Developing a research partnership: teachers as researchers and teacher educators

Abstract

This paper discusses a combined university–school research project involving three associate teachers from the pre-service teacher education degree at the University of Otago, New Zealand in the examination of their literacy teaching practice. The provision of resources for this collaborative study allowed the teachers to design the project in response to the learning needs of the children in their classrooms. The paper specifically analyses the research experience for the teachers as they theorized their classroom literacy practice and utilized the research findings to inform the content and processes of teaching at both the primary and tertiary classroom levels.

Notes

Corresponding author: School of Education, University of Otago, Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand.

The authors subscribe to a constructivist view of teacher knowledge where new knowledge and theory can be generated as a result of teacher prior knowledge and experience (Lange & Burroughs-Lange, 1994). Furthermore, that in the words of Anstey and Bull (1996) ‘every act of teaching is based on, and creates a particular theory or theories’ (p. 26).

Reports on the classroom practice related to this project are yet to be published but are available from the authors on request.