Thursday, March 12, 2009
Action Research
In Guyuan's Ningxia Teacher's University, Dean Tian along with Dr. Moira Laidlaw have recently been encouraging teachers to examine and improve the teaching of English through Action Research. This is groundbreaking work! I wonder if we see similarities to "reflection"? Click here to read a report of Action Research in a Ningxia classroom. Many of us will recognize the author! There are lots of good reasons for using ideas, work and methods from the province during the summer. What should we incorporate from this into our curriculum? [After you click here and read Ma Hong's article, use the back arrow to get back to this blog.]
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Action research may sound formal and too overwhelming for some of our trainees, but what we can focus on is helping them identify problem areas in their teaching/classroom. Then, they can find some trusted teacher friends who can come to their classroom and observe them with the intent to help them overcome these problems. Taking some extra time to read about what other teachers have done and look at possible methods would be quite helpful too. I think if we can encourage peer observations and some professional reading (if this is available), then the teachers can learn lots. We can share how peer observations have helped us from the point of needed advice and from the point of how we learned something through observing others teach. This is not a foreign idea. I know that teachers here do observe and some deans require it, but the obstacle is busyness and conflicting teaching schedules. Also, some young teachers are insecure about letting others in their classroom for aboservations, but we can focus on the reflective nature of observsations: observers can learn as well as offer advice.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the article about AR. I thought one thing that could be implemented or 'encouraged' would be that of reflective writing by the trainees. As highlighted in the article, teachers would write in journals, reflect the positives and negatives of "learning" that day in relationship to the facilitation by the teacher, and use these reflections to improve methods for the next day/week. Also thought the student survey was great. I've seen/used this method, and it definitely aids the teacher in not only how to facilitate lessons, but also gives insight into what the students are thinking.
ReplyDeleteThis may be one aspect to add to our curriculum, (journaling/sharing).