Ali, I'm assuming that you are referring to teachers in higher education. When I was affiliated with big research universities like UCLA, there were very few colleagues who were not engaged in research. Research was our primary mission; teaching was important, but research was more important.
My experience at what are sometimes referred to as "teaching universities" has been different. Only a tiny fraction of colleagues engage in research, and I believe there are several reasons. One is that the teaching load is considerably higher at a teaching university, so making time for research is challenging. In my case, for example, I typically work seven days a week--necessary if I want to continue publishing. Not very many faculty are willing or able to do that. Another factor is that many colleagues aren't interested in research. They simply like teaching, and they tend to do only the most minimal amount of research required to secure tenure and promotion. At teaching schools that threshold is quite low. A third reason, I believe, is that some colleagues just are not very good at research. They don't keep up the the literature in their areas, and they don't get ideas for research.
I believe that we need researchers and teachers, but I also believe that we need more colleagues who do both well. Our research efforts tend to keep us current in our fields, which has the potential to make us more informed and more interesting teachers.
With proper training and motivation the teachers can turn their classrooms into action and empirical research contexts which will not only address the ground level teaching learning problems but also add effectively into teaching pedagogy.
Dr Ismat , you are perfectly right , teachers can turn their classrooms into action and empirical research .
Teachers can become researchers when they turn their effort to their context problems searching for the main solutions by putting them under investigation. The research here based on systematic observation and analysis of the students' development. In fact, the main aims of doing such kind of research is the local understanding and improvement of classroom context.
Liqaa
I think that, as James clearly put it, there are two reasons for doing or not doing research. An institutional reason, which defines your status as an academic. In my own country, Tunisia, the status of people in academia is teacher-researcher (hyphenated), where you are expected to be and learn to do both. Other institutions would like to see themselves either as teaching or research institutions, which does not mean that if you are in the former you will not do research or in the latter you are not expected to teach. Rather, I suspect that it is a matter of "more X than Y." The second reason is personal: Some of us, unfortunately, do not feel at ease with the research environment or do not have the edge for it for their personal attainment and the role it can play in developing their teaching experience. Because it all has to do with keeping abreast with what's going on in your intellectual community. The more you lose touch with this, the more difficult it becomes for you to keep pace with the whole thing. The other thing I wonder about is whether in the three types of institutions academics are not supposed to advise students in their research. I know that some are not doing it in many places. If they are doing it, and do not like to be into research, they will surely embarrass themselves.
Thanks for your insightful ideas, can you elaborate on this statement please :
Some of us, unfortunately, do not feel at ease with the research environment.
can not figure out what you mean.
Hi Ali,
I believe that, in our field (TEFL/TESOL) and particularly in graduate programs, most of the topics for research are originated from the problems that EFL learner face in the classroom. Therefore, if teachers just become conscious of them, they can turn into good researchers. They need to think of the results of such research and how much the findings can affect the success of their students.
About the consequence of lack of interest in research, I personally think that teaching and research usually should go hand in hand. What we have as teaching methods or techniques are the results of the studies that have been done before by researchers. So, how can we think of teaching without thinking of research?
Concerning the causes of this lack of interest, as others also said, some teachers are not interested in conducting research since either they don't like doing research or they lack the required knowledge and this impedes doing research. They should be motivated in a way and this motivation can be created by the authorities through encouragement, promise for promotion, etc. At first, the encouragement or promotion is interesting to them, but gradually and when they become aware of the positive points behind doing research, most of them will tend to carry out research even if there would be no financial benefit!
Hi Ali,
I completely agree with Laya. A reasearch may be defined as an attempt to solve a problem or to find a solution to a problem.It can also be defined as an attempt to find solutions to overcome a problem / difficulty . Accordingly , teachers are surrounded by
so many problems and difficulties and they are required to find out experimentally the solutions to such problems.
Hi Ali,
At certain school setting or countries, the way in how the teachers deliver the subject have been change. I can see that some of the syllabus has include small research exercise, but not to the level of university research. Therefore it is a requirement for this, that the teachers need to be researchers as well, in assisting the students in what ever their ground works.
Obviously it is not to the burden of the teachers to know-how in conducting a research. However, with their basic ability in teaching, they should be able to understand on how to conduct or even to assist the students in performing the research. It is now the question of training provided for the teachers to be ready in delivering their task as a researcher as well.
