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JOURNEY 2

“Oh that we the gift of God to see ourselves as others see us,” Learning from Beginning Teachers 2

2.1 INTRODUCTION

I confess that the quotation is the only line of the poetry by Robert Burns that I know. At least I was told he wrote it, and I was also told that it was about a lice on the back of the neck of a Lady in her “Sunday best,” who was, as one might expect, attending church.

Self-accountability demands that we try and see ourselves as others see us even if what we find is unpleasant. I take Rokeach’s proposition that generally, we want to know the truth about ourselves, to be correct [1]. Engineering educators with an interest in teaching and learning are still a rare breed and finding a person or better still persons interested in teaching is often difficult yet, the height of self-accountability is to be able to invite a colleague to observe one’s teaching. Such liaisons are the basis of educational change. You may read about an attempt by a primary (elementary) school teacher in Ireland to engage his colleagues in changing the curriculum of their school in appendix A (Section 2.5).

One important thing that a beginning teacher has to learn, if he or she does not know it already, is that students do not always see things in the same way as the teacher [2]. A component of the competency of self-accountability is to be able to see ourselves as others see us, more especially our students. The concern of this chapter is with techniques for achieving that goal.

2.2 RECORDING ONE’S CLASS

When John Elliott developed his thoughts about accountability in the 1970’s, he suggested that the teacher should make an audio recording of his/her lesson/lecture [3]. At that time it would have been very expensive to have made a video recording and, in any event, the equipment would have been very large. Nowadays, we are probably being recorded by one or another of the students in our class! We can certainly prop a laptop with a camcorder on the lecture room’s rostrum, whatever that may be, and make a visual recording of the activity.

I have nothing against that, but I want to suggest that from listening, yes- just by listening, we may learn a great deal about ourselves, the way we present knowledge, and the way we interact with students. It is much easier to do these days because we have the technology that makes omni-directional-recording easy.

Listening is an important skill and helps us to focus on the issue we want to study, as for example, how we respond to questions in class. It won’t, of course, necessarily tell us if we are selective in the choices we make about whose question we will take, unless we do a more detailed analysis.

After a few audio sessions we can begin to make and analyze video recordings and cope with the much greater “noise” that is generated.

One of the other ways my colleagues used to train beginning teachers—called “microteaching”—was to bring in half-a-dozen students from a local school, ask the student to teach them for ten-minutes or so while making a video recording of their teaching. The recording is then played back to the student with comments from the tutor. This procedure can be changed so that a group of beginning teachers review their teaching together, and comment on each other’s presentations. It is quite a useful method for introducing beginning teachers to the art of teaching. But, it is only the beginning of self-accountability.

The first time that I tried to make a videotape of an introductory lecture came as a shock. What I thought would be a doddle turned out to be very stressful. The producer harangued me and continually stopped to re-take and re-take. Apart from learning that it was a considerable skill I began to appreciate just how little a learner can address, that 50 minutes to an hour is far too long for a continuous presentation, and that it was very easy, even then with all the electronics available, to introduce noise into the learning system [4].

Farah and Neelam did their very best to make me presentable in the first of these minilectures. I had to do a lot of re-learning.

A quite different approach was advocated by the Stanford educator Elliot Eisner (see below).

2.3 PERCEPTUAL LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM

One of the difficulties that student graduate teachers have in trying to understand classroom performance is to get behind (understand, if you prefer) what the students are thinking. In evaluating their classes the emphasis is often with what happens to them rather than what happens to their students as a result of their instruction. This is not at all surprising. At the same time it is a reminder that what happens to teachers in classrooms is all too easily forgotten by politicians and administrators when they criticize them. The teacher is as important as the student in the learning process, but the teacher has to be aware of the perceptual processes at work.

The relationship between teacher’s and their students is deep and personal and can be encouraging or hurtful in both directions. That said, teachers do need to understand what is happening in their classrooms both to themselves and to their students.

