Part 3: Research

while teaching
-
ACTION
RESEARCH

By: EMI GROUP – SLT - HaUI

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Why research while teaching?
2. Practical steps to conduct research in teaching (Action research)
3. Strategies for publishing research in teaching
4. Example of research while teaching
5. Developing personal plan for research in teaching
1. Why research
while teaching?
1. Why research while teaching?
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 1. Why research while teaching?
Research can:
• help you find solutions to particular problems arising in your classroom or school
• underpin professional learning of knowledge, skills and understanding
• connect you with sources of information and networks of professional support
• clarify purposes, processes and priorities when introducing change – for example, to
curriculum, pedagogy or assessment
• improve understanding of your professional and policy context, organizationally,
locally and nationally, enabling you to teach and lead more strategically and effectively
• develop your agency, influence, self-efficacy and voice within your own school and
more widely within the profession.
• Each of these can involve investigation using evidence from your own setting, along
with wider research evidence.
 Why action research?
According to Kurt Lewin (1944) who first coined action research including other experts ( e.g., DiLaycock & Long 2009; Gay
1966; McMillan & Schumacher 1997), action research is easy and simple to do.

1. A very effective way of improving your teaching.

2. Assessing student understanding helps you plan the most effective strategies for the rest of the school year.
3. Helps you discover which teaching techniques work best in a particular situation.
4. Automatically take into account your own teaching strengths and weaknesses, the typical skill level of your
students, etc.
5. Can provide a renewed sense of excitement about teaching.

It is a very useful tool, a potent vehicle to address immediate problems or improve practices, especially in the workplace. It
is concerned with local problem and is conducted in a local setting. It is situation- specific, realistic, reflective, evaluative,
and action-oriented in nature.
What is action research?
1. A process of systematic inquiry to improve educational practices or
resolve problems in classrooms and schools.
2. A method of finding out what works best in your own classroom so
that you can improve student learning.

Bassey (1998, p. 93) offers a very practical definition and describes

“action research as an inquiry which is carried out in order to understand,
to evaluate and then to change, in order to improve educational
practice.”
How is Action Research different?
 AR contains two-phase methodology:
Research and Action

a. It involves spiral steps – circle of planning, acting, fact

finding, and reflecting about the results of the action.
b. You can make use of quantitative, qualitative or a
combination of these; experimental or non-experimental
methods.
2. How many steps
in AR (Action
research)?
How many steps in AR (Action research)?
2. Practical steps to conduct research
in teaching (Action research)

Action Research Process (1 cycle):

- Plan

- Action

- Observe

- Reflect
Cyclical action research model (Burns, 2010, p. 9)
Expected questions
• Why action research but not case study?
 3. Strategies for
publishing research in
teaching
 A FEW PRINCIPLES
FOR CONDUCTING ACTION RESEARCH
Gregory Bateson’s “Rules of Thumb” for doing research:
• Study life in its natural setting, being careful not to destroy the historical and
interactional integrity of the whole setting.
• Think aesthetically. Visualize, analogize, compare. Look for patterns,
configurations, figures in the rug.
• Live with your data. Be a detective. Mull, contemplate, observe, and inspect.
Think about, through, and beyond.
• Don’t be controlled by dogmatic formalisms about how to theorize and research.
Avoid the dualisms announced and pronounced as maxims by particularizing
methodologists and theorists.
• Be as precise as possible, but don’t close off possibilities. Keep your explanations
as close to your data and experience as possible.
• Aim for catalytic conceptualizations; warm ideas are contagious. (as cited in
Bochner, 1981, pp. 76–77)
Identifying the Research Question
• An almost infinite number of research questions are inherent in the context of the
classroom, the context of teaching, and the context of learning.

• Characteristics of Good Research Questions: A good classroom action research

question should be meaningful, compelling, and important to you as a teacher-
researcher. It should engage your passion, energy, and commitment. It has to be
important for your personal and professional growth; it should stretch you intellectually
and affectively.

- is manageable and within your sphere of influence.

- should be important for learners
- leads to taking an action, to trying some- thing out, to improving a teaching/learning
situation, to implementing actions that can make a difference in the lives of students
- is authentic—you have to own it.
- doesn’t lead to a yes or no answer.
HOW TO CONDUCT AN ACTION RESEARCH

1.Review your current practice

2.Identify a problem that you want to investigate.
3.Review literature
4.Plan a research method/strategy
5.Gather data
6.Analyze data; look for findings with practical
significance
7.Use findings to make decisions; share them
CRITERIA IN CHOOSING A TOPIC FOR ACTION
RESEARCH

1. Must be inherent in the context of the school management, classroom,

teaching, learning
2. Must be meaningful, compelling, and important to you as a teacher-
researcher and for your personal and professional growth
3. Must be within your sphere of influence, consonant with your work and
can be addressed within the confines of your classroom
4. Must be focused but not so ambitious, big, or complex that it requires
extraordinary resources, time, and energy
5. Must urgently address an intense, pervasive or serious problem before
such problem gets worst or creates more serious problem.
6. Must benefit your students or stakeholders by informing them about
your teaching and the curriculum, by providing new insights about them
and their learning, or by improving practice.
3. Strategies for publishing research in
teaching

