From teacher research to teacher leadership: the case of the hertfordshire learning preferences project

Abstract

The article provides an account of a school improvement project which began with a single teacher's classroom-based action research and subsequently involved a number of Hertfordshire secondary schools, their local education authority and the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. Julie Roberts had used a learning preferences profiling technique in which students are asked to complete a brief questionnaire based on multiple intelligences categories. The results are then used to indicate the students' most preferred and least preferred learning approaches. Julie found that this generated dialogue and reflection about teaching and learning in her classroom. Subsequent collaboration with the other schools within a school improvement network in Hertfordshire led to a larger-scale project in which teacher-coordinators met to share practice and to shape the process. The university Faculty of Education provided support in the form of a researcher who visited the schools to gather data about the process of learning preferences profiling and its effect. The data were analysed and used by project coordinators in the schools to evaluate the process. The article sets the project in context and then draws on a narrative about the project's development to show how the impact of teacher research can be enhanced through different layers of collaboration and strategic teacher leadership.