The teachers who provided the examples given in this text taught in schools under supervision throughout the school year for half of each week. Throughout the academic year they attended the university during the other half of the week. At the beginning of the school year, to assist them with their practice, the department provided an induction course. The big worries that the student graduate teachers had were, would they be able to maintain discipline? And, would they be able to motivate their pupils? My particular contribution to this course was to introduce them to perception and perceptual learning. I wanted to achieve a number of objectives. Of these the one that is relevant to this text is that students do not always perceive what the teacher is saying as the teacher expects it to be perceived. Hence, the need for questioning and testing at the time to establish what is being learned and how it is understood [5]. The situation is no different in a university class, as Jane Abercrombie showed in studies of architectural and medical students. Her “The Anatomy of Judgement” first published in 1960 [6] must be a classic in the literature of higher education.

2.4 ELLIOT EISNER’S CONCEPT OF EDUCATIONAL CONNOISSEURSHIP

Although, in the 1970’s Elliot Eisner wrote one of the most profound books on the curriculum he is seldom cited in the literature of engineering education. Possibly this was because he was anti-positivist, and was also a considerable critic of the objectives movement [7]. Eisner’s world was that of art and design. From that world came the concept of connoisseurship which he applied to the idea of evaluation. (Many authorities have replaced the term “evaluation” by the term “assessment.” I have retained the term “evaluation” in all my work). It simply means, not with-standing Eisner, a process for determining whether or not we have achieved our objectives. We can’t help wanting to achieve something and in this script that is an objective.

Connoisseurship implies knowledge and skill that has been built up over time. It is an expertise, or as today’s jargon would have it, a “competency.” It is a skill that can be learned, and with beginning teachers it is one way they can begin to acquire the tacit knowledge that is so important in teaching. It is a way of reflecting on and bringing a critical eye to one’s practice, that is, educational criticism. Eisner wrote: “As one learns to look at educational phenomena, as one ceases using stock responses to educational situations and develops habits of perceptual exploration, the ability to experience qualities and their relationships increases. This phenomenon occurs in virtually every arena in which connoisseurship has developed. The orchid grower learns to look at orchids in a way that expands his or her perception of their qualities. The makers of cabinets pay special attention to finish, types of wood and grains, to forms of joining, to the treatment of edges. The football fan learns how to look at plays” (set pieces in soccer), “defense patterns and game strategies. Once one develops a perceptual foothold in an arena of activity—orchid growing, cabinet making, or football watching—the skills used in that arena, one does not need the continual expertise of the critic to negotiate new works, or games or situations. One generalizes the skills developed earlier and expands them through further application” [8].

To develop this skill of connoisseurship I suggested to my trainee graduate teachers that at the end of the day they should reflect on what had happened in a class, by trying to visualize that class as an impressionist painting. I hoped it would help them understand (perceive) what had happened that was educationally significant. Exhibit 2.1 shows two reports from student teachers on what happened in their classes when their students were taught a problem solving heuristic. It might be argued that teacher (b) shows more insight than teacher (a) but this is not to say, that with further experience teacher (a) would not show an increase in insight, particularly if he/she had had sight of examples considered to have met the criteria.

The idea is to see the classroom in a different light. The skill of connoisseurship can only be developed with practice and conversation. To further develop the skill I asked my graduate trainees to provide me with an overall evaluation a week or so after the lesson had been conducted, and after they had analysed the results of the test they had designed to evaluate the strategy used. In the cases shown in Exhibit 2.2 they had been asked to evaluate a reported research on the effect of examples on teaching a concept (see Journey 10). To enable them to complete the final evaluation, I had provided them with a chapter from a book by Howard on concept learning in order for them to make a judgement based on theory and the evaluation practice.

Eisner’s view that skill in educational criticism requires an adequate theoretical base was met by the provision of Howard’s book. Eisner clarifies what he means by this when he relates it to reflective thinking which he regards as the base for curriculum thinking. He calls the reflective moments that a teacher has “preactive teaching,” a term coined by P. W. Jackson. Such moments occur, Eisner writes, “prior to actual teaching; planning at home, reflecting on what has occurred during a particular class session, and discussing in groups ways to organize the program. Theory here sophisticates personal reflection and group deliberation. In so far as a theory suggests consequences flowing from particular circumstances, it enables those who understand the theory to take these circumstances into account when planning.”

