Pre-service teachers becoming researchers: the role of professional learning groups in creating a community of inquiry
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Open Access
Type
ArticleAbstract
Contemporary schools seek to employ teachers who are curious learners, who can employ practitioner inquiry skills to investigate, inform and grow their own classroom practice, responsive to their circumstances. As a profession, the question we must ask is how do we best prepare and ...
See moreContemporary schools seek to employ teachers who are curious learners, who can employ practitioner inquiry skills to investigate, inform and grow their own classroom practice, responsive to their circumstances. As a profession, the question we must ask is how do we best prepare and continue to equip teachers with the necessary research skills to investigate and inform their own practice? In this study, we share our pedagogical stance and features of our approach in a new core undergraduate subject for pre-service teachers (PSTs). We discuss professional learning groups (PLGs) for initial teacher education students as the main intervention in the subject, and, more specifically, we elaborate how regular participation in PLGs formed in an on-campus subject can help PSTs to become researchers. We draw on 183 student exit tickets and student feedback surveys to consider broader implications for how to engage teachers in research. This study poses questions about the nature of practitioner research and investigates the role that PLGs play in disrupting the challenges universities face in preparing teachers to engage in and with research.
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See moreContemporary schools seek to employ teachers who are curious learners, who can employ practitioner inquiry skills to investigate, inform and grow their own classroom practice, responsive to their circumstances. As a profession, the question we must ask is how do we best prepare and continue to equip teachers with the necessary research skills to investigate and inform their own practice? In this study, we share our pedagogical stance and features of our approach in a new core undergraduate subject for pre-service teachers (PSTs). We discuss professional learning groups (PLGs) for initial teacher education students as the main intervention in the subject, and, more specifically, we elaborate how regular participation in PLGs formed in an on-campus subject can help PSTs to become researchers. We draw on 183 student exit tickets and student feedback surveys to consider broader implications for how to engage teachers in research. This study poses questions about the nature of practitioner research and investigates the role that PLGs play in disrupting the challenges universities face in preparing teachers to engage in and with research.
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Date
2024Source title
The Australian Educational ResearcherVolume
51Publisher
SpringerLicence
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Faculty/School
The University of Sydney Business SchoolShare