Editorial

Celebrating the Research of Teachers

Editorial: Jackie Delong and Ron Wideman

Welcome to the first issue of The Ontario Action Researcher (OAR). The issue is a work in progress and articles will be added as they are completed.

This journal is a partnership of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, the Grand Erie District School Board and Nipissing University. It has grown out of the partnership that produced the professional development kit, Action Research: School Improvement Through Research-Based Professionalism (Delong & Wideman, 1998).

The specific purposes of the journal are identified on this home page. We intend to provide an on-going forum for sharing action research studies and the growing knowledge base about the potential for action research to improve student learning and teacher practice. About two-thirds of the articles will be from practising elementary and secondary school practitioners and one-third from university students and teachers.

Action research is an approach to school improvement that honours teachers' professionalism. Individually, and in groups, teachers identify questions about their practice, make appropriate changes, and collect data to discover the impact of those changes. They record their studies and share the results of their investigations with others. The key research questions are, "How do I improve my practice?" and "What evidence can I gather to demonstrate the impact of my work?" (Whitehead, 1993; Delong & Wideman, 1996; McNiff, Lomax, & Whitehead, 1996; McNiff, 1998).

Let's begin with a real-life story. In October 1998, Jackie Delong was visiting one of the secondary schools for which she has responsibility as a superintendent. She stopped to introduce herself to a young teacher she had not met before. The teacher mentioned that he was starting his M.Ed degree and was interested in engaging in action research to improve his ability to implement new Science and Technology curricula. Jackie suggested that OAR might be a useful source of help to him and that he might be interested in submitting an article on his findings. The teacher expressed a keen interest in the prospect of learning from other teachers and sharing his own learning.

Jackie's story underlines key reasons we are starting this electronic journal: to give voice to teachers who are working to improve their practice; to celebrate their knowledge and experience; and to add their research to the educational knowledge base. Traditionally teachers have accepted the predominant role of universities and governments in educational research and the development of educational knowledge. Top-down change, however, has been shown to ignore the experience and voice of the teacher and to be largely ineffective in creating substantial changes in classroom practices (Fullan, 1982).

Action research is more consistent with Schon's (1983) model of Reflection in Action than with the model of Technical Rationality that has informed top down change and has guided thinking about the professions for 150 years (Schon, 1983). Technical Rationality sees professional practice as instrumental problem solving and supports a hierarchical relationship between the experts who develop knowledge and the practitioners who implement knowledge. Schon's work called the model of technical rationality into question. He found that in areas of uncertainty (and there are many in education), effective practitioners become researchers who identify a problem, develop a hypothesis, and conduct an experiment to see how it changes the problematic situation. By pursuing cycles of action research, reflective practitioners develop new practices that are grounded in the reality of their own contexts.

The emphasis in action research on writing and sharing (Whitehead, 1993; Delong & Wideman, 1996; McNiff, 1998), enables teachers to communicate the real changes in practice they have made and to contribute substantially to the development of the knowledge base of their own profession. From a hierarchical perspective this is a "bottom-up" approach to change. From a collaborative perspective, however, it suggests a more collegial relationship among schools, universities, and governments to honour what each brings to the development of educational knowledge.

Features of This Journal

You can navigate the specific features of the journal by using the buttons on the home page. There is information about the partnering organizations and about the editorial board which includes elementary and secondary teachers as well as university teachers and school board administrators. The process for submitting articles is also described. We invite you to submit reports of your own action research. The peer-review process is intended to support authors in revising their work prior to publication.

OAR is hot-linked to a growing number of action research web sites and can connect you to a local and international network of teachers doing research on their practice. We believe that dialogue among teachers, sometimes called teacher talk, is one of the most valuable ways to improve practice and encourage collaboration in the teaching profession. An OAR Listserv to support teacher talk using critical friends at a distance is in our plans for the future.

Resources

Delong, J., & Wideman, R. (Eds.) (1998). Action research: School improvement through research-based professionalism - Professional development kit. Mississauga, Ontario: The Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation.

Delong, J., & Wideman, R. (1996). School improvement that honours teacher professionalism: an action report. In Halsall, N. and Hossick, L. (Eds.) Act, reflect, revise, revitalize. Mississauga: The Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation. 15-17.

Fullan, M. (1982). The meaning of educational change. Toronto: The O.I.S.E. Press.

McNiff, J. (1998). Action research for professional development: Concise advice for new action researchers Mississauga, Ontario: The Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation.

McNiff, J., Lomax, P., & Whitehead, J. (1996). You and your action research project. London: Routledge.

Schon, D..A. (1983). The Reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.

Whitehead, J. (1993). The growth of educational knowledge: Creating your own living educational theory. Bournemouth: Hyde Publications.