“In all of this, theory is not to be regarded as prescriptive but as suggestive. It is a framework, a tool, a means through which the world can be construed. Any theory is but part of the total picture… In one sense all teachers operate with theory, if we take theory to mean a general set of ideas through which we make sense of the world” [8].

“All teachers whether they are aware of it or not use theories in their work. Tacit beliefs about the nature of human intelligence, about factors that motivate children, and about the conditions that foster learning in classrooms. These ideas not only influence their actions, they also influence what they attend to in the classroom, that is, the concepts that are salient in theories concerning pedagogical matters also tend to guide perception. Thus, theory inevitably operates in the conduct of teaching as it does in other aspects of educational deliberation. The major need is to be able to view situations from the varied perspectives that different theories provide, and thus, to be in a position to avoid the limited vision of a single view” [9].

a. “As is normal in these research classes students are issued with the relevant handouts, and began beavering away. The first handout issued related to their emotional and motivational states (questionnaire), the second to their decision making models, the third was a repeat of the Payne experiment, while the fourth familiarized them with the daily decisions of science, the fifth tested the application of problem solving skills. The class was divided in half, one group were given the problem solving sheet (questionnaire 4) and were not shown how to subsequently solve the problem. A second group were tested and subsequently shown the correct way of solving the problem, and then both groups were retested. Discounting memorization this should (by comparative analysis of the scores of group A and B) illustrate if problem solving skills can be taught. Distribution of questionnaires takes up a large proportion of the student teacher’s time in such a class and efficient organization is essential. The sequence of using the questionnaires together with a specified place for each completed set must be designated beforehand by the researcher. Sloppy organization makes for a badly run class and much time can be lost as a result. Students enjoyed playing with the information search ‘card’ sheet which was passed around the class and as students completed the questionnaires. The typing of the questionnaire by the school secretary was of immense benefit, as students were not strained into deciphering my handwriting as is usual, in these exercises where there is usually a large volume of hand written material. Students were patient in filling out the forms and in listening to the initial ‘talk’ given about Kolb, the importance of educational research and decision making skills to examination performance. They co-operated but class noise levels were abnormally high. This exercise extended across 4 classes and what has been included here is a general impression of all classes.” (See Journey 12)

b. “The first problem set to the class was a chemistry problem and approximately half the class got it correct. I then asked the class to offer their views on what problems they might encounter in their lives. This led to a discussion on the various types of problems that first years (13 years of age) might typically encounter including exam questions, and to how to do away with teachers they didn’t like.”

“I then explained what a heuristic was, and outlined the steps in the heuristic class to them. We went through the steps in the heuristic and ‘solved’ the problem already given to them. One of the pupil’s (Jordan) thought that four and five were the same, or at least there was not much of a difference between these two steps. Some of the others in the class said that they already used these steps and it was just stating the obvious. They were then set a second problem which they solved by themselves in class, using the heuristic. However, I am not totally convinced that they actually understood the heuristic to the problem. I think that maybe some of the pupils may have grasped the idea of a ‘plan of action’ in order to solve a problem, but the rest have not realized the significance of the heuristic and have not used it to help them solve the problem.”

“Although the pupils seemed to enjoy the discussion of problems in general (which were not subject related) they did not appear willing (or maybe able) to apply the heuristic. I don’t think this lesson was the most successful lesson I have ever taught.”

Exhibit 2.1: Two reports from student teachers on what happened in their classes when their students were taught a problem solving heuristic.

(a) “In conclusion, I wish to say that the whole exercise was a very interesting process in which I learned something new about educational theory, my subject, my students, and myself. I feel that this single small experiment was an imperfect attempt to assess the theory on concept teaching, and with the benefit of hindsight I could probably design the lesson plan (and perhaps the test) so that it better assisted the attainment of behavioral objectives. The theory seems to be correct-perhaps useful is a better word—but I would hope to conduct experiments in the future using controls to arrive at a stronger verification.”

