Practitioner research, an inquiry process where teachers take the lead in defining their own research questions, conducting their own investigations, and applying their results to teaching, is a highly effective tool for staff development.

According to Jereann King, (2005), "Inquiry-based staff development is a process in which practitioners come together with colleagues over a period of time to systematically explore issues, questions, or problems emerging in their work. The framework for organizing inquiry-based staff development can differ from context to context, but always involves reflecting on practice, formulating problem statements, taking new action or trying out new approaches, and evaluating their effectiveness."

With the proper structure and support, teachers can become more knowledgeable about how to come up with research questions, how to collect data from their own classrooms, how to analyze that data, and how to use it to improve their teaching. The results of small, localized projects can also contribute to the larger knowledge base in adult literacy by addressing present questions and generating others. Such a contribution is valuable because, as Alisa Belzer (1993) suggests, "What is largely missing from the field of research in adult literacy education are the voices of practitioners themselves—the questions that they ask and the interpretive frameworks that they use to understand and improve their practice."

How Do You Do It?
The Virginia Adult Education Research Network strongly supported practitioner research as a staff development method, and their online material helps clarify the process. As a result of an extended project from 1998-2000, they published Practitioner Research as Staff Development: A Facilitator's Guide. Available online at www.aelweb.vcu.edu/publications/research, this guide offers clear steps for generating research questions, collecting data, and interpreting findings. It also presents teachers' testimonies to the value of this kind of staff development work. To learn more about practitioner research, check out some of the resources below.

References

Lenore Balliro, Field Notes editor, also coordinated the math initiative in its first year. She can be reached at: lballiro@worlded.org