Researching partnershipand/or research partnerships

Dr d’Reen Struthers

Why research partnership?

• The positioning of partnership personnel• Praxis to bridge theory-practice divide• The power relationships• Operating at the borders• Moving between different cultural and dialogical

contexts• Working across difference (purposes of study)• Self-study, action research, reflexivity, • entering a bigger conversation

My contextual background

• PL Schools Partnership

• Managerial or pedagogical partnerships?

• Furlong, J., McNamara, D., Campbell, A., Howson, A., & Lewis, S. (2008). Partnership, policy and politics: initial teacher education in England under New Labour.

• Partnership models (related to the initial teacher education school experiences for

student teachers)

Learning from models of partnership

• What could I learn from

these kinds of

partnership models?

HEI - led

ComplimentaryHEI

SchoolComplimentary

Collaborative school

CollaborativeHEI

4th model – the market –driven

model -

The legitimisation of knowledge

• Whose knowledge?

• The positioning of different forms of knowledge.. And how accessible?

• But from different sources….

The shared questions

• What types of knowing and knowledge contribute to my work?

• In what ways and to what ends could my practice be further informed?

• What values and beliefs underpin or inform my practice? What have I taken for granted?

• How can my practice be improved?

Practitioner Research and University Culture: Dimensions

Cochran-Smith & Lytle (2009) : Inquiry as stance Practitioner Research for the next generation.

Insider-outsider partnerships

• Speaks of the challenges and ethical aspects of relating to outsiders when they enter other’s daily spaces

• Without insights from the reflective engagements of practitioners in her research, outcomes would have been only partially formed and the potential for impact on personal and wider pedagogical practice and on policy development much reduced.

• Such partnerships can change perspectives and practice for the educators and the researcher, as well as creating a robust platform from which wider influences on policy and practice might spring.

• Broadhead (2010) in Connecting Inquiry and professional Learning in Education Campbell & Groundwater-Smith (ed)

Continuum of AR practices….???

• Research lead totally by the university

• Research lead by teachers wanting an HE award

• Research lead by teachers wanting HEI assistance – award not the motivation

• Research led totally by teachers with no HEI

Responding to an invitation

transitions

School culture

University culture

To be an invited guest -

• Where does one sit at the table?

• Am I a partner or a collaborator?

• or merely a companion?

• Could I be a research coach or mentor?

Coaching is…

•  "a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be a successful a Coach requires a knowledge and understanding of process as well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place"  

Parsloe & Leedham (2009) Coaching and Mentoring: Practical conversations to improve learning

Boundary spanner

• K Zeichner 2008, 2010 – Third spaces

School culture

University culture

Dialogic space of knowledge creation and shared focus

Debates over the meaning of ‘Third Space’ (e.g. Bridging vs. integration)

Teacher ownership

• Agency

• Authentic voice

• Co-constructing the recipe

• Working with their ingredients, in their kitchen, within their house set in their, neighbourhood.

• Yet also pondering other ingredients..

Looking more closely – peeling the layers back

Lots of different ways of seeing….

Yet as we share the gaze …

Sharing our ‘pensieve’ – our common spaces

• Dumbledore explains to the young Harry that the stone basin he calls the ‘pensieve’ is used to hold excess thoughts from one’s mind so that they can be examined at leisure.

“It becomes easier to spot the patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form” he says.

• In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling. Cited by Elizabeth Holmes IoE writing on teacher professional development.

Communities of dialogue/inquiry

• ARC (Action Research Circle) meetings offer the dialogic space for the facilitation of increasing reflective and critical contemplation about

– the literature read, the themes from our pensieves– the actions troubled– the obstacles of data collection– …

The challenges for an academic partner

• To want to listen

• Remember whose agenda it is

• What form will the reciprocal invitation take? ( presupposing ….)

• There is always something to learn

• Ethical concerns

Discussion:

• What are the benefits for schools in having an academic partner?

• What might be the impact for the teaching profession?

• What role can professional Learning Journals play?

• What are the benefits for HEIs to having pedagogical partnerships?

Bibliography

• Campbell, A., & Groundwater-Smith, s. (Eds.). (2010). Connecting Inquiry and Professional Learning in Education. London: Routledge.

• Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (2009). Inquiry as Stance: Practitioner Research for the Next Generation. New York: Teachers College Press

• Edwards, A. (1995). Teacher Education: Partnerships in Pedagogy? Teaching and Teacher Education, 11(6), 595-610.

• Edwards, A., & Mutton, T. (2007). Looking forward: rethinking professional learning through partnership arrangements in Initial Teacher Education. Oxford Review of Education, 33(4), 503-519.

• Furlong, J., Barton, L., Miles, S., Whiting, C., & Whitty, G. (2000). Teacher Education in Transition: Re-forming professionalism? Buckingham: Open University Press.

Bibliography cont..• Furlong, J., Campbell, A., Howson, A., Lewis, S., &

McNamara, O. (2006). Partnership in English initial teacher education: Changing times, changing definitions. Evidence from the Teacher Training Agency's National Partnership Project Scottish Educational Review, 37, 32-45.

• Furlong, J., McNamara, D., Campbell, A., Howson, A., & Lewis, S. (2008). Partnership, policy and politics: initial teacher education in England under New Labour. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 14(4), 307-318.

• Gorodetsky, M., & Barak, J. (2008). The Educational-cultural edge: A participative learning environment for co-emergence of personal and institutional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(Jan), 1907-1918.

• Le Cornu, R. (2008). Reconceptualising professional experiences in pre-service teacher education ... restructuring the past to embrace the future. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 1799.

• Parsloe, E., & Leedham, M. (Eds.). (2009). Coaching and Mentoring: Practical conversations to improve learning (2nd Ed). London: Kogan Page.

• Zeichner, K. (2010). Rethinking the connections between Campus Courses and Field Experiences in College- and University-based Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 89-99.

• See also www.apte.org.uk/research

Contact Details

• Dr d’Reen Struthers

• d.struthers@roehampton.ac.uk

• Also Research & Publications - APTE