“The second reading (Howard) appeared to offer little to alter the fundamental theory on the use of examples and non-examples and rather offered refinements on its use, in addition to some other techniques (use of metaphors and concept maps) to embellish it. From this I infer that the idea of using examples and non-examples has held its own over the years, and it is in my own teaching practice that I will have to investigate the value of the theory further. This will certainly require a restructuring of my approach to lesson planning as the methods that I have been using hitherto have been based more on intuitive feel than hard facts and experimental evidence.”

“The most exciting prospect is that the classroom can be approached as experimental laboratory in which to apply, test, and evaluate ideas on how to improve students learning. The challenge to me as a teacher is to become active in being experimental and open to changing my preconceived or un-thought through attitudes on how to do things.”

(b) “After reading Howard I would not have been afraid to use metaphors in the lesson. I was unsure of beginning the class with connecting percentages to decimals and fractions, but like everything else in mathematics everything is interconnected and cannot be understood until the lower steps have been mastered. At the end of the class they realized that percentages, fractions and decimals represented a part of a value and could tell the difference between them. I am familiar with students taking the incorrect aspects of the metaphor in learning a concept and I am conscious only to use metaphors with great care only after discriminating between the analogy and the new concept. I like the idea of concept mapping as this would allow me to work out at what stage the students are at and it could help me start at their level instead of having to make assumptions all of the time. If they didn’t understand what I was presenting I would have a logical plan to refer back to. Likewise if they already knew what I was doing.”

Exhibit 2.2: Extracts from the evaluations of lessons given by graduate student teachers in (a) science and (b) business mathematics in which they were asked to test the validity of specified research on the teaching of concepts using examples (see Journey 10). After they had completed their study they were given a chapter from Howard, R. W. (1987) Concepts and Schemata. An Introduction, London Cassell, and asked to take it account when writing their final evaluation.

If student is substituted for child(ren) in the above it will be seen to apply equally to higher education. It seems to me to be akin to Newman’s “philosophical habit of mind” which is continually developing the skill of criticism, and is surely what Elliott means by practical reflection [10]. Newman wrote, “[…] a philosophical cast of thought, or a comprehensive mind, or wisdom in conduct of policy, implies a connected view of the old (the teachers prior understanding) with the new” (the result of what happened in the class); “an insight into the bearing and influence of each part” (the students and the teacher) “on every other; without which there is no whole and could be no center. It is the knowledge, not only of things” (students and teacher), “but of their mutual relations. It is organized and therefore living knowledge” [11].

One reason why trainee graduate teachers want their training programmes to concentrate on giving them tips for teaching rather than on theory, is that they come with years of experience of having been taught in one way or another. During that time they are forced to make judgements about what constitutes good teaching, and what does not, on the basis of that teaching. They acquire their own theories of effective teaching, and some of the theories that teacher trainers might propose may bring about cognitive dissonance [12].

One criticism of the idea of connoisseurship is that connoisseurship is about taste, and critics often disagree about taste. Therefore, evaluations should be based on empirically based knowledge [20]. But assessors may well disagree about a particular teacher’s performance. A check list such as those that are often used may not grasp the teacher’s performance as a whole. The key is the success or otherwise of the class in achieving its objectives, and the teacher’s willingness to change, if change is perceived to be necessary.

There is also the problem that a particular theory may not be easily transferable to a particular class. Therefore, the function of the practical component of teacher education should be to enable beginning teachers develop their own theories of teaching and tacit knowledge through guided practice in which they evaluate a range of instructional strategies and theories. This can only be achieved by some kind of “research” which enables teachers to “discover that the classroom is, or should be, a challenging research laboratory, with questions to be pursued, data to be collected, analyses to be made, and improvements to be tried and evaluated.” In that way the status of university teaching should also be raised with the development of a scholarship of teaching, so thought K. Patricia Cross [21]. James Trevelyan, a distinguished engineer goes one step further and argues that “it is helpful for many engineering faculty to understand that teaching expertise can help their research as well as classroom teaching” [22]. I will explain in Journey 3 how I asked my graduate student teachers to evaluate a range of theories and strategies of teaching, and so reflect on and develop their own theories.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

