The Dartmouth TEP Brand
Overview | Instructional Rounds | Action Research Projects | Lesson Study | Analysis of Learning
Cochran and Lytle10 (1993) say... “inquiry ought to be regarded as an integral part of the activity of teaching” (p. 63). In the context of the TEP, action research is a process through which student teachers conduct research related to their own practice to address problems and everyday challenges in order to improve their teaching. Through action research, our students reflect on and examine the relationship between theories of learning and teaching and their students’ learning and their own teaching. All students design and conduct a small-scale research project in the classroom for which they identify a pedagogical question or problem of practice they want to work on, and develop and carry out research that addresses that question. For example, after researching motivation to write, one teacher candidate surveyed high school pupils about their motivation to write and identified a mismatch between student motivations and school incentive structures.11 Research findings, along with implications for practice, are shared in the practica and a colloquium.