A teacher’s self-study project

Step 1:  Author your own question.

I teach 9th-grade English in a public high school with a diverse population of students from 42 countries who speak 34 languages. Ten percent of our students are enrolled in English for Speakers of Other Languages and 12% of our students are enrolled in special education. Overall, 25% of our students have limited English proficiency, and 39% of our students receive free or reduced lunch.

As part of the English 9 curriculum, students must write a formal research paper. Students engage in research constantly, but there is little resemblance between the research in their real lives and the formal research paper that my colleagues and I feel bound to teach by the state standards. I was interested in ways to make the unit and the paper more authentic to students’ learning while still meeting the standards. In authoring my self-study question, I asked, “How can I design my instruction to assist students in gathering adequate information about their research topic to write a well-developed paper that is personally meaningful to them?”

Step 2:  Work with a critical friends team.

For the research project, I collaborated with two librarians from my school and two critical friends from my university class. Unexpected insights came out of our collaboration. With my colleagues, I revamped the assignment to make it more relevant to students’ lives. We abandoned topics I had previously assigned to students and designed an open-choice assignment. We asked: What do people in the real world do when they want to learn about something? That is when we realized we had made the students’ research experience less authentic, not only by mandating the topics, but by assigning the paper up front. We had also complicated the situation by teaching about plagiarism, citations, and note taking before allowing the students to browse, question, wonder, and research. We realized this approach caused students to dread rather than look forward to researching a topic. The students went into the library not to read and learn, but to find enough information to fill out the required number of note cards.
Our theory that increasing student engagement and making the process more authentic would result in better papers proved true, and my students had more success than they had before with research papers. The process of engaging with other teachers in critical inquiry allowed me to discover solutions I would not have arrived at on my own.

Step 3: Plan new pedagogies for improved learning.

My efforts resulted in meaningful student research and greater motivation, particularly for students who struggled to take ownership of their learning. My students’ improved work gave me tangible proof that it is possible to teach state standards in a manner that allows for student choice and creativity. It does not have to be one or the other. I am excited to go back to the drawing board and look at other ways that I can reignite my teaching by emphasizing student choice. The process of engaging in self-study has reconfirmed the value of taking time to reflect on my teaching and to actively seek solutions and alternative ideas. During this process, I was my own critic, and, as a result, I have a new understanding of the value and professional ethics of consciously examining my teaching practices.

Step 4: Enact, document, and assess your research process.

I used various pedagogical strategies to tap into my students’ research interests. I surveyed the students, asked them to share their ideas with their class peers, and provided time for them to research subtopics to help them focus on a question. My multiple and varied data sources included 11 data collection instruments: student interest survey; brainstorming activities; teacher reflective journal entries; reading days; time samples; critical friends memos; student surveys after reading days; student outlines; student note cards; librarian questionnaire; and observations using the librarian questionnaire. Each data instrument offered me a way to better see students’ learning needs.

Step 5: Generate and share what you learned.

I was convinced that the changes I made in teaching this 9th-grade research unit resulted in more meaningful learning for my students. My students were able to master all of the essential state-required skills more easily than in years past. As I went into to this project, I was aware that my method of teaching the research unit did not align with my values of a student-centered classroom. Now I have introduced student choice and provided opportunities for students to conduct authentic research.

The motivation and success of my students during a unit that admittedly has little resemblance to real-life research adds further evidence that student choice facilitates learning. An important aspect of authentic learning is making the reading and research in our classes relevant to our students’ lives and experiences. If we do that, our students will agree to learn things they perceive as less valuable, like putting the period after the parenthesis.

Impact on student learning

After several weeks of brainstorming, journaling, and conferencing, students had decided on their topics and were looking for their first book source. A new student, Diane, was suddenly transferred into my class. She is a 20-year-old Latino student coming to English 9 from the ESOL program. She is also the mother of a 2-year-old daughter. I was a bit distressed to discover her sudden transfer, not because I did not welcome her, but rather because it was the last period of the day in the middle of a challenging situation. As I was getting the other students started, I quickly summarized the project for her. I said, “Look, we’re going to be doing research on something that interests us. So, while the students are looking for their books today, I want you to sit down and make a list of everything you think you may want to learn about. What would you like to learn to do?”

Later in the period, after the students had found books and settled down to read, I checked in with Diane. I was amazed to see that her paper was covered. She had a long list of things she wanted to learn about, and she had two themes: How to do well in school and graduate, and how to be a good mom. She decided to investigate how to be a good mom. We went to the online catalog, she typed in her topic, and within minutes, she was browsing the shelves. I was struck by how different this experience would have been for her last year, when she would have been sitting at the table with note cards answering questions about an assigned topic that had nothing to do with her life and would in no way benefit her daughter.

— Libbie Roberts