[1] Rokeach, M. (1960). The Open and Closed Mind. New York, Basic Books. 11

[2] Heywood, J. (a). (1989). Learning, Adaptability and Change. The Challenge for Education and Industry. London, Paul Chapman/Sage. (b). (2017). The Human Side of Engineering. Morgan &Claypool. Store.morganclaypool.com 11

[3] Elliott, J. (1976). Preparing for classroom accountability. Education for Teaching, 100, pp. 49–71. 11

[4] Heywood, J. and H. Montagu Pollock (1977). Science for Arts Students: A Case Study in Curriculum Development. Guildford, Society for Research into Higher Education. 12

[5] The original approach to perception is outlined in Ch. 4 of Heywood, J. (1982). Pitfalls and Planning in Student Teaching. London, Kogan Page. It was updated for continuing professional development courses in instructional leadership, and management in (a) Instructional and Curriculum Leadership. Toward Inquiry Oriented Schools, (2008). Dublin, National Association of Principals and Deputies. (b) Managing and Leading Schools as Learning Organizations. Adaptability and Change, (2009). Dublin, National Association of Principals and Deputies. Revised again for engineering students in The Human Side of Engineering. St. Rafael, CA, (2016). Morgan Claypool. 13

[6] Abercrombie, M. L. J. (1960). The Anatomy of Judgement. An Investigation into Processes of Perception and Reasoning, London (1989 reprint), Free Association Books. 13

[7] Eisner, E. (1979). The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs. London, Collier Macmillan. 13

[8] ibid 13, 14

[9] ibid 14

[10] Newman, J. H. (1923 impression). The Idea of a University: Defined and Illustrated. London, Longmans Green. Discourse 5. 17

[11] Newman, J. H. (1843). Fifteen sermons preached before the University of Oxford. London, Rivington (1890 ed.), Sermon 14, p. 287. Also on pages 291 and 292. 17

“Philosophy, then is reason exercised upon knowledge; or the knowledge not merely of things in general, but of things in their relations to one another. It is the power of referring everything to its true place in the universal system -of understanding the various aspects of each of its parts, -of comprehending the exact value of each, -of tracing each backwards to its beginning and forward to its end, -of anticipating the separate tendencies of each, and their respective checks or counteractions; and thus of accounting for anomalies, answering objections, supplying deficiencies, making allowance for errors, and meeting emergencies.”

[12] “An important characteristic of memory and perception is the tendency to remember our successes and forget our failures [13]. At the same time we tend also to be very consistent in our attitudes and opinions [14]. Apart from the fact that this makes it more difficult to adapt, we try to adapt, by accommodating new perceptions that possess values within our value maps. We tend to use sets that have served us well in the past. The same is true of problem solving: we tend to use the same heuristic whatever the problem [15]. Bruner has called this persistence forecasting and it can in a new situation prevent us from using more efficient strategies. We tend to believe in the advantages of what we already possess. Dissonance or downshifting arises when we have to accommodate a new value system with which we have no empathy.” When there is a conflict between the values of the instructor and the student learning may be impeded. 17

“For example when a subject that we have to learn is cognitively complex and where values are involved, such as in political studies, a student may be in disagreement with the views held by the teacher. In these circumstances there may be considerable resistance to learning, and apparently this is particularly likely to be the case if the students are only mildly critical of the teacher’s standpoint. Such students may become alienated from the political and economic system. However, as Marshall [16] shows, a teacher can cause learning through his teaching style, even if his or her rating with the students deteriorates during the course.” (Which is one of the problems of using student ratings to evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher).

“Since we impose meaning on the objects of knowledge it should come as no surprise to find that a [student] can deliberately impose misunderstanding in order achieve consistency between the message and his feelings. If there is consistency a student can change his/her attitude to a teacher from like to dislike if the teacher’s messages appear to be untenable. This can happen in university when first-year [engineering] students have to cope with certain propositions in the social and behavioural sciences: anything that is contrary to the student’s views can create such dissonance.” […] [17].

“Challenges to values may be perceived as threatening. More generally in situations perceived to be threatening, we narrow our perceptual field and return to the safety of our beliefs [18]. Behaviour in which we revert to tried and trusted ways can affect the higher order cognitive functions and thus the ability to solve new problems. Downshifting of this kind it is argued is one of the reasons why students fail to apply the higher levels of the Bloom Taxonomy” [19].

