Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher (4th Edition)

Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher (4th Edition) Review

Born of the author's own experience working with teachers and principals, Action Research, Fourth Edition, provides a research-based step-by-step outline of how to do action research. The author guides teachers and administrators through the action research process via numerous concrete illustrations; positioning it as a fundamental component of teaching.

 

Action Research helps to develop teachers and administrators with professional attitudes, who embrace action, progress, and reform.

 

Features

 

Balanced coverage of quantitative data collection and analysis techniques

• Chapter 4, Data Collection Techniques, covers collection techniques for the most frequently used qualitative and quantitative data, including observations, interviews, teacher-made tests, and standardized test data.
• Chapter 6, Data Analysis and Interpretation, guides students through data analysis and provides techniques, coding guidelines, and examples for analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data.
• Additional coverage of mixed methods research has been added throughout the book.

 

A focus on producing critical consumers of action research

• A new chapter, Evaluating Action Research (Chapter 9), helps students become critical consumers of research. 
• Included in Chapter 9 is an article from an action research journal that is analyzed using the new criteria for evaluating action research.
• Appendix A, Action Research in Action, contains an extended example and evaluation of an action research case study.

 

An expanded coverage of ethics

• Chapter 2, Ethics, provides an expanded discussion of ethical guidelines and provides guidance for seeking and obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval.

 

Integration to the MyEducationLab for Action Research website

• The fourth edition of Action Research includes margin note integration with MyEducationLab for Action Research, a dynamic online learning environment that provides students with the opportunity to build a better understanding of action research through engagement with real products from the research process. 

 

 

A user-friendly format

• Chapter objectives give students targets to shoot for as they read and study
• Key Concept boxes provide students with an efficient review of important vocabulary and theory
• Research in Action checklists provide students with guidelines to use in each stage of the action research process

Taking Action with Teacher Research

Taking Action with Teacher Research Review

More and more, classroom teachers are using action research strategies to tackle basic issues and daily dilemmas-everything from designing their own professional development to reshaping instructional practice. Through their support of teachers who are eager to take up this work, Ellen Meyers and Frances Rust have found that the challenges to the reform of public schools are most likely to surface in three areas: resources needed to meet standards, conditions of the workplace, and status of the teaching profession. Their book is a lucid guide for teachers to address these and other problems in classrooms and beyond; to ask the right questions and design and implement research to find answers; and to use this data to effect change.

Every chapter contains rich examples of teacher research in action.

• Jane Fung focuses on the conditions of schooling and the status of teachers in an elementary school in downtown Los Angeles.
• Lara Goldstone, teaching in New York's Chinatown, looks at obstacles to successful communication with the parents of her students.
• In a Lower East Side middle school, Matt Wayne confronts the problem of getting appropriate books for struggling eighth-grade students.
• Carol Tureski at a high school in Queens finds that lack of access to high-interest, culturally relevant resources is a significant barrier to facilitating adolescent literacy.
• Janet Price, also at a Queens high school, shows what can happen when teachers set the agenda for professional development around assessment in their school.
• Natasha Warikoo at a Manhattan high school looks at the impact of class size on her teaching of second-language learners in her math class.

When teachers consider themselves to be researchers, not just consumers of research, they are exercising leadership. And when teachers form networks to share their knowledge, they are breaking down obstacles that have thwarted their leadership for so long. Action research empowers teachers to do just that-to lead reform efforts and provide the remedies needed for all children to succeed.

The studies in this book are part of the work of the Teachers Network Policy Institute, whose mission is to give teachers an active voice in education policy making. For more information, contact www.teachersnetwork.org. All proceeds support the Teachers Network Policy Institute.

Action Research for Teacher Candidates: Using Classroom Data to Enhance Instruction

Action Research for Teacher Candidates: Using Classroom Data to Enhance Instruction Review

Teachers are the single most important element in helping every child succeed in school. Action Research for Teacher Candidates has been written in the hopes of equipping teachers-in-training with the skills needed for action research: a process that leads to focused, effective, and responsive strategies that help students succeed. Robert P. Pelton is also the author of Making Classroom Inquiry Work: Techniques for Effective Action Research, which is designed to serve those who wish to delve deeper into their action research or as leaders in teacher research and reflective practice. These two books serve as both a perfect training curriculum for pre-service teachers at the undergraduate or graduate level and as an excellent vehicle for professional development for in-service teachers.