Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Professionalism Statement
are aware of and reflect on their practice in light of research on teaching, professional
ethics and resources available for professional learning; they continually evaluate the
effects of their professional decisions and actions on students, families and other
professionals in the learning community and actively seek out opportunities to grow
professionally.
activities that will help them grow professionally. Seeking ways to learn more about the
field of education through various avenues can help teachers grow professionally. One
way that I was able to grow was through conducting a classroom based research project.
Teacher research can allow teachers to have a voice in professional development and
school improvement (Schwarz and Ray, 2018). When teachers conduct a classroom
research project, they have the potential to help themselves and possibly others in the
field. This research can be shared with others and is personally meaningful. My research
project allowed me to take a classroom problem and research and evaluate a potential
the teacher, whereas often even the best of professional development programs get lost in
the ability of teachers to directly apply the information to their own classrooms or
practice (Sallah, 2014). For my research project I looked at what effect a group
contingency plan would have on off task behaviors in my student teaching class. I learned
that this type of behavior management plan works well with some students, but was
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rather unsuccessful at motivating the students who were exhibiting the most off task
behavior. This showed me that maybe an individual plan would have worked better for
Freire, in his book Pedagogy of Freedom (1998) stated, “There is no such thing as
teaching without research and research without teaching. I think that teachers are
constantly seeking to improve their classrooms, teaching style or student outcomes, but
often these are done in an informal manner. I feel that doing an action based written
research project greatly benefitted me. I was able to not only improve my classroom
practices, but I was able to learn how to conduct a project step by step. In the future I will
know how to gain background knowledge, how to set up my project, as well as all of the
Schwarz and Ray (2018) State that a teacher research projects take a lot of
reflection, action and critically looking at what they are doing in order to improve their
teaching practices. This was very true for my project. Using my classroom, students and
that I was able to use to help support my students better, even future students.
Showing our students first hand examples of how anyone can continue to learn and grow,
such as conducting a classroom research project is a great way of providing this example
to them.
References
Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
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Salleh, H. (2014, February). Why Should Teachers Do Research? Retrieved June 16,
Schwarz, G., & Ray, B. (2018). Teacher Research in Teacher Education: Emancipatory
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