Personal Journeys: Teaching Teachers to Teach Literacy

Abstract

This study is a description of a teacher research project. The purpose of the project was two-fold. First, I wanted to use it to help me carefully reflect and examine my own teaching, so that I could move past the "naïve" label. Second, I wanted to understand how my instruction impacted my preservice teachers. Results from this teacher research project suggest this reading methods course was effective in adding some strategies to the students' understandings of reading. Students seemed more willing to add reading strategies in areas where they lacked prior knowledge and experiences, such as fluency and assessment, while demonstrating more reluctance to change in areas familiar to them, such as word identification and comprehension. Results imply a need for educators to do more teacher research at the university level and further research into the role prior knowledge plays in the preservice teachers' willingness to adapt new instructional strategies.

Reference

Massey, D. (2002). Personal journeys: Teaching teachers to teach literacy. Reading Research and Instruction, 41(2), 103-125. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19388070209558361

Journal

Reading Research and Instruction

Analysis

Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?

Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?

Research Approach

teacher research

Geographic Setting

United States

Institutional Context

University based

Certification Level

Not stated

Programatic Focus

not stated

Research Location Context

Literacy methods course

Preservice Participants

Undergraduates (university based program)

Preservice Sample Size

Other Participant Data

curriculum documents and planning books
Teacher Educators

Duration of Data Collection

Academic Semester

Data Sources

Classroom Discussion
course materials
End-of-course evaluations
fieldnotes
lesson plans
Reflective journals
Researcher journals

Data Analysis Tools

coding to a prior categories
Constant comparative analysis
Document analysis
Triangulation

Researcher Positionality

Inside (studying their own practices)

Research Questions

"First, I wanted to use it to help me carefully reflect and examine my own teaching, so that I could move past the "naive" label." (p. 104)
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes

"Second, I wanted to understand how my instruction impacted my preservice teachers." (p. 104)
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes