Student achievement is highly correlated with the presence of effective teachers who are empowered and motivated to provide students with a quality education. Such teachers should be in every classroom.
But schools in Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia are facing teacher shortages, with some schools hiring staff with no formal educational training.
There have been proposed initiatives to increase the number of qualified teachers entering the workforce, such as accelerated teaching certification. These initiatives would be valuable in helping recruit future teachers. But right now, teachers are needed in classrooms, and teacher retention is a concern.
Schools that want to retain teachers and keep them passionately invested in their chosen profession might want to consider a proven professional development model that my colleagues and I have studied called “collaborative action research.”
This model gives teachers control over their own learning and the changes they want to make in their classrooms.
Teacher Retention: Factors to Consider
Much of the research on teacher retention has identified reasons why teachers leave the profession. Surveys of teachers across Canada indicate that dissatisfaction with pay is less important than feelings of powerlessness due to stressful work environments and limited decision-making autonomy. Recommendations for addressing these sources of dissatisfaction include:
- Foster a collaborative culture that supports teachers in building positive collegial relationships.
- Empower teachers by giving them a say in professional learning initiatives and changes that impact their instruction.
Remote rural and indigenous communities
In my research, I have sought to find ways to support teacher professional learning in remote rural and Indigenous communities, where researchers have documented particularly severe teacher shortages.
My colleagues and I have been involved in the Northern Oral Language and Writing through Play (NOW Play) project, which works with public and Indigenous school teachers in the Northwest Territories, northern Alberta, and Ontario, using collaborative action research to support young children’s learning and writing in Indigenous languages and cultures.
In conversation with colleagues and with the help of researchers, teachers develop open-ended research questions and determine what data to collect to answer those questions. Often, the data will be student writing, artwork, digital creations, and teacher observations of what students say and do as they engage in learning activities.
Teachers review data
For example, in the NOW Play project, a teacher from an Anishinaabe community asked the following question: “If my school’s Ojibwe language and culture teacher and I take first-grade students fishing, smoke the fish, and then ask the students to write and draw about the experience, what might the writing tell us about our community’s cultural knowledge and writing development?”
Teachers reflect on what the data shows about how their instruction is meeting students' needs and how findings answer the research question.
After teachers have collected their information, they meet with me (usually about every 6-8 weeks) and we all look at each teacher’s data together and discuss our observations of student learning and how the findings answer the teacher’s research questions.
Supporting student learning
Teachers’ reflections on what they have learned through close examination of this data and through conversations with their colleagues and me may lead to a sense of satisfaction that their teaching methods are supporting student learning in the desired ways.
It may also reveal that student learning exceeds teachers' expectations, or does not meet expectations at all. Regardless of the type of findings, teachers' reflections on the data can be used to improve instruction, enhancing student learning. In this way, action research is consistent with reflective teaching practice and does not impose an additional research workload on teachers.
I offer my experience and skills in conducting research when necessary, but it is up to the teachers to identify what they need to achieve their goals. Over the years of working with teachers, I have stepped back more and more as they gain the skills to carry out research without me.
As a NOW Play participant explained, collaborative action research provides “a structure that helps us move forward with the work we want to do.”
Professional learning brings excitement
In the focus groups, participating teachers spoke of the excitement that arose through their participation in collaborative action research: In a previous collaborative action research project with teachers in the North, one teacher stated, “If I'd known teaching would be so much fun, I would never have handed in my resignation letter…”
Although this early action research project has now finished and the teachers have retired, the teachers involved in the NOW Play project have committed to continuing the project and staying in the teaching profession in the North. In fact, their enthusiasm has sparked the interest of other teachers in the school. We are hoping to welcome a number of new teachers to the project next year.
The collegiality and opportunity to take control of their own professional learning is what makes teachers so enthusiastic about the program and want to continue. One teacher described what she gained from participating in the program: “I appreciate the power of data. I can observe and use it to constantly guide my practice and reflect on what I've done. Also, collaborating with my colleagues gives me a deeper understanding. It helps me grow as a person.”
One teacher said that it had changed her as a teacher, that she was more attentive to the learning her students demonstrated in their everyday activities, and another explained, “I think doing action research has given me the time to just stop and notice what the kids are doing.”
Teachers and their colleagues participating in the project agree that this collaborative action research has contributed to their professional growth and improved student engagement and learning.
Not “Another Thing on the Plate”
NOW Play participants spoke about the value of helping teachers engage in collaborative research and reflection in renewing their interest in teaching and making them better teachers: “I thought action research was just an add-on, but now it's another thing. I now see action research as one of the most important things we can do.”
Schools looking to encourage and retain teachers interested in teaching might consider collaborative action research as a proven professional development model that does not require significant funding beyond providing teachers with time during school hours to meet with experienced researchers who can support teacher-led collaborations.
Courtesy of The Conversation
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Citation: Allowing teachers to choose what they want to learn boosts teacher morale and leads to better instruction (August 25, 2024) Retrieved August 25, 2024, from https://phys.org/news/2024-08-teachers-teacher-morale-yields.html
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