Understanding teachers’ inquiries and classroom literacy practices

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Joy Kammerer Myers (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Amy Vetter

Abstract: Through teacher research, educators engage in ways of evaluating and changing their practices. Such inquiry allows teachers an opportunity to make their knowledge about learning visible to themselves and others. Unlike the knowledge generated by "outside" researchers, the knowledge generated by teacher researchers often takes the form of altered practices and/or re-envisioned curricula with the intent of use within the local context in which it is developed. In this study, an inquiry as stance framework is used to illustrate how teaching is a habit of mind or worldview rather than a set of formal strategies or specific competence skills. Given the abstract nature of stance (e.g., worldview), however, there is a need for further focus on the development of practices and perspectives which might lead to an inquiry stance and how and if that inquiry stance impacts instruction, specifically in the field of literacy. This qualitative case study does just that by examining how elementary teachers constructed and enacted an inquiry stance and how those stances shaped literacy instruction. This study occurred in two phases. In phase one, interviews, observations, and artifacts were used to understand how teachers constructed and enacted an inquiry stance within the context of the graduate class and how that stance shaped their classroom literacy practices. Phase two of the study, using the same methodology, followed one teacher the next year into her first-grade classroom to better understand how and if an inquiry stance continues and what impact that stance had on her literacy instruction. Findings suggest that although teachers enact their inquiry stances differently, these stances have short- and long-term effects on teachers' literacy instruction.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2015
Keywords
Inquiry stance, Literacy practices, Teacher research
Subjects
Action research in education $v Case studies
Reflective teaching $v Case studies
Language arts teachers $v Case studies
Language arts (Elementary) $v Case studies

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