The Power of Praconer-­‐Led Acon Research


Claire Collins, Bob Read, Ian Grayling and Joss Kang Claire Collins, Ian Grayling, Joss Kang and Bob Read work in the Further Educaon and Training sector to support organisaons and individuals to develop teaching and learning programmes. Ian is the Execuve Director of emCETT/ CETTa, Claire and Joss are independent consultants (Claire is also RaPAL’s secretary) and Bob works for ACER as a Training and Development Adviser.


Introducon


Between 2013 and 2015, a team from the East Midlands Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (emCETT, now CETTa), led a praconer-­‐led research programme across England supported by the Educaon and Training Foundaon. The authors and other colleagues worked with over 200 praconer-­‐researchers during this me and supported them to examine their own pracce. The key aim was for praconers to find ways of improving and beer understanding learning in the post-­‐16 contexts in which they worked. In so doing, they engaged in and with research in their own classrooms (using ‘classroom’ in the broadest sense of the word). In other words, praconers idenfied and enquired into real issues they had encountered in their pracce and drew on previous research findings to plan improvements they could try out and measure.


In this arcle, we argue for the value of Praconer-­‐Led Acon Research (PLAR), and refer to examples of such research carried out by adult literacies specialists (maths, English and ICT). In doing so, we also hope to illustrate how PLAR became a vehicle for teacher self-­‐development. This arcle will act as an introducon to topics that will be explored in future edions of this Journal.


Can teachers be researchers? In a recent arcle (TES, 2015), John Hae stated that: Teachers should avoid becoming researchers in their classrooms and leave the job to academics


Hae’s viewpoint is echoed by some other respected educaonal researchers. For example, in a 2016 presentaon entled ‘Why teaching will never be a research-­‐based profession (and why that’s a Good Thing)’, Dylan Wiliam, argued that the idea of teaching as a research-­‐based profession is never going to happen. Wiliam cites the lack of reliability in teachers’ research findings, poor design and lack of adequate controls. The emCETT (now CETTa) approach itself challenged dominant approaches to research in educaon. We did not require that everyone worked at Master’s level or that they wrote academic-­‐style research reports. We wanted research to be accessible by praconers who were not confident to communicate in academic ways. This is because the purpose of acon research is not to share findings to inform wider educaonal theories (though somemes this can happen). Instead it is to inform teachers about what works in their classrooms and what they can do in their own contexts and unique situaons to improve their pracce. Furthermore, the process of undertaking this research is in itself of great value, as it enables teachers to try new things and explore their hunches. If the same research in a different classroom yields very different results, this is not to say that the inial research is not valid or useful. It simply shows that the findings are highly situated. Praconer-­‐Led Acon Research, we saw, extends reflecve pracce and leads to deep learning, iniated and led by teachers. As Wiliam himself argues, ‘All teachers should be seeking to improve their pracce through a process of “disciplined inquiry”’ (Wiliam, 2016) and our argument is that PLAR supports this.


Why does Praconer-­‐Led Acon Research maer now?


Within the teaching landscape ‘top down’ quality improvement strategies such as graded lesson observaons are increasingly being contested (e.g. O’Leary, 2014) and ‘boom up’ improvement strategies are becoming much more visible. The growth of ‘teach meets’, teaching and learning conversaons via Twier and the Uncommon


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