Lack of interest in research? Go back to the basic that this is not their forte. Therefore, the impact / output / outcome of the research by their students will determine what level do the they bring. I would say, proper training is required... not to the extend of knowing the whole pound of cake, but at least a slice or two will do.
Hello James , Ismat , Liqaa, zouheir, , Laya, Sami , Hazrul , Thanks for your interesting thoughts and insightful ideas.
I completely agree with James on this issue. The environment, incentives and motivation for research are completely different in teaching and research universities. Research requires sufficient time and motivation on the part of teachers, which unfortunately i found to be lacking in most teaching universities . Research based universities are few in number but they provide all necessary facilities and incentives to their faculty to engage in research. However, research is manna for academics. As they say " in academics, publish or perish".
Good luck
Hello Shouvik ,
as you mentioned , research based universities provide all necessary facilities and incentives to their faculty to engage in research, without incentives and appropriate environment higher education teachers can not embark on research activities.
Teachers become researchers for two reasons, 1) due to their own ambition, 2) for getting promotion in their job,increments etc.
Whatever may be the reason, if engaged in research, he/she must do good research.
There are teachers who are good researchers also. They can manage their research without affecting teaching hours. Such teachers can encourage their students with new knowledge.
If a teacher is not much interested in research, mostly reason number 2 is applicable to them. Their research may affect teaching hours of their students and contribute no new information to them.
I too agree with the statements of prof James Williams.In higher education research is part of the duty, but teaching is primary duty and most of the teachers devoted for teaching only. In India, lot of difference between state universities and central universities for funding facilities. If more funding available for research, students as well as teachers involved in research. Further, If students are not showing interest in research, how will teachers turn into researches? Academic pressure such as examinations, valuations and other activities may kill the research attitude of the teachers.
Teacher-as-Researcher, Connecticut Writing Project is a good example
http://cwp.uconn.edu/teacher-as-researcher/
It is questioned equally in reverse too. How a researcher can be a good teacher. I am the one example, who took the risk to take a brave decision, to opt academics as Professor after leaving 25 years scientific service (being even on the highest scientific position infamous all India Agril Research service ICAR Govt of India). Did best of best to get established all together a new and innovative new faculty and college .raising it from scratch to towering height ..and implanting each and every bits/efforts to make overall environment and classroom in such a way that .'.research' kind of thing could find place even in classrooms having 1st year graduates or even diploma students....BUT I am saying but ..the pseudo-expert systems and prevailing stereotypes managers at tips hardly get notice of it and accordingly rewards/recognitions are seldom visualized ...... what I mean to candidly react here is that ' Researchers v/s Academician" transformation is very much possible but recognition is extremely difficult ...not because of person but because of systems/management/ managers...
It is a burning issue ....it is need of hour ..but have its own loopholes to make the concept .a dilute...
All good teachers can't be good researchers and all good researchers can't be good teachers. There are few, who are good teachers and also good researchers. It is foolish to force a good teacher to be a good researcher. In India, for good salary, a teacher must have a doctorate degree.so irrespective of liking, teachers are going for a doctorate degree. Even some teachers do pragmatism for getting a doctorate degree.
I agree with James, as an ex Primary teacher who now works in HE the expectation that I can suddenly transmogrify into a fully formed researcher is ridiculous. Teacher educators have high teaching loads and are expected to research on top, without the necessary skills, especially at the beginning. I love my students and my work but find the notion I can just 'do research' as silly as the notion that researchers can 'do teaching'. Time and space and mentoring needs to be given to both in order to fulfil both briefs. I do wonder if it is possible to do both very well, as I suspect something has to give, either the research quality dips, or the teaching does.
It is usually given as a fact that discovering pending is destined for corporations or universities with disposition of human and economic resources. It is said that a process of investigation is not within reach of common persons and less if anyone lacks financing. Fortunately, there are complex motivations that exceed and overcome in much the personal and economic limitations. Research takes many years, and you must be attentive to details.
Hi Ali
I'm a high school teacher and a PhD research student. Think the short answer to your thesis question is that when you teach there's not much time for anything else! Plus, teachers are expected to maintain a distance from having a socio/political point of view in public (we sign a contract to that effect). I'm one of the rare ones because I am sufficiently passionate/driven to affect positive transformations in the world.
Teachers can become researchers by adopting a model of research-based learning that lends itself to doing research in the teaching and learning environment.