“Cognitive dissonance theory accounts for the behaviour of institutions and politicians. For example, politicians become so committed to the values expressed in their slogans that they become unable to entertain reasoned arguments against their points of view even from some of their own supporters! And of course it is necessary for the dynamic of political parties that their workers (supporters) should not deviate from their beliefs” […]

The above paragraphs are from pages 66 and 67 of Heywood, J. (2008). Instructional and Curriculum Leadership. Towards Inquiry Oriented Schools. Dublin, National Association of Principals and Deputies.

[13] Bruner, J., Goodnow, J. J., and G. A. Austin (1956). A Study of Thinking. New York. Wiley. 19

[14] Festinger, L. (1959). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA. Stanford University Press. 19

[15] Luchins, A. S. (1942). Mechanisation in problem solving: The effect of “einstellung.” Psychological Monographs. No 248. See also McDonald, F. J. (1968). Educational Psychology. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth. 19

[16] Marshall, S. (1980). Cognitive affective dissonance in the classroom. Teaching political science in the classroom. Teaching Political Science, 8(11), pp. 111–117. 19

[17] French, W. L., Kast, F. E., and J. E. Rosenzweig (1985). Understanding Human Behaviour in Organizations. New York, Harper and Row. See also Thouless, R. H. (1974). Straight and Crooked Thinking. London, Pan Books. 19

[18] Combs, A. W. and D. Snygg (1949). Individual Behaviour. A Perceptual Approach to Behaviour. New York, Harper and Row. 19

[19] Caine, R. N. and G. Caine (1991). Teaching and the Human Brain. Alexandria VA, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 19

[20] Schubert, W. H. (1997). Curriculum. Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice-Hall, p. 276. 17

[21] Cross, K. P. (1986). A proposal to improve teaching or “what taking teaching seriously should mean.” AAHE Bulletin, p. 14. 17

[22] Trevelyan, J. (2010). Engineering students need to learn to teach. ASEE/IEEE Proceedings Frontiers in Education Conference, F3H-1 to 6. 17

2.5 APPENDIX

Example of an action research in a primary (elementary) school initiated by a teacher with the support of the Principal of his school.

This extract is from Heywood, J. (2008). Instructional and Curriculum Leadership. Toward Inquiry Oriented Schools. Dublin, National Association for Principals and Deputies, pages 45 ff. It is based on Prior, P. (1985). Teacher Self-Evaluation using Classroom Action Research. A Case Study. M.Ed. Dissertation. University of Dublin, Dublin.

Pat Prior set out to establish the validity of Elliott’s model of action research in an Irish primary school. He did this with the support of his Principal and his colleagues on the staff. As defined by Elliott action research is “the study of a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within it.” Elliott, J. (1991). Action Research for Educational Change. Milton Keynes/Philadelphia, Open University Press.

The start of any research is to clarify the problem and this is often by no means easy. In the first place Prior used, as did Elliott the Nominal Group Technique. This is an extension of brainstorming. It has six stages: (1) Question setting. (2) Reflection. (3) Pooling. (4) Clarification. (5) Evaluation and (6) Review. It is quite an extensive procedure and Prior found that in order to clarify the problem he required more than one session.

One effect is that it requires teachers to publicly declare problems they have and in so doing they have to try and separate self-esteem from classroom activity. Elliott found that teachers find this difficult to do. Exercises like this also demonstrate that the problems that teachers face in isolation are likely to be the case in other classrooms. Prior’s study found that his school was no exception.

Prior circulated a summary of the first meeting. Before the next meeting he also circulated a document that set down the aims and guidelines for future meetings. At this stage the purpose was seen to be “to make a largely academic curriculum more meaningful for the development of the whole student.”

At this stage the investigator also recorded the inability of the project to alter the academic emphasis of the curriculum. The principal said that nothing could be done about it. “Efforts should be made to make the academic curriculum more attractive to academically less able students.” Nevertheless, Prior reported that the variety of issues that had been raised offered scope for classroom research. The teachers had to learn to focus. To get this focusing Prior decided to intervene during the third meeting with the teachers through means of a statement and a question. Comparison between the records of the earlier meeting and the meeting suggested to Prior that at last the teachers had begun to focus.

