Collaborative Library Research Projects: Inquiry that Stimulates the Senses

Collaborative Library Research Projects. Inquiry that Stimulates the Senses. by John D. Volkman. Out of his many years of experience in collaborating with.
Table of contents

How did I get here? Why and how do I remain?

Collaborative Library Research Projects : Inquiry that Stimulates the Senses / John D. Volkman

What do I intend for the future? Ethical competence and political commitment: The commitment to teaching. The associations of the school with the education system and with higher bodies; the system's authoritarianism and the space for school's autonomy; collective work: And the group tensions: Am I a teacher-researcher? What does it mean to be a teacher-researcher? What are the parameters for gauging a teacher-researcher? Is it possible to be a teacher-researcher in the current work conditions?

The second set of themes about the nature of the research and each one's conditions in it emerged as the group began to realize that the research we were carrying out was different from the traditional study in which the university researchers go to the schools to collect data and then proceed to interpret them without the participation of the school professionals. Although they valued our procedures, the school professionals sometimes expected us to present solutions to their problems and difficulties.

The choice from the beginning of the project to utilize a qualitative research approach engendered at first some perplexities in the group of teachers, when they asked themselves what kind of research was this, so different from the traditional concept of research in which " the academics arrived at school, observed, gathered data and information, asked questions, and then left, leaving at most a few recipes for teachers' actions and usually the feeling that all they did was suspicious and all they said was incomprehensible to us" testimony.

The uneasiness then remained: If we are, how do we differ from university researchers? They have better salaries; they have the obligation to produce research. If they do research, they can solve questions that we cannot. But if they are going to solve our problems, they are going to disparage our work!? Once such perception had been overcome, and the partnership relations had been established, there remained the task of clarifying our understanding of what was the research we were carrying out.

For that, it was important to recover the objectives of the Project To make explicit the collaborative action research from the study carried out we went back to its objectives and fieldwork data and proceeded to a cross study between the characteristics of collaborative research as presented by Zeichner, and the contributions of Thiollent, when the characteristics, the objectives, and aspects of action research are introduced.

We also relied on external evaluation of this study Indeed, the objectives of the research Qualification of the Public Teaching and Teacher Education were to articulate the professional development of the teachers involved; to analyze the processes of construction of the pedagogical knowledges by the school team; to stimulate changes in the school organizational culture; to contribute to public policies of teachers' continuing education. It assumed that every teacher is capable of producing knowledge on teaching. We expected, as a result from the collaborative action of the research, pedagogical changes that engendered the valuation of work, personal growth, professional commitment, development of a culture of analysis and of participative organizational practices.

The methodological paths followed allowed a negotiated common experience throughout the process, and can be summarized as follows: At this stage the teachers began to see themselves as authors, resulting in the increase of self-esteem and professional qualification, and complete engagement in the project. With the issues raised by Zeichner, , text where collaborative research is spelled out, we carried out a work of retrospective reflection about the first two years of the project, asking teachers to establish a dialogue between, on one hand, the objectives, assumptions, the methodology of the project, and the experiences so far, and, on the other, the questions put forward by the author.

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Questions that guided the discussion, and the testimonies from the teachers are as follows: What are the meaning and the relevance of the research? It allowed "to expand the knowledge and the vision of the practice; to question the practice and the actions; to make the teacher more demanding with himself, with students and with colleagues. It was that practice that 'matched' the theory i.

Is there collaboration between teachers those from the school and those from the FEUSP , and between teachers at school? Today we build our practice playing different roles; a new valuation of the roles of the whole group. Not recognizing the individual paces and styles generates conflict: It is important to distinguish 'respect for the other' from 'recognizing the other'.

In the latter perspective there is an attitude of incorporating, of doing together. There is genuine collaboration".


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The project has offered elements for the individual projects and those of the subgroups? By analyzing the movement of the collaborative research in this school it was also possible to configure it as an action research, from its characteristics, objectives, and aspects, such as defined by Thiollent, About the characteristics of action research, we transcribe below excerpts from the text Action Research and the 'Qualification of the Public Teaching and Teacher Education' Project , prepared by the teachers coordinators of the Project at the CEFAM, based on the fieldwork data: We noticed that changes in the development of the Project are in response to needs and to the resolution of everyday problems that emerged, which, after being considered and reflected upon, steered the research.

