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Hello Lauren,
I am a longtime science STEM teacher recently retired who started off on
action research 35 years ago after earning an EdD. It was an interesting
voyage through twelve different schools teaching every grade level from 2nd
to AP physics. The opportunities for significant research are many and can
be highly significant to teaching and learning practice. I would caution
you however that this is a rocky path to academic publication and dialogue
on research that you yourself direct, from hypothesis on. If you are
intending to follow your own curiosity about the learning you deal with
daily, then it will be difficult to share within the wider community of
STEM practitioners . There are many opportunities for classroom teachers to
participate in ed researchers’ research, directed by them from outside, not
you. There are no villains. The ed research institution cannot
structurally take its lead from practitioners.
If you are going to embark on one of the most satisfying ways to be a
teacher, then perhaps I could share: I found it (ultimately) invaluable to
start with an operative/predictive model of teaching and learning. For
example, “inquiry” is an overall 2-D model of the same. What do you think
of the 3-D model espoused by the NGSS framework? As the existing models
disappointed, I slowly amended and added. I needed some scheme to “guess”
what teaching strategy was going to produce the type and level of learning
that I wanted - which means you need to assemble a valid and reliable
rubric for measuring it, which means you need a model of that, one that is
prescriptive for what to do different in a classroom.
Still interested?
I found decades of action research to be the most effective and fastest
route to becoming a good teacher. Your career becomes exhilarating even
through the drudgery. Your audiences however will be Your colleague and
most important, your students.
Pat leighton
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