![\"Jessica](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Jessica-Brook-profile-150x150.png\")
by Jessica Brook<\/p>\nby Jessica Brook<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing a project that is truly complex and difficult tests your real ability\u2026 the thing we most fear with regard to failure is our own self-<\/i>acknowledgement, that<\/i> we really don\u2019t exactly know what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 Milton Glaser<\/p>\n
This time last year, I was halfway through my first proper Action Research enquiry, and I definitely didn\u2019t feel like I knew what I was doing. Three years after finishing the DELTA I had been itching for a new challenge. Although I was very keen to start a master\u2019s, I wasn\u2019t so keen on 2+ years of distance learning. Looking at various MAs online I came across a new course with the University of Leicester, a Post-Graduate Certificate in Action Research<\/i>, a much more doable seven months. I was a stranger to formal research, although throughout my teaching career I\u2019ve tried hard to develop through reflective practice. Indeed, this is what has always kept it interesting, so I was really motivated to step it up a level.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Nine months later, frustrated and dissatisfied, I was secretly pleased to see the back of it. I felt that nothing I\u2019d set out to discover had been clarified as I\u2019d hoped, and if anything I just had more questions. However, with time and reflection, I began to realize just how valuable a learning experience it had been. I\u2019m now infinitely better-equipped to run small-scale research, to guide and encourage other teachers in their own development.<\/p>\n
Bearing in mind the many hiccups I experienced along the way, this is the advice I would give.<\/p>\n
An excellent bit of advice my tutor gave was \u201cit\u2019s better to write a lot about something small than the other way round\u201d. I completely disregarded this advice, my research question involving new paradigms in listening instruction, and how best to incorporate them in general English syllabi, as well as teacher training. In hindsight, picking just one technique would obviously have been much more manageable. Posing your research goal as a question helps to focus, but the size of the project inevitably grows with its ambition. So think carefully about what you want to explore, how much time you want to commit, and whether your area of focus overlaps with your students\u2019 needs, your colleagues\u2019 interests, and\/or the goals and objectives of your institution. Does it solve a problem? Or respond to a student survey? You\u2019re also more likely to gain support this way. Mine admittedly did all three, but would have been just as useful on a smaller scale.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the difference between bog-standard Reflective Practice and Action Research? This debate continues to rage in academic circles and some would argue there isn\u2019t a distinction. However, if you\u2019d like to take your findings to a wider audience, be rigorous, and keep an open mind. It\u2019s very easy to start off unconsciously expecting a particular outcome, but things may well not turn out that way. And it\u2019s within the \u201dmess\u201d of Action Research that interesting things happen. You won\u2019t know if you don\u2019t have the data to explore, so with that in mind, record everything, chuck nothing. One of my most unexpected and interesting insights came from my field journal. Meant as a personal record, it became a rich source on the different, often conflicting, roles we take on when facilitating planning, observation and feedback sessions.<\/p>\n
Thinking about who you want to involve is really important. Collaborating with colleagues is extremely rewarding, but bear in mind the practicalities. Put together a schedule detailing the main commitments with time estimates and communicate it in advance. Getting students to participate in the process empowers them – after all they\u2019re at the heart of what we do – but make sure they know exactly what\u2019s involved, seek permission, document it. Again if you have any plans to take your findings to a wider audience (i.e. outside your own school), this ensures your research is ethical. I decided on a collaborative approach known as lesson study<\/i><\/a>. Working alongside two other teachers was intense and challenging, but the detailed, positive comments in their exit questionnaires made it all worthwhile.<\/p>\n Picture the scene. You and your colleagues spend hours planning a dynamite observation lesson, which you plan to video on the only day that teachers, timetables, and classes align like a once-in-a-century solar eclipse. The lovely case-study students have agreed to give up an hour of their time after class for you to interview them. You arrive that morning to discover all classes have had to be relocated to a nearby hotel due to noisy building work. The said hotel has terrible audio equipment and all the plug sockets are deliberately positioned to prevent effective video recording, or so it feels. Unfortunately, these things just happen in teaching. Don\u2019t throw in the towel, do your best, record, and note-take whatever you can. Learn, move forward, and look for solutions.<\/p>\n Perhaps my biggest disappointment was that I left the country before my write-up was complete, so I wasn\u2019t able to share it with my colleagues face-to-face. Reporting your findings gives a sense of resolution and regardless of how worthwhile you feel it was, people will appreciate your efforts. It\u2019s also a great way to raise your profile and connect you to a wider community and there are many outlets for doing so, iTDi being just one example. Give a talk, submit an article, start a blog, make a poster for your office!<\/p>\n I\u2019d be lying if I said my project was a complete failure, far from it. In fact, my main failure was not realizing at the time how much more <\/i>I would learn from the process itself, rather than the final product. Actually, I do have a more fully formed and practical approach to listening instruction in my own classroom, which is what I\u2019d set out to investigate after all.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s only one solution\u2026 Embrace the failure!\u201d<\/i>\u00a0Milton Glaser<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Jessica Brook \u201cDoing a project that is truly complex and difficult tests your real ability\u2026 the thing we most fear with regard to failure is our own self-acknowledgement, that we really don\u2019t exactly know what we\u2019re doing.\u201d\u00a0 Milton Glaser This time last year, I was halfway through my first proper Action Research enquiry, and … Continue reading How NOT to do Action Research – 5 lessons learnt<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":5473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-failure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n