Best regards,
Debra
To be a researcher depends on intrinsic interest. The main point is: how to become a researcher?
The interest depend of school support government, curiosity, relevant problem, education background self motivation...
In developing countries the lack of interest is due to limited resources, government motivation and study grant
How can teachers become researchers?
Teachers can become researchers when they have the proper guidance as well as the motivation to conduct research with passion & perseverance.
What are the consequences of their lack of interest in research?
They might just teach for the sake of teaching - they might lost the opportunity for knowledge contribution through research which can better teach / share with their students. If they are passionate with teaching, research can enable them to learn further for better knowledge sharing & teaching..
What are the causes?
There are many reasons causing some teachers lack of interest in research which include: overwhelmed with teaching related works, family commitment, time management, unfamiliar with research, lack of encouragement from peers & family, lack of research awareness e.g. school, students & other teachers as potential respondents / participants of research etc.
Dear Han, Antonio, Debra, Julieann,
thanks a lot for your enlightening views, i will get back to you with my reflections.
What are the motives and incentives may lead teachers in research activities?
Public recognition
The search for truth
Material welfare (grants, NOBEL prize, SHNOBEL :) )
How?
To review the methodology of the scientific approach
To read scientific articles
To participate in scientific conferences
Hello Mikhail
Thanks for your interesting ideas.
incentives you mentioned are absolutely indispensable.
It is absolutely essential for teachers to develop research capabilities. It helps them to test various theoretical concepts through empirical research. This increases the credibility of their teaching ability. We should also recognise that the performance evaluation of teachers (I am primarily referring to Higher Education) differs across countries. Research output increases visibility and academic worth of teachers. Efforts should be made to motivate teachers to indulge in research activities while considering the importance of teaching responsibilities. Thank you all for the insightful comments and ideas. Hope this motivates more academicians to consciously improve their research capabilities.
Teachers can become researchers if they have the commitment, the passion and the love for research. Their interest could be enhanced through professional development activities relevant to research and publications. Furthermore, through incentivization program and rewards system.
How can teachers become researchers?
What are the consequences of their lack of interest in research? what are the obstacles ? what are the causes?
Very interesting set of questions , which of late , we also have been facing very distinctively , accept my compliments for raising such an issue..before i respond of your question :
How can teachers become researchers?
Without bias, i am saying , every good knowledgeable teacher is basically a good researcher . Teaching is a passion for those whose believe this profession as a social service . And , a teacher can any time switch the button of a researcher , needed for undertaking good research . so , its an aptitude of a teacher to become a good researcher.
What are the consequences of their lack of interest in research?
First of all, based on our personal experience , there has been conspicuous depletion in research interest in post-graduate students , primarily because of the fact , that we have utterly failed to engage those successful PG students in a profitably suitable job , and secondly , the time consumed in procuring post-graduation degree , that patience in students is also on the continuous decline, besides their meritoriousness and increasing lust to earn at an early age.
What are the obstacles ? what are the causes?
You secure a good job today , tomorrow , you will get bunch of excellent students who are willing to persue their career in research. This is the major obstacle . Students dont want to waste their time in research , simply because of limited job opportunities. And , simultaneously , lack of good teachers( not able to motivate good students to persue research as ultimate career prospect) , who in their life , have not been so good researcher, so there is a distinct decline in research quality output spaced over time..
Hope , these responses would facilitate further discussion on a issue , which everyone of us are confronted with, almost everyday...
Research is essential to all professions and to every human beings. It actually has been there since the invention of technology, science and culture. Every human being is unconsciously doing research. It is more on intensifying the awareness, and the support done to research. I believe the challenge lies with the policies in an institution.
I would suggest the following: First, teacher-training (hands-on) in research must given to all. Second, doing collaborative research as this will be the starting point in establishing a research environment. Third, the administration of an institution should have a policy mandating all teachers to produce annual research that will be presented and published in reputable conferences and publications. Fourth, a day in a week must be allocated for research activities. Finally, researchers must be given generous incentives, increments and promotions in their institutions.
Let us also not forget that all researchers received their preliminary M.Sc or Ph.D degrees from some college/university under guidance of some teachers.. at some point of time ..
I think its quit easy to be researcher than to be teacher,
so you can start research and after time and taking your degree you can be teacher.
regards
I would say other way ... One should be made researcher only with certain degree , rather than become freelaunce researcher ,. This is only possible while acquiring some degree during your college days..then get appointed as teacher...Infact , neithe r the job of teacher nor the job of researcher is easy , both are challenging but equally complmentary to each other....
