Empowering Professional Teaching in Engineering - John Heywood Synthesis Lectures on Engineering

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rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_0e18e387-24d8-5c01-875b-b076153b656a">18] Combs, A. W. and D. Snygg (1949). Individual Behaviour. A Perceptual Approach to Behaviour. New York, Harper and Row. 19

      Example of an action research in a primary (elementary) school initiated by a teacher with the support of the Principal of his school.

      This extract is from Heywood, J. (2008). Instructional and Curriculum Leadership. Toward Inquiry Oriented Schools. Dublin, National Association for Principals and Deputies, pages 45 ff. It is based on Prior, P. (1985). Teacher Self-Evaluation using Classroom Action Research. A Case Study. M.Ed. Dissertation. University of Dublin, Dublin.

      Pat Prior set out to establish the validity of Elliott’s model of action research in an Irish primary school. He did this with the support of his Principal and his colleagues on the staff. As defined by Elliott action research is “the study of a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within it.” Elliott, J. (1991). Action Research for Educational Change. Milton Keynes/Philadelphia, Open University Press.

      The start of any research is to clarify the problem and this is often by no means easy. In the first place Prior used, as did Elliott the Nominal Group Technique. This is an extension of brainstorming. It has six stages: (1) Question setting. (2) Reflection. (3) Pooling. (4) Clarification. (5) Evaluation and (6) Review. It is quite an extensive procedure and Prior found that in order to clarify the problem he required more than one session.

      One effect is that it requires teachers to publicly declare problems they have and in so doing they have to try and separate self-esteem from classroom activity. Elliott found that teachers find this difficult to do. Exercises like this also demonstrate that the problems that teachers face in isolation are likely to be the case in other classrooms. Prior’s study found that his school was no exception.

      Prior circulated a summary of the first meeting. Before the next meeting he also circulated a document that set down the aims and guidelines for future meetings. At this stage the purpose was seen to be “to make a largely academic curriculum more meaningful for the development of the whole student.”

      At this stage the investigator also recorded the inability of the project to alter the academic emphasis of the curriculum. The principal said that nothing could be done about it. “Efforts should be made to make the academic curriculum more attractive to academically less able students.” Nevertheless, Prior reported that the variety of issues that had been raised offered scope for classroom research. The teachers had to learn to focus. To get this focusing Prior decided to intervene during the third meeting with the teachers through means of a statement and a question. Comparison between the records of the earlier meeting and the meeting suggested to Prior that at last the teachers had begun to focus.

      The next stage in the Elliott model is reconnaissance. It has two components-description and explanation of the problem. The problem now became that (1) some pupils were not fully occupied in the class, and (2) how could this situation be improved? The first would be for research the second would be for discussion meetings. Prior now asked his colleagues to observe and record what happened in their classrooms. The questions to guide observation are shown in the table. The written results ranged from the diary type listing of events to reflection. The general conclusion was that teachers lessons aimed at the average group and that those above or below this range were neglected.

      At this stage Prior asked the teachers to shadow study a single pupil and to invite observers into their rooms (triangulation). Tape recorders were also provided. The principal assisted by supervising the class of a teacher who was observing. But at this stage Prior records that a crisis occurred (in so far as the investigation was concerned) because what was happening was not leading to change. He, therefore, decided to continue at a lower level and to concentrate on change in classrooms rather than at school/staff level.

      Ten hypotheses had emerged as a result of classroom observation. It was accepted that there was a serious problem that centered on teacher’s problems in dealing with students of all ability levels. It was proposed that there should be an in-service day to discuss this problem, but for a number of reasons including the failure of the university (this writer) to come up with a facilitator it never ran. There were now only 5 weeks left. So Prior decided to ask teachers to become researchers in their own classrooms and to devise, implement and evaluate a lesson that took into account the earlier findings and the hypotheses they generated. The results were of some interest. One teacher whose study is fully recorded was very successful but found the exercise exhausting.

      Teachers were also asked to submit any aspect of learning that interested them; an interview with the principal was also conducted.

      Prior points out that while many teachers said that change was not possible because of class size, one teacher had actually achieved such change.

      This is by no means all but that is not for this text. While the project met with many vicissitudes there is no way that it can be regarded as a failure. It may not have achieved its goals but like any action research it achieved many things en-route. First, it showed that many teachers find it difficult to reflect and have to be helped if they want to achieve a new level of thinking. Second, the whole process is lengthy. Prior felt that if he were to do it again he would shorten the process of finding the problem. Perhaps, however, teachers should go through that lengthy process. Third, at the time he wrote he did not see a direct connection with the whole school plan. When he undertook the project whole school planning was in its infancy. Similarly, research on TQM (Total Quality Management) in educational institutions was only beginning to appear in books and journals. It seems clear from this research that a school that concentrates on a project like this over a year is likely to achieve much more than the engagement of small groups in different projects. Here the whole school was involved in the problem of teaching mixed ability groups, a problem that is still with many teachers. It is in this sense that we begin to understand the concept of teamwork in schools. Fourth, the project indicates, […] that there is much more to the design of instruction than is currently thought to be the case. Fifth, the conduct of the project provided a chocs des opinions and began to get the teachers thinking outside of their normal frames of reference. Instructional leaders will find the maintenance of such attitudes difficult unless agreed changes are built into the curriculum. Sixth, although teachers believed they were constrained by a received curriculum and large class sizes they nevertheless were able to undertake developments within these constraints. In all, during this period the school was of the kind described by Cohn and Kottkamp, that is inquiry oriented with teachers acting as extended professionals.

      Aim

      To gather evidence from classrooms which is relevant to the following problem: there are some pupils who are not fully occupied in class. How can this situation be improved?

      Guidelines

      Teacher asked to observe and describe the fact of the situation, using the following suggestions:

      Which pupils are not adequately occupied in class?

      What are such pupils doing when they should be working?

      Do pupils so behave during a particular

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