Teachers as Researchers

I am a member of a group of teachers who are also researchers into their own classroom practice. As a member of this group, I take a close look at my teaching practices and student learning, and collect and analyze the data in order to improve my teaching and to share what I learn with other teachers. We focus primarily on using technology to promote and improve literacy. Through the course of this process, I and the other teachers in this group share what we are doing in class and discuss the work our students are doing. We are very careful to protect the privacy of our students - we never share full names of students and remove the names from any student work we share.

This year we will be focusing on the assessment of technology projects in the Language Arts program such as blogs, wikis, videos, podcasts, etc. In order to do this I will need to share student work with this group. I sent home a consent form today that outlines what I am doing and asks your permission to share student work with this group. I will also be asking the students to sign their own consent form as I don't want them to be uncomfortable  with the sharing of their work or to share what they've done without their permission. Please get in touch with me at the school or through email (heatherchaulk@esdnl.ca) if you have any questions or concerns. If you would like more of an idea of what this work involves, here is a link to the video I produced about the work I did last year as a member of this group. The password you need in order to view it is ActionResearch.