How Do You See Research Best Contributing to Practice?
This issue of Research Connections highlights the ways Doug Buehl links research with practice. Doug has been an active literacy professional at the local, state, and national levels for 30 years. During this time, he was a social studies teacher and reading specialist/literacy coach at Madison (WI) East High School and a district adolescent literacy support teacher. His publications include the International Reading Association (IRA) bestseller, Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (3rd ed.). Doug was a founding member of IRA’s Commission on Adolescent Literacy, served as President of IRA’s Secondary Reading Interest Group, and in 1996 received IRA’s Nila Banton Smith Award, which honors a secondary school teacher who has shown leadership in translating theory and research into content area literacy practice.
DWM: How do you see research best contributing to practice?
DB: On one hand, teachers of adolescents are often skeptical of educational research because they suspect that much of it does not acknowledge the complexities of their classrooms. But on the other hand, these very complexities lead teachers to seek practices that more effectively support their students’ learning. So I see research often providing a layer of reassurance for teachers to experiment with changes and venture into instruction that may be outside their comfort zones.
DWM: How do you use research?
DB: Much of what I do involves engaging teachers in reconceptualizing what it means to teach a subject while factoring in the literacy challenges of that academic discipline. Laying the groundwork of supporting research when advocating literacy practices is essential.
Our curriculums tend to deliver huge doses of what students should know and be able to do without sufficiently considering why students should develop certain understandings, why they should become increasingly accomplished in some ways, or how experts within a discipline read, write, and think. Likewise, I have found that literacy staff development can easily overemphasize what practices are research based without sufficiently considering why they are appropriate for certain situations, why teachers should develop expertise in them, or how such practices can be integrated into content instruction. Merely asserting that a literacy practice is research-based is insufficient, so I work to provide insights into the nature of the supporting research as well.
Teachers often state a preference for pragmatic workshops that focus on practical teaching ideas. But unless teachers are accorded a clear research-based rationale for classroom strategies, I fear that their instruction may not extend beyond surface procedures, and they will miss opportunities to have deep impacts on students’ learning. In addition, teachers want to know that recommended literacy practices are based on more than mere opinion, so I show that such practices are supported.
Our Gucci Replica Handbag with detailed imitation, qualified materials and lowest price endow you the same dignity and elegance of the original one. You would love Gucci 211843 FTOFS4060 in blue handbag at first sight.
Processing your request, Please wait....