The next stage in the Elliott model is reconnaissance. It has two components-description and explanation of the problem. The problem now became that (1) some pupils were not fully occupied in the class, and (2) how could this situation be improved? The first would be for research the second would be for discussion meetings. Prior now asked his colleagues to observe and record what happened in their classrooms. The questions to guide observation are shown in the table. The written results ranged from the diary type listing of events to reflection. The general conclusion was that teachers lessons aimed at the average group and that those above or below this range were neglected.

At this stage Prior asked the teachers to shadow study a single pupil and to invite observers into their rooms (triangulation). Tape recorders were also provided. The principal assisted by supervising the class of a teacher who was observing. But at this stage Prior records that a crisis occurred (in so far as the investigation was concerned) because what was happening was not leading to change. He, therefore, decided to continue at a lower level and to concentrate on change in classrooms rather than at school/staff level.

Ten hypotheses had emerged as a result of classroom observation. It was accepted that there was a serious problem that centered on teacher’s problems in dealing with students of all ability levels. It was proposed that there should be an in-service day to discuss this problem, but for a number of reasons including the failure of the university (this writer) to come up with a facilitator it never ran. There were now only 5 weeks left. So Prior decided to ask teachers to become researchers in their own classrooms and to devise, implement and evaluate a lesson that took into account the earlier findings and the hypotheses they generated. The results were of some interest. One teacher whose study is fully recorded was very successful but found the exercise exhausting.

Teachers were also asked to submit any aspect of learning that interested them; an interview with the principal was also conducted.

Prior points out that while many teachers said that change was not possible because of class size, one teacher had actually achieved such change.

This is by no means all but that is not for this text. While the project met with many vicissitudes there is no way that it can be regarded as a failure. It may not have achieved its goals but like any action research it achieved many things en-route. First, it showed that many teachers find it difficult to reflect and have to be helped if they want to achieve a new level of thinking. Second, the whole process is lengthy. Prior felt that if he were to do it again he would shorten the process of finding the problem. Perhaps, however, teachers should go through that lengthy process. Third, at the time he wrote he did not see a direct connection with the whole school plan. When he undertook the project whole school planning was in its infancy. Similarly, research on TQM (Total Quality Management) in educational institutions was only beginning to appear in books and journals. It seems clear from this research that a school that concentrates on a project like this over a year is likely to achieve much more than the engagement of small groups in different projects. Here the whole school was involved in the problem of teaching mixed ability groups, a problem that is still with many teachers. It is in this sense that we begin to understand the concept of teamwork in schools. Fourth, the project indicates, […] that there is much more to the design of instruction than is currently thought to be the case. Fifth, the conduct of the project provided a chocs des opinions and began to get the teachers thinking outside of their normal frames of reference. Instructional leaders will find the maintenance of such attitudes difficult unless agreed changes are built into the curriculum. Sixth, although teachers believed they were constrained by a received curriculum and large class sizes they nevertheless were able to undertake developments within these constraints. In all, during this period the school was of the kind described by Cohn and Kottkamp, that is inquiry oriented with teachers acting as extended professionals.

Aim

To gather evidence from classrooms which is relevant to the following problem: there are some pupils who are not fully occupied in class. How can this situation be improved?

Guidelines

Teacher asked to observe and describe the fact of the situation, using the following suggestions:

Which pupils are not adequately occupied in class?

What are such pupils doing when they should be working?

Do pupils so behave during a particular type of class or teaching or at certain times of the day?

Any other instance and circumstances of time wasting noticed.

Exhibit 2.3: This extract is from pages 313–317 of Heywood, J. (2009) Managing and Leading Schools as Learning Organizations. Adaptability and Change. Dublin. Original Writing for the National Association of Principals and Deputies. The information on Prior’s course is taken from Prior, P. (1985). Teacher Self-Evaluation using Classroom Action Research. Dublin, M.Ed. Thesis. School of Education, University of Dublin.