
stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999b, 2009) on the everyday
realities of classroom life
and about the complex processes of working with a diverse group
of students. We wanted
them to have inquiry as a way of knowing about teaching,
learning and schooling over
the course of the professional lifespan. We wanted them to pay
close attention to the data
of practice, interpreting it in rich ways that would enhance
their students learning and
life chances and inform their own practice, both in the short
and the long term.
Of course, then, we had to turn the tables on ourselves by
asking what we, as
teacher educators, had learned from our inquiry. In this
conclusion we focus on
improving local practiceour own teacher education programas well
as what we
learned about teacher candidates and their learning and about
inquiry as the centerpiece
of teacher education that may be of interest more broadly.
Developing an Inquiry Stance
CochranSmith and Lytle (1999b, 2009) suggest that the notion of
inquiry as stance
is distinct from the more common notion of inquiry as project,
which treats inquiry as a
time-bounded project or activity within a teacher education
course or professional
development workshop. In contrast, inquiry as stance refers to a
long-term and consistent
positioning or way of seeing, rather than a single point in time
or activity. This concept is
intended to capture the lenses teachers see through and how they
generate knowledge that
guides practice. Developing and sustaining an inquiry stance is
a intended to be a life-long
and constant pursuit for new teachers, experienced teachers, and
teacher educators alike.
The analyses presented in this article coupled with other
analyses we have
reported elsewhere, led us to realizealbeit reluctantlythat by
requiring a major
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23
inquiry paper focused on students learning during the student
teaching period, even
though inquiry was supposedly a major theme of the overall
program, we were bolstering
the notion of inquiry as project rather than inquiry as stance.
The idea of teaching to the
test is useful here. When teachers teach to the test, they
concentrate on transmitting to
students the knowledge and skills covered by a high stakes
assessment rather than
building an array of knowledge and skills within a larger
conceptual framework without a
necessarily immediately instrumental value. Through our close
content analysis of a
range of inquiry projects, we discovered that many teacher
candidates were inquiring to
the rubric and the requirements. In other words, they were
engaging in those aspects of
inquiry that were spelled out on, and required by, the rubric
and program requirements
rather than making inquiry an integral part of teaching itself
and understanding that
inquiry does not necessarily have an immediate instrumental
purpose. This was evident
especially in weaker inquiry projects that sutured together
multiple points and pieces that
did not fit together conceptually and/or that disregarded what
the data were actually
revealing about students learning. This was also evident in the
relatively small number
of projects that revealed a rich sense of understanding and
knowing ones students. This
is directly related to our second lesson, joining inquiry and
accountability.
Joining Inquiry and Accountability
To a certain extent, our move to require teacher candidates to
concentrate on
students learning was an attempt to marry inquiry and
accountability. It was our hope
that candidates would use data to improve students achievement
at the same time that
they reflected deeply on the nature of learners and learning and
the school and classroom
conditions that support learning. Some did just that, and these
are the positive examples
we use throughout this paper. But for other candidates, this was
not the case.
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24
Some candidates experienced significant angst as they struggled
to negotiate the
messiness of learning to teach while attempting to inquire into
practice in a systematic
and effective way. Often they did not see the natural
connections between teaching and
inquiry, and regarded these as two disparate entities. Those who
were most successful
had real ownership of their questions and developed a rationale
that drew on knowledge
acquired in coursework and research and connected these to
classroom practice. While
some cooperating teachers actively supported and participated in
the inquiries, others
were uninterested. On the other hand, because the inquiry paper
was a required part of the
student teaching experience, every candidate had the opportunity
for some independent
experience in the classroom that required construction and
modification of practice, and
reflection on students and self learning.
Our analysis suggests that requiring candidates to focus on
students learning did
not guarantee deep reflection and appropriate modification in
practice. Similarly,
requiring candidates to make classroom decisions informed by
evidence did not
guarantee change in candidates beliefs and practices. Although
some candidates made
great strides, others seemed to continue to teach the way they
were taught. The content
analysis revealed that using a scoring rubric that in some ways
disconnected teaching
from learning distracted some teacher candidates from focusing
on the power of ongoing
inquiry and instead encouraged a procedural understanding of
inquiry.
Inquiry and Social Justice
Changing the requirements of the inquiry project was part of the
process of
shifting it from an almost exclusive focus on teacher candidates
learning toward more of
a focus on candidates and K-12 students learning. As mentioned
but not elaborated in
the beginning of this article, the rubric we created for scoring
the inquiry projects had
four categories, one of which addressed students learning
specifically and one focused
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25
on social justice specifically. When we closely examined the
purposively selected inquiry
papers, we found that in our efforts to be explicit about
students learning, we had created
an artificial division between social justice and learning.
Although the program defines
teaching for social justice in part as a bottom-line commitment
to enhancing students
learning and life chances, we separated social justice from
learning on the scoring rubric,
and we could see differences in scores. It was not until we
completed the in-depth
qualitative analysis of stronger and weaker inquiry papers,
however, that we discovered
that low scores on the category of social justice were actually
an artifact of the rubric
itself rather than a thoughtful representation of teacher
candidates work in classrooms. In
order to develop the rubric, we had identified and artificially
separated key elements of
what social justice teaching is, rather than accounting for the
factexplicit in our own
conception of teaching for social justicethat this is
inextricably part of content,
pedagogy, learning opportunities, and classroom environment.