Concepts about publication strategy

(retrieved from https://aut.ac.nz.libguides.com/getting_published/strategy )
4. Examples of
research
teaching
Examples of research while
teaching
• Flexible seating in 4th grade classroom to increase effective
collaborative learning.
• Structured homework protocols for increasing student achievement.
• Developing a system of formative feedback for 8th grade writing.
• Using music to stimulate creative writing.
• Weekly brown bag lunch sessions to improve responses to PD from
staff.
• Using exercise balls as chairs for better classroom management.
Case study - Lorena’s story
• Teaching context
• Research questions
• Data collection methods
• Findings
• Applications
• Summary and Discussion
Teaching context

“I am a teacher at a High School in Osorno working

with students who have a high level of vulnerability. I
teach from 9th to 11th grades and I have more or
less 38 to 40 students per group. The 9th grade
students are between 14 and 15 years old. In this
context I noticed they were not working properly in
listening activities. In lessons I observed that they
didn’t do the activities and I wanted to know the
reason why.”
Research questions
1. In which listening activities do my students listen better?
2. How is listening presented during the lesson?
3. What kind of information are my students able to identify from the
listening material?
4. How does the length of the listening material affect students’
performance?
Data collection methods
• Surveying the students
• Carrying out a focus-group discussion
• Organizing formal peer observation
Findings
• Her students found the audio topics interesting (something that
surprised Lorena).
• However, they found many recordings too long and could not
complete activities.
• This led to them getting frustrated and doing other things, like
chatting.
• She also found that they liked songs most of all, simply because they
were shorter and they were able to complete the task.
Applications
• Started adapting audio tasks to make them more like songs.
• Divided the audios into sections and created activities such as
ordering the information, filling in gaps, underlining the correct word
and crossing the odd one out.
=> Several changes occurred after 2 weeks.
Summary and Discussion
• Lorena researched for herself and her students. ‘In which listening
activities can my students listen better?' and ‘How is listening
presented during the lesson?' are her first puzzles. She got answers
by surveying the students and having a colleague observe her lesson.
She ‘analyzed’ this data to determine how to improve her listening
classes.
• Teachers often think research is not really ‘for them’. However, the
story of Lorena engaging in an action research has proven that
research while teaching could be very useful for the teacher and,
potentially, for his/ her students.
 5. Developing
Personal Plan For
Action Research In
Teaching
 What is a
personal plan for
teachers?
 What is a
personal plan for teachers?
• A personal/ professional development plan (PDP) is a
documented record of an individual’s career
aspirations and progressions.
• Teachers outline what they wish to achieve and what
they are going to do to develop their action research
skills and therefore reach specific goals.
Factors involved in
an effective PDP
 Factors involved in an effective PDP
1. Active learning:
- provide teachers with
opportunities to directly engage
in the types of learning activities
they would be implementing in
their classrooms.

- greater understanding of
 Factors involved in an effective PDP

2. Skill development

- Define the skills and knowledge

necessary to understand any new
teaching strategies or technology
 Factors involved in an effective PDP

3. Collaboration
Teachers should be able to exchange
ideas and address barriers and
challenges they encountered.

=> create spaces for teachers to

collaborate on problem-solving
 Factors involved in an effective PDP

4. Content-focused
- provides concrete solutions and
information about specific
teaching strategies, tools, or
resources.

- examples: discussing a specific

software program or
 Factors involved in an effective PDP

5. Support and coaching

- involves direct communication

with teachers about their individual
support needs and sharing
information to address teachers’
unique concerns.
Steps to complete a
Professional
Development Plan
(PDP)
9 Steps to complete a Professional
Development Plan (PDP)
• Teachers assess their own ability.
• Identify their specific career goals.
• Gather/ Conduct research for information.
• Identify what professional skills they already have and which they need to work on.
• Choose suitable methods to achieve their goals.
• Develop a timeline for accomplishing their specific targets and goals.
• Take note and create a new plan.
• Evaluate the plan.
• Measure the progress.
 Sample of the
goals for
teachers’ PDPs
 Examples of goals for teachers’ PDP

Technology Cultural
integration immersion

Burn-out Making
prevention learning fun
 Examples of goals for teachers’ PDP

1. Technology integration
Online research and training videos
on YouTube can be effective tools to
better understand new or
challenging technological devices
and programs.
 Examples of goals for teachers’ PDP

2. Burn – out prevention

Daily actions like getting adequate

rest, making time to relax, reading
a book, etc. help keep teachers on
track to meet professional
development goals.
 Examples of goals for teachers’ PDP
3. Cultural Immersion

Respect and acceptance of different

cultures is a key part of creating these
safe spaces in a class
Reaching out to colleagues, parents, and
families to invite them to share their
cultural experiences is another, more
personal approach.
 Examples of goals for teachers’ PDP

4. Making learning fun

Small things like going outside for a
change of scenery, making lessons
more hands-on and interactive, and
encouraging play can drastically
improve morale for both teacher
and students.
Suggested
Activities to
Achieve Goals
 Suggested Activities to Achieve Goals

• Qualification courses
• Mentoring and peer observation
• Being observed by a colleague and receive feedbacks
• Observation visits to other schools
• Workshops
• Education conferences and seminars
• Research
Quizizz
Reference
Richard, S., & Paula, R. (2018). A Handbook for Exploratory Action
Research. British Council.
https://guides.library.ucmo.edu/c.php?g=879745
Hasa. (2017, February 7). Difference between action research and case
study: Definition, features, purpose, process. Pediaa.Com. Retrieved
December 5, 2022, from
https://pediaa.com/difference-between-action-research-and-case-stu
dy/
What are the benefits of educational research for teachers? SAGE
Publications Ltd. (2017, January 31). Retrieved December 11, 2022,
from https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/what-are-the-benefits-of-
educational-research-for-teachers