>Please do write with your down to earth practical thoughts ........<
I've just joined the forum, having answered the call made in messages on
the BECTa ICT research forum. I teach French, German and students with
special educational needs in a mainstream secondary school in the North
East of England. I've done my share of educational research over the years,
earning a couple of Masters degrees, presenting at international
conferences and writing articles in the process, mostly about languages,
technology and special needs. If you want to know more about "where I'm
coming from", please visit my website at:
http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/
I'm a teacher who is also an action researcher. I have to be in the special
educational needs world, which is all about problem-solving, diagnosing
learning difficulties and experimenting with different approaches to
include individual learners at risk. I do recognise the importance of
validity, replicability, rigour and so forth. My academic training has
drilled such matters into me to the extent that they're virtually second
nature. However, I'm also very concerned with the applicability and
relevance of educational research to classroom practice. Every week or so,
teachers ask for help on special needs forums about new pupils with medical
conditions. They want to know what impact such difficulties will have on
the child's educational progress. I search the Web, finding lots of medical
literature and research explaining the condition and offering prognoses in
layman's language. I search in vain for educational information and report
back to the teacher who asked the original question. I plead with the
teacher to post their classroom experiences with the child so that the
whole teaching profession can benefit. Almost nobody answers my plea and
teachers (and therefore learners) are the losers.
The problem isn't with validity or rigour. It's getting people started in
the first place with down-to-earth teacher-led classroom-based action
research that's going to inform our practice. It's also about finding a
medium where such research might be published. Sadly, that's not the kind
of research I see in the journals I peruse when I pop into my local
university library. That kind I can admire because it's rigorous,
evidence-based and statistics-supported. The authors have read the
literature and are able to quote from the different schools of opinion.
Sadly, though, such articles are a far cry from the raw, untutored report
of a teacher who has managed, say, to get through to an autistic child
after months of patient relationship-building.
Just my two cents' worth.
David Wilson
Harton Technology College, South Shields
http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/
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