Post Script
As we complete this article, our teacher education faculty is in
the process of
using the results of this in-depth analysis along with the
results of candidates responses
to survey items regarding inquiry and case study data about the
role of inquiry during the
early years of teaching to completely rethink and redesign the
inquiry component of the
curriculum. The analysis described in this article, along with
other kinds of evidence
from our portfolio of studies, have led us to more nuanced
understandings of what kinds
of learning opportunitiesand limitationsour current inquiry
requirements create for
teacher candidates. Our goal now is to revise the inquiry
aspects of the curriculum so that
inquiry is genuinely promoted as a stance or way of knowing
about teaching and learning
that is integrated into all courses and all fieldwork
experiences, rather than a procedural
activity carried out at the programs completion.
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26
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Figure 1: Students Learning in a Secondary Humanities Class
Academic Learning Goals
Social/Emotional Learning Goals
Activities Addressing Learning Goals
-Building literacy skills -Building writing skills -Learning
through discovery -Conducting research -Using primary sources
-Becoming strategic researchers -Support beliefs -Speak
intelligently -Use facts and arguments -Make mistakes and learn
from them -Know the best way of learning for the individual
Sourcing -Provide evidence -Taking notes -Thinking historically
-Set own purposes for learning -Engagement -Academic enjoyment
-Questioning -Compare and contrast -Chronology -Higher order
assumptions -Thinking critically -Summarizing, -Contextualizing
-Inferring -Monitoring -Corroborating -Analysis -Consider multiple
perspectives -Construct meaning -Critically examining -Interpret
-Draw conclusions -Come up with own ideas -Understand relativity of
history -Consider context -Observation -Generalizing -Make Guesses
-Higher level thinking
-Talking to people -Listening -Disagreeing -Discussing
-Demonstrating respect -Student participation -Learn from peers
-Cooperation -Be respectful -Being empathetic -Academic risk taking
-Personal connection to learning -Emotionally engaged -Self
confidence
-pre-and post surveys of pupil efficacy in doing history and
learning styles -Analyze pupil responses during discussion in four
categories of responses -Analyze classroom observations when using
primary sources, using primary source categories-Analysis of
student work samples for doing history categories -teacher
candidate and observer field notes -candidate journal entries
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31
Figure 2: Students Mathematics Learning in a Fourth Grade
Classroom Academic Learning Goals
Social/Emotional Learning Goals
Activities Addressing Learning Goals
-Mastery of multiplication facts -Instant recall of math facts
-Efficiently handle increasing complexity -Apply multiplication
facts within word problems -Develop mnemonic devices
-Small group work -Reverse any [math]anxiety -Attitude changes
regarding the learning of multiplication and math in general
-Pre-post survey of pupils feelings (anxiety, like/dislike)
about math and flashcard games. -Worksheets testing speed of math
skills -Five minute math assessment;120 multiplication problems to
be done in 5 minutes -Blank multiplication table to fill in 5
minutes
i A Jesuit university, BC serves some 15,000 undergraduate and
graduate students with the Lynch School of Education preparing
approximately 270 undergraduate and graduate teacher candidates per
year. In addition to methods courses and practica, candidates at
the
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32
masters level, on which this study draws, take foundations
courses in the social contexts of education, teaching students with
diverse and special needs, and human learning, as well as an
inquiry seminar focused on classroom research. Students also take
courses in teaching bilingual students and language acquisition
models; the Donovan Scholars program focuses explicitly on teaching
in urban schools. All courses, field experiences, and inquiries
have a social justice emphasis. ii TNE is an initiative funded
primarily by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to change how
teacher education is enacted at eleven selected institutions across
the nation. The TNE initiative is driven by three design
principles: respect for evidence, deep participation by arts and
sciences faculty in the education of teachers, and teaching as a
clinically taught practice profession, including residency and
induction programs. Charged with developing evidence and assessing
teacher education, BCs TNE multi-disciplinary Evidence Team
developed an evidence portfolio with quantitative, qualitative, and
mixed-methods studies designed to examine impacts and relationships
among teaching, learning, learning to teach, and social justice.
The project reported in this article is part of that portfolio. The
Evidence Team includes Boston College faculty members and
administrators: Marilyn Cochran-Smith (Chair), Sarah Enterline,
Alan Kafka, Fran Loftus, Larry Ludlow, Patrick McQuillan, Joseph
Pedulla, and Gerald Pine; TNE Administrators, Jane Carter and Jeff
Gilligan; and doctoral students, Joan Barnatt, Robert Baroz, Matt
Cannady, Stephanie Chappe, Lisa DSouza, Ann Marie Gleeson, Jiefang
Hu, Cindy Jong, Kara Mitchell, Emilie Mitescu, Aubrey Scheopner,
Karen Shakman, Yves Fernandez Solomon, and Diana Terrell. For more
information about the TNE project and the work of the Evidence
Team, see the TNE website (http://tne.bc.edu/). iii The first and
second analyses, including information about how the rubric was
constructed and used to evaluate inquiry projects, see Barnatt
(2008) and Barnatt, Friedman, Pine, Baroz and Cochran-Smith (2007),
located at the BC TNE website: http://tne.bc.edu. The full rubric
with categories, sub-categories and indicators is available as
Appendix A at:
http://tne.bc.edu/?tpl=papers&nodeID=207#Inquiry08