Dear Ali,
Like James Williams, I am assuming that you are referring to teachers in higher education or at the college/university level.
Let me start by saying that a comprehensive answer to your questions would lead us to write a book's chapter or even a book. So, my answer is a brief and short answer.
Concerning your first question -- How can teachers become researchers? -- teachers can become researchers because of both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation (see, for this respect, E. Deci's theory of self-determination and his distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation). When the former is the case, teachers can become researchers because they want to know the unknown and respond, say, to "irritating" questions and doubts, that is, questions whose answer leads us to advance knowledge in any scientific or even non-scientific domain. As I see it, to look for the unknown is the main goal of any serious researcher. In this vein, we can say that ingenious researchers, such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Piaget, Einstein, and many others, answered to irritating questions in their domain of expertise and knowledge and, by so doing, they gave rise to new theories and paradigms. To illustrate, Galileo put an end to the geocentric theory and replaced it by the heliocentric theory. It is alleged that C.S. Pierce once claimed that science is deeply related to "the irritation" of doubt. Teachers can also become researchers due to an extrinsic motivation, for example, to publish in order to get tenure or be promoted to the rank order of an Associate or Full professor. All of us have heard of the North American dictum, publish or perish. Of course, researchers can be more extrinsically than intrinsically motivated, and yet to bring about, say, excellent research.
Needless to say, when teachers teach at a teaching-oriented college or university, it is likely that they perform less research than those teaching at a research-oriented university. It may also be the case that some teachers are more interested in teaching than in research. Even so, I have some difficulty with understanding the existence of higher education teachers who do not conduct research. Note that classrooms per se provide teachers with opportunities to perform research, which is called action-oriented investigation or research.
What are the consequences of teachers' lack of interest in research? Even though all of us know or heard from excellent researchers who often deliver, say, poor teaching, teachers' lack of interest in research almost means poor teaching. When teachers are not interested in research and research-oriented activities, they are doomed to being out of date and deliver poor teaching. As I see it, good researchers should also learn how to deliver good teaching and teachers should not lose sight of research and research-oriented activities. In other words, good researchers are in a good position to be good professors, and teachers-oriented professors are in good position to become good researchers. As suggested, classrooms may be a kind of scientific laboratory for they may lead teachers to raise irritating questions and doubts.
What obstacles teachers have to face in order to become better researchers? I say better researchers for I have some difficulty understanding the existence of teachers in higher education without having performed any research. Moreover, it is generally the case that teachers in higher education have a Master and/or Ph D degree. Teaching-oriented college/universities may be, to an extent, an obstacle for teachers to keep doing research. Not getting financial support for their research projects can be an additional and unwanted obstacle for that purpose. As I see it, the two mentioned features (i.e., teaching-oriented educational institutions; lack of financial support) may be considered as conditions that hinder teachers' opportunity to keep on doing research.
All in all, like James, I think that we need researchers and teachers, but I also believe that we need more colleagues who do both well. For this to be the case, we should follow a demanding track, not a shortcut. It is alleged that Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, once asked his tutor, the Greek geometer Menaechums, to teach him a shortcut to master of Geometry. "Oh king, to travel through your country, there are royal roads and roads for ordinary people. To master of Geometry there is only one road, and this road is the same for all.
Some of the bigger innovations in the classroom I have seen have been lead by some experimental physicists who aimed their tools at teaching. Some of the grandparents of the movement include a couple from the University of Washington: Arnold Aarons, and Lillian McDermott. Other names include Precilla Laws and Richard Hake. My list is a faint shadow of the actual list of contributors.
Learning from research can save a lot of troubles. Understanding the research in the context of your own teaching can be painful and slow.
It is important and liberating to recognize that every class meeting is an experiment. In the most basic level, action research is just recognizing that, and learning from it.
I think that your questions lead to an interesting and important tangent:
I maintain that it may be very powerful to openly acknowledging that every class is an experiment, and invite students to become more than subjects of the experiment, but become experimenters themselves in how they learn.
Dear J. Rayan,
thanks for you interesting idea specially conscious creative student engagements in the experiments of learning becoming and teaching.
