*Image Credit: McNiff & Whitehead, 2006
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“a quest for knowledge about how to improve” - Ferrance, 2000, p. 2
When teachers engage in action research, they begin by asking themselves questions about their practice and their impact on their students, and possibly imagining what their ideal state would be, or what their vision is for themselves and their students. It is a self-reflective inquiry into their work with the goal of changing and improving their practice.
Teachers gather information within the context of their environment in order to identify an area of improvement or change they would like to make, plan for the implementation of their new strategies and methods of measuring their progress, and then observe themselves throughout the implementation, reflecting on their progress and gathering evidence to support their findings. The teacher then reflects on the process and makes revisions for the future. The process repeats over and over through cycles of self-assessment and adjustments to practice based on new understanding gained from the action research process. The process includes planning, taking action, observing, reflective, and then planning again. |
Emerging Research“It is quite obvious that emerging research covers the novelty dimension of frontier research” (ERC, 2013, p4) The research topic is considered to be emerging due to a very rapid growth or expansion in the number of research publications pertaining to the topic, which have resulted during a short interval of time (Cozzens, et al, 2010; Small, 2014). The research is getting a lot of likes...Its a hot topic! In addition to the “nearly universal agreement on two properties associated with emergence, novelty (or newness) and growth” (Small et al, 2014, p. 1451), the scientific impact of the research (Rotolo et al., 2015) determined by the number of citations is also a consideration in determining whether a research topic is considered to be emerging. |
Innovative Practices“Innovation is fearless. It is able to ignore what’s been done in the past in order to reimagine what education can be in the future.” (Will Gourley, TedEd Innovative Teacher) Innovative practices are new and original methodologies. Some innovative practices involve fundamental changes to school structures and traditional teaching practices. However, many times, innovative practices emerge from small changes teachers make to their current instruction in order to create new structures, processes, strategies, modalities, etc. to improve learning for students. When teachers are willing to leave their traditional practices in order to try new strategies, modalities, resources, etc. in order to meet the needs of their students they are using innovative practices. Implementing innovative practices involves a willingness to take a risk and accept potential failure. Innovative practices include the use of new technologies, the redesign of learning environments, and adoption of current educational trends in order to prepare students for the future. |