A new model for professional development. As an alternative, collaborative action research actively involves teachers in professional reflection, validates educators as producers of knowledge, and recognizes their role in professional development and decision making. The value of teacher research is well documented but unless deliberate attempts to share findings are established, teacher research often remains within individual classrooms. Strategies to develop collaborative research capabilities are needed. In this study pre service-inservice dyads were taught how to use action research to examine, analyze, and reflect upon their teaching.
Results indicate promise and identify potential obstacles.
For decades many educational researchers have assumed that teacher decision making and schooling in general would improve if research trickled down to teachers. Currently, this trickle down perspective is being challenged by a group of diverse scholars who champion teacher research. We examine this struggle for legitimate knowledge by focusing on teachers' thinking about research. Our findings suggest that trickle down perspectives will have limited results unless historic relations of power, bolstered by institutional structures, are addressed and challenged. We also suggest that experiential knowledge needs to be critically examined to identify inherent constraints as well as contextual constraints in this form of knowledge.