What do you mean by RESEARCH? Educational research, or other? If it's the former, there are many types of it, and some (more than others) provoke by nature more resistance and/or are perceived through the lens of bias and negativity. Is it also research done BY teachers FOR teachers or research conducted by outsiders on the teacher's work/in the classrooms and is aimed at the general information of the education world? These are just a few questions that beg your response in order to clarify the context of your overarching question.
My response is based on my experience (and my own research on this very same topic!) as a formed academic teaching educational research methods courses to in-service and pre-service teachers, and also on my current work regarding the professional development of teachers in a K12 school, on the area of Action Research. Here are my views:
1. All teachers are ACTION researchers. Some know it intuitively. Others need to be guided to see it.
2. The latter need also to be guided to understand the educational value of research for their own work as education practitioners, as well as the sharing of research and research-based best practices for the entire community of education practitioners.
3. Biases and prejudices come from those who present educational research as something DONE to teachers and their contexts; something that is presented as "complicated" for any practitioner to understand; and something that has no visibly direct impact on the professional lives of the teachers and their students.
4. Continuing your work as an education practitioner without being informed by research in some way, is rather impossible in the information age! In my view, not knowing how to evaluate the validity and reliability/credibility of any research sources and/or results that may pertain to one's work, as well as how to transfer/transform and apply them to one's own context, is more concerning and potentially more "harmful" for both teachers and their students.
5. A school culture that is based on the notion of the teacher as a scholar (what Boyer defines as the scholarship of teaching, for the higher ed) and the requisite expectations and support is what would help the in-service teacher to move into the Action Research direction as a way of professional development and growth. As for the pre-service teachers, those who teach them research should help them understand what I have mentioned in #2 above; and also help them feel that they have a direct stake at it vs. feeling that research is done to them by outsiders who have no connection to their classroom, and whose aim is to produce results that seemingly have no educational applicability either.
Curiosity in Teachers can evolve them as researchers
I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious.
--Albert Einstein
you are right Krishnan, curiosity and inquisitiveness are the cornerstone of research activities.
The promotion of teachers depends on publications , which is their research contribution . Research depends on creativity to obtain results & confines to a narrow area , while teaching depends on the amount of information to keep up to date in many areas to share with the students & do other administrative work related to teaching . These two domains are different & needs adequate skills to excel in both . Students have to be trained in research & this has to be done only by the teacher ! Therefore , it is essential for teachers to become researchers also .
Hello Singh,
yes , creativity and training by senior researchers are essential.
We found that using 'co-learning agreements' between researchers and practitioners can be a way of generating research findings that are useful to improving schools and informing the improvement of classroom practice; see:
Edwards, J. A., & Jones, K. (2003). Co-learning in the collaborative mathematics classroom. In Collaboration in teacher education (pp. 135-151). Springer Netherlands.
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-1072-5_10
Hello Keith,
thanks for discussing the concept of co-learning agreements' between researchers and practitioners. interesting and enlightening .
Research can boost and enhance your teaching. While I agree with James that at a Research University (R-1) teaching takes a back burner to research to the point that many universities have their graduate assistants teach the classes while the "real faulty" research, these places are usually grant driven. At the D-II teaching universities, James is right that the teaching load is heavier. However, as a tenured professor at a D-II, we do research also. I have found that this allows me to bring cutting edge new material into my classrooms. It is also required for promotion and tenure at most institutions, including mine.
Teachers should always update their knowledge by reading articles and books in their field and by networking with other teachers from other places whether locally or globally. They should also attend conferences, symposia, colloquia and workshops to exchange information and discuss matters related to teaching, learning and assessment. In doing so, they will find themselves immersed directly or indirectly in research. So, the consequence of all this will be improvement in their performance in class and outside it. They will also grow in expertise and maturity and the ultimate beneficiary is the students. However, teachers are not immune from hurdles, challenges and obstacles which are mainly related to time, workload, hard working conditions, health aspects, family duties and so on and so forth. The main causes of these might be lack of experience, challenging working conditions, lack of management of time skills and many other issues.
One response to this question involves the difference between EBP and PBE. Teachers, especially elementary teachers, are always asked to justify what they do. Professional development classes are not always the answer to developing new instructional techniques. If teachers can join together, into collegial research groups, they can contribute to PBE. Often, in our experience at least, teachers glaze over when you start to talk about research. However, administrators, who are also under pressure with diminished budgets, will not approve the use of a new technique without the requisite amount of EBP data. If PBE were recognized as being just as legitimate as EBP, then things might change. The key here, we think, is to get research to the level of the classroom where it can be used.