In this item we realized that there is: The knowledge produced is applied in the school itself. As far as this aspect is concerned, we observed that we accomplished: The authors conclude the text with indications about what advances should be made: Camargo; Moraes; Molina; Leite, Recalling that the text above was prepared after the first three years of the study, the majority of the needed advances pointed out were achieved by the end of the project in Regarding the objectives of action research, still according to Thiollent, , the following aspects could be analyzed: Pertinent examples from the research are: According to the author the relation between those two objectives is variable.

Generally speaking, greater knowledge leads to a better performance of the action. However, in the case of the present research, we observed that the daily demands of the practice, rooted in government policies, often appeared as limiting the time for knowledge. Researchers had then to take special care to keep the balance between the practical objectives and those knowledge-related during the study. This objective was present throughout the research process, perceived by the identification of other CEFAMs, in the socialization meetings, of the issues and propositions made the teachers from the CEFAM "Ayres de Moura".

Also, in the texts produced by the teachers involved and presented in national scientific meetings, there was a systematization of the knowledge generated from the fieldwork data, which contribute to the expansion of the field. Thiollent still points out the following aspects that give shape to the methodology of action research: Examining these aspects with the group and using them as categories of analysis of the process carried out up until then we concluded that we were actually developing an action research.

The Report of the external evaluation to which we submitted the projects belonging to FAPESP's Improvement of Teaching Program 14 confirms the theoretical and methodological framework of collaborative action research present in the projects, and develops an analysis that extends the understanding of its meaning, of its potential and of its difficulties, pointing to the need to widen and deepen theoretical questions associated with this modality of qualitative research. Under this view, maintaining the theoretical and methodological coherence is indispensable in terms of group alertness.

One is dealing here with a constructive-collaborative model: The understanding of this kind of research as an open process: Having configured, at last, the collaborative action research in the process of the study Qualification of the Public Teaching , there remained still one issue: Supported by Kincheloe, , Franco, presents the following consideration when analyzing what defines a collaborative action research as critical: When the search for transformation is requested by the reference group to the team of researchers, the study has been classified as collaborative action research, where the function of the researcher will be of taking part and making scientific a process of change previously started by the members of the group.

The research was carried out in response to the request of a group of teachers from the school, which faced complex, conflicting and unstable situations, situations that characterize the teaching activity. The university researchers carried out with the teachers and other members of the institution a collaborative action research whose purpose was of creating a culture of analysis of the practices at school, with a view to its transformation by the teacher with the help of university teachers.

If such transformation is perceived as necessary based on the initial work of the researcher with the group, as a consequence of a process that values the cognitive construction of experience supported on collective critical reflection, with a view to the emancipation of the subjects, and from the conditions that the group feels as oppressive, then this research begins to assume the character of being critical, and thus the classification of critical action research has been employed.

The study started from the assumption that teachers are capable of developing a method for the problematization, analysis and investigation of the practical reality of teaching, grounded on their previous experiences, their initial education, other people's experiences in the school context, and on the existing theories to find solutions for the demands that practice places upon them, and thence produce knowledge. The development of this method does not happen spontaneously.

Thus, the methodology of collaborative action research imposed itself as the more adequate. One of the leading factors that gathered the team of university researchers around the proposition and conduction of the research was the commitment to carry out a study in a public school , and such that the study had as its characteristic to be conducted with the teachers and not just about them , and also that it was carried out with the school community, involving teachers, principals and coordinators.

That is so because our assumption is that one of the most valuable kinds of continuing education is the one that takes the school contexts as objects of analysis. This favors the theory-practice relation, since in traditional modes of continuing education, such as courses and various training, the mediation between those modalities and the school contexts has not been established, resulting in an investment targeted more at the professionalization of the teacher and less at the changes of institutional practices necessary for the improvement of the results of schooling. The choice of configuring the research in the school space unveiled the complete problem involving the school as an organization within a given system in this case, the state public system , pointing towards important questions related to public and governmental education policies.

