Topic: Research in Teaching

10-second review: Why is limiting teachers to the results of published research harmful to the profession? Author responds to the federal government’s requirement that all teaching be limited to scientifically-based researched evidence for practices they use.

The author says that this requirement shuts teachers off. Fails to enlist their voices, their own research into the practices they use. “Teacher research, in which teachers and colleagues work together to investigate their own assumptions, their own teaching and curriculum development and the policies and practices of their own schools and communities has a vital role to play in improving practice."

"Teachers matter, not only in terms of student achievement in their individual classrooms, but also as potential contributors to the knowledge base on effective teaching. Narrow conceptions of research that silence the voice of teachers diminish the entire teaching-learning enterprise.”

Source: C. Dudley-Marling. Research in Teaching English (August 2005), 130. A publication of the National Council of the Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: If I could do one thing over in my teaching it would be establishing “action research,” my own personal research, in my own classroom, to validate my practices and to experiment with others. Damn! RayS.