Dear Ali Rahim,
In my view, How I became a researcher from teacher ?
Job of a teacher is to teach the student. When during the teaching, teacher solves the queries of student and subordinates and subsequently read and thinks over the subject in search of a better, than a teacher becomes a researcher. There are so many huddles in the research i.e. facilities, manpower, ethical limitations and so many
Hello Dharmesh,
yes I also believe there are obstacles and limitations which must be tackled.
Dear Ali Rahimi , May be there are obstacles and limitations any but it is your will that inspire you to get the goal . I did so Maney works , yet there are limitations and hurdles from the culleques
They can start out by being scholars in mastering, adding, and keeping abreast of their content area; they can even begin to share their best practices for methodologies at conferences; the latter can then motivate them when others in their discipline begin to recognize their work and they go on to do actual classroom research and publish.
Best regards,
Debra
Dear Ali, we all know that higher education teachers are engage in teaching and researching. As for the higher education teacher, in Macedonia, where I live, teachers are obliged to be a researchers and publishers of research papers in order to be appointed for a higher position. That puts a lot of pressure on teachers, and they have to balance between the teaching and this pressure. Higher education teachers do not have the luxury to not be interested in research and publishing. They must do it in order to keep their jobs. Hence, many teachers run for researches and somehow neglect the teaching. This affects the teaching and the quality of the published papers.
Violeta's concerns are, unfortunately common. The roots of some of those pressures to publish in this country are fed by many universities hungry for grant overhead to help fund the university. I suspect that sometimes helps raise the pressure to unhealthy levels, as far as their students go.
Hello Violeta ,
your clear description of the stressful situation is perfectly illuminating. Instructors are under huge pressure to publish in certain journals and they've their teaching duties as well, they have to prioritize research to teaching to promote professionally . As you mentioned, this undermines their pedagogical activities .
What about elementary and secondary school teachers? Its increasingly difficult to even find research these days, so most don't read it. They go to professional development opportunities, but, many times, for reasons that are more personal than professional. So, get research to their level. Don't put obstacles in their way to doing and using research.
Jeffrey, Your concern about including elementary and secondary teachers is particularly important. All of the university crowd inherit the expectations which students have set during the previous twelve years of education.
I think that the precision and erudition appropriately expected in research harms us here. We need to have a way to translate research for the uninitiated, other than expecting them to get their own Ph.D.
Peter Lynch, who ran Fidelity Magellan, at one point the world's largest mutual fund, gave the following advice: "Never invest in something you cannot draw with a crayon."
I think we need to learn to also communicate our research "with a crayon." I submit that besides seeing our research more broadly understood (and perhaps better funded as a result of the exposure) we will have an added benefit of additional insight.
Elementary and secondary teaching fads are often driven by administrators who read an article, or saw what "everybody" is doing elsewhere which he or she may not completely understand. The teachers themselves become constrained or pressured by administrators to follow. With more experience and evidence, they can participate and influence in these decisions.
Not only do we need to use a "crayon," but we generally need more professional development opportunities where K-12 teachers themselves contribute as peers, or collaborate with research institutions.
I couldn't agree more with J. Ryan. I would submit that having the professional development opportunities take place in the attendee's school, with their own colleagues, on topics of interest to them might make all the difference.
We have been doing some investigating of this way of doing PD, along with collegial, grade-level groups as the principal means of follow-up. Efficacy measures look promising.
Jeffery, I love your idea of starting locally and setting the general expectation of sharing at least action research with peers.
In my field, there is a huge amount of work which can be done with individual concepts with which students struggle. These are less intimidating projects which, while they look smaller are still very important and vital. Generalizing these results might easily meet the university level research standard.
Collaboration with peer institutions might be the best stepping stone to eventually doing so with universities. K-12 might collectively be able to offer larger sample sizes to universities.
I think you have a winner.
Respected Sir
It is very simple to convert a researcher from teacher. By knownly or unknowly we are act as researcher. But some observations with support of various people make a researcher. If you find something, discuss it, doccument it and publish it. this make you a researcher
Thanking you.
teachers can be the best researchers if they learn to understand the problems in their educational settings clearly. most of the time, they face some problems in their classes but they do not know how to analyze the problem. firstly, they should be educated to find the problem ,then, to do action research and solve it. the first is the most remarkable one. knowing what the problem is, then analyzing and finding some solutions and reporting them can be taught to teachers.
