Teachers as researchersDr Sue Jones: Exeter University

• Personal ownership of the focus

• A step beyond reflective practice

• Seeing what often goes unobserved

• Making changes

• Change might be the focus of the investigation

• Change might be the consequence of the investigation

The teacher as researcher

Reflection and evidence

• Partnership• YST – expertise in promoting the value of PE in the education

of the whole child • Exeter University – expertise in designing and conducting

research projects • Teachers – expertise in the needs and the strengths of a

particular contexts

Innovation Schools Project

• Innovation • teachers have designed and evaluated innovations that target

known issues in school • Long term support

• A twelve month window in which to undertake and evaluate a small scale innovation engaging with face to face and on-line support in research design and data collection methods

Innovation Schools Project

• Time!!!• Finding a worthwhile focus• Being precise about the focus• Being informed about the focus• Designing a well targeted innovation• Collecting data that explores how and not simply if an

innovation is effective

Challenges for the teacher researcher

Finding a focus

• Extra curricula activities• PE and Health/Wellbeing• Gender issues• PE and life skills (leadership, self esteem, team building)• Cross curricula issues• Behaviour management• Classroom interaction• The needs of target groups

The focus: common areas

• How does PE influence identity?

• Why do boys underachieve?

• How can we design a curriculum to meet the needs of all

learners?

• Can engagement in extra curricula PE raise achievement

levels ?

Inappropriate scope and scale

Appropriate scope and scale• Can changing feedback strategies increase student take up of

teacher written feedback in PE assignments?

• What are the critical moments in the stories of those who dislike PE that they perceive as informing their dislike?

• Can engagement in extra curricula PE impact on the perceptions of disaffected students to the value of school attendance?

• Choosing to be active: What are the factors influencing the take up (or lack of take up) of physical activity outside of school?

What is the data that will address the question?

• What are the issues in your own school you would like to

explore further?

• Can you narrow the focus?

• What data will help you understand this issue better?

Finding a focus

Understanding the focusEmployability: an example

‘Whilst those involved in sport …..believe that engagement in sport has a positive impact on a student’s employability, for example the development of team working and leadership skills, the evidence is largely anecdotal’. (Allen et al 2013 BUCS report)

Employability

The value of extra-curricula activity• DeMoulin, (2002) EC can be positively linked to high achievement and

productivity and an explanation would be the development of good time

management skills.

The value of team sports• Eide and Ronan (2001) participation in team sports had a positive impact

upon future earnings

Social skills• Bailey (2005) social benefits of PE may be more important than physical

benefits

Employability: Research

Based on data from the BUCS (2013) report (survey data)• Many employers look for mention of engagement in sport on job

applications• Employers believe that sport facilitates team working,

communication skills, motivation, competitiveness and resilience• Within the workplace , sport is seen to provide networking

opportunities, develop team working skills, as well as promote good health and wellbeing.

Employability: A Real World View

1. Consider what is done already in your own school

2. Generate ideas that might be an innovation in your own practice that

might link to what is already known about employability

• Be focused, don’t try to change the world!

• Improve leadership skills through PE (Too broad)

• Identify contrasting leadership styles in known sports captains and

invite reflection on the kind of leader the student might respond to

and the kind of leader they might be.

3. Identify the data that will reveal the impact of the innovation

Innovation possibilities

Designing a study

• How do a group of year 8 pupil premium students respond to

an innovation that integrates health awareness across the

curriculum

Likely methods:

• Pre and post questionnaire to assess response,

• observation of practice in different disciplines,

• student evaluation of the different approaches taken in each

discipline

From focus to methods (1)

• I could explore changing understanding• The data will focus on what a student knows

• I could explore changing attitudes• The data will focus on what a student believes and values

• I could explore changing behaviour• The data will focus on what a student does

• I could contrast how the focus is integrated into different disciplines• The data will focus on classroom practices

• I could try to understand how students respond in different contexts• The data will focus on student evaluations of classroom practice

Research Problem:Understanding response

• Can changing patterns of questioning in whole class

discussion in PE raise participation levels?

• Likely methods: Classroom observation to record the

interaction patterns evident and to record changing levels of

participation over time

From focus to method (2)

I could count• The number of students who contribute in a lesson• The number of students who never contribute• The length of the contribution• The ratio of teacher- student contributionsThis will generate numerical data I can compare Do I need to evaluate what is said?• Am I more interested in the number of contributions or the nature and

quality of the contributions?• This will generate qualitative data that is more difficult to compare but may

be more representative of classroom interaction patterns

Research problem: Measuring participation

Challenging perceptions of sport as exclusive

Exploring student responses to the stories of Paralympians

• How do students engage in the lessons?

• How do students describe their own engagement?

• How do students respond to the stories?

• How do students understand the teachers’ rationale for introducing

the stories?

• How much variability is there in the nature of their response?

What data might you collect – why?

From focus to methods – Your turn

Acting on the findings

The TALK project: A project involving a partnership between Exeter

University and three primary schools in West Sussex. The teachers:

• designed an observation schedule to capture participation levels of

different groups of children

• videoed themselves teaching

• completed a self reflection sheet

• analysed the questions they asked

• analysed the responses children gave

• discussed the findings in staff meetings

Exploring classroom interaction

In light of their findings the schools made the following changes• Plan key questions in advance• Plan higher level questioning (analysis, synthesis, evaluation)• Place question more strategically• Use more process questions which invite explanation of thinking• Try to generate interaction patterns which avoid repeated T-C-T-C

patterns• Avoid giving feedback or commentary on every response• Create space for pupil-generated questions

Changing practice

• Find a focus that makes sense in your context

• Explore what is known already

• Tighten the focus: the more precise the focus the more you will

be able to infer from the data

• Collect data that allows you to see what is happening in the

classroom

• Act on what you find out (you will need data that reveals what

might change)

Conclusion

A common public discourse around the role of the teacher would be that teaching is undervalued and teachers positioned as the deliverers of a curriculum designed by others and taught through strategies developed and disseminated via a top down model. At the same time, however, there is a movement amongst the teaching profession to engage in reflective practice, to claim the role of the ‘expert’ in their own classrooms and to develop a bottom up approach to strategic initiatives which strongly resists the one size fits all approach to teaching. The role of teacher-researcher is just one of the ways in which teachers can look for evidence to inform these initiatives (Fisher, Myhill, Jones and Larkin (2010)

Using Talk to Support Writing)

A post script