The condition for being a critical action research is diving into the praxis of the social group under study, whence are extracted the latent perspectives, the hidden, the unfamiliar that sustains the practices, and the changes will be negotiated and engendered in the collective. In this sense, collaborative action researches often take on the character of criticality.


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Critical action researchers try to uncover those aspects of the dominant social order that undermine our efforts for emancipative goals. Critical action research considers the voice of the subject, his perspective, his sense, but not just for the records and later interpretation by the researcher, the voice of the subject will be part of the fabric of the research methodology.

In this case the methodology does not happen through the steps of a method, but is organized in the relevant situations emerging from the process. Hence the emphasis on the formative character of this modality of study, for the subject must be conscious of the transformations that take place in him and in the process. It is also because of this that such methodology assumes an emancipative character, since through the conscious participation the research subjects have the opportunity to free themselves from myths and prejudices that organize their resistance to change, and reorganize their self-images as historical subjects.

The methodology of collaborative action research allowed this involvement. It considered issues related to the process of interaction between the group of university researchers and the school team nature and overcoming of conflicts ; to the nature of reflection and to the knowledge that teachers engendered of their practices; to the process and rhythm of changes. Through collaborative reflection the teachers became capable of producing meaning and knowledge that allowed them to guide the process of transformation of school practices, bringing about changes in the school culture, creating a community of analysis and investigation, personal growth, professional commitment and democratic and emancipative organizational practices.

The dialogue between the authors referred to above and the aspects of the research makes it possible to identify it as a critical-collaborative action research. Contributions of critical-collaborative action research to teacher education. In the s the literature on the education of reflective teachers shifted from a perspective excessively centered in the methodological and curriculum aspects to a view that considers the school contexts. School organizations produce an internal culture of their own and that express the values and beliefs shared by the members of the organization.

They are not just propagators, but also producers of social practices, of values, of beliefs and knowledges, fueled by the effort of searching for new solutions to the problems experienced. According to Zeichner , the education always involves mobilizing various knowledges: Understood as such, the education constitutes not just a process of professional improvement, but also a process of transformation of the school culture, in which new participative and democratic management practices are implemented and consolidated.

Volume 1, Issue 3 (2009)

In this sense, the education of reflective teachers constitutes an emancipative pedagogical project cf. Kincheloe, ; Pimenta e Such proposal of transforming the school into a critical community faced obstacles to its fulfillment in the case of the Qualification of the Public Teaching and Teacher Education study.

The obstacles were related to attitudes of resistance to change, to the bureaucratization of the education system, to the hierarchical and profoundly authoritarian structure of the school, and to the fragility of the professional statute of the teachers. Nevertheless, despite their weight on the school team researched, these aspects were offset by the teachers' commitment to their profession and job, several times demonstrated during the four years of the study. Teachers resisted to the follies of authoritarianism. They resisted proposing solutions not always heard by the authorities.

The research project was largely responsible for keeping the flame of resistance alive by increasing the teachers' self-esteem, and by supplying them with theoretical instruments for their analyses and proposals. To allow the turn away from individual reflection towards emancipative commitments,. As Franco , p. Analyzing the results from the two experiences of critical-collaborative action research discussed in the present text, it is possible to add a few features that allow a better configuration of the sense and meaning of this methodological approach from a theoretical-methodological viewpoint and from a political-institutional viewpoint.

As for the first: This, however, takes time to establish itself and mature;. Their role is to strengthen the professionalism of the teachers through spelling out, recording, shared reflection, proposition, development, and analysis of participative projects from the needs of teachers and from their perception by the researchers.

With that, they make it possible to widen the decision and autonomy spaces of teachers against the impositions placed upon them. As far as public policies are concerned, the studies, and particularly the second one, have showed, on the one hand, innumerable difficulties to their realization at the school under study, specially with respect to the poor working conditions of teachers: The collective and pedagogical time HTPC included in the working hours assume a merely bureaucratic character since, in practice, with temporary teachers working by the hour, the collective aspect becomes a fiction, for it is not possible to make teachers hours match under such diverse and unbalanced situations.

On the other hand, the perspective of the bureaucratic school makes itself felt in the strongly authoritarian and hierarchical relationship with the Secretariat for Education, something that was made evident in those four years by the abrupt change of location of the CEFAM to