We can structure and generalize the sorts of experiences we all have to inform teaching.
I feel that most anyone can do research which is meaningful to them. -This because research fundamentally consists of structured observation. We look for patterns, we form an hypothesis, and test it while isolating variables. The natural next step is to sharing our experience with like minded folk, and listen to their experiences. In it's essence this is the root of formal research.
Some of the advances in education the last 30 years have come from experimental physicists turning their tools on the subject of education. (See Doctors Richard Haake, Arnold Aarons and Lillian C. McDermott, et al.)
What I really mean by that is that we can make progress by a fresh look from a different perspective such as from practicing primary or secondary teachers, or from what ever discipline you teach.
For example, consider the nuts and bolts of what helps physics students overcome the natural, or Aristotelian view of inertia and adopt a more physically accurate one. We can generalize these sorts of experiences to inform teaching from this view.
Every discipline has such things to offer. I expect that every level of teaching has such things to offer.
In general, scientific research requires new impulses in universities, it is a global problem.
Scientific research in our time and with the advent of the Knowledge Society, is no longer an exclusive privilege of universities. This has been said by the philosopher Daniel Innerarity and he is quite right.
More and more companies and organizations are investigating.
These organizations have other visions and reframes of the consecrated research, that is to say that the researchers do not perform as many simultaneous tasks asthe university professors.
The excessive fragmentation of university work affects research both in terms of quantity and quality.
That is one of the causes of this global problem.
I am pleased to see that Jeffery Knox has been investigating of this way of doing professional development locally (within the school, it sounds). I would love to hear more!
Teachers can become researchers when have skill and experience in field of work which help to study and solve problems.
The weakness of the teacher evaluation process can have a decisive influence en este asunto. Dr. Otilia Clipa has referred these matters with a very complete vision.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_the_performance_of_teachers_at_your_university_evaluated#view=5e75c7f7708fdc27180b380c
I think this is an interesting question which is worth raising. Teachers can be become researchers in their own class contexts first. This will make them become action researchers. Research is part of their professional development process. However, if they are disinterested in research, this means that they do not want to develop themselves. This is, as we know, because research aims to solve problems, improve our knowledge, explore and discover new things, etc. So, if teachers do not aim to undertake research, one can say that they do not intend to reach one of the previously mentioned aims. Regarding, obstacles that can obstruct teachers in doing research, there can be many such as time, pressure, workload, resources, lack of motivation, and management problems. Finally, I am including some web links for teaching-research nexus to benefit everyone interested in the topic.
https://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1761207/TR_Nexus2005.pdf
http://www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/The%20Nexus%20of%20Teaching%20and%20Research.pdf
http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE827.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09650790200200193
https://www.academia.edu/31272122/Becoming_Teachers_Becoming_Researchers_a_Case_Study
Yes they can.
But the distinction between teacher and researcher or teacher and learner is not this hard and fast or binary.
John Hattie, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Hattie, for example, has shown that outcomes for students are best when teachers become learners and notice the impact of their teaching on learners.
This is the beginnings of an action research approach, something we have now worked with more than 500 teachers on via our Expansive Education Network - http://www.expansiveeducation.net/
Hope this helps
Bill
First of all, teachers need in service training course in research methodology to get theoritical Background about reseaech problems, second there must be support from government, and Institutions for active researchers. Last, the Educational Institutions should announce some of the problems face their students and call for resesrchers to conduct research for solving them. If the three elements work together, teachers can be researchers.
I agree with Rashad Bin-Hady. One must be trained on how to conduct research to actually do it. Moreover, one also must be taught at least the basics of statistics. Both these requirements present significant challenges, especially in the US. Why? Because the admission criteria for teaching credential programs in the US is really low––an undergraduate GPA of just 2.0 in all but a handful of top schools, where even there the undergraduate GPA is only 3.0. Stated simply, a majority of students who go into credential programs probably lack the intellectual tools necessary to master the training required for research.
In my opinion real problems are: 1) lack of time and lots of immediate work to do (research is a long term issue); 2) It is not properly valued inside the educational system.
A teacher's action reflects him a researcher. Now when he doesn't show any interest in researching, it is important here to really explore why he is disinterested in carrying out research or he is not literate enough in carrying out research. Is he a lazy teacher or is exercising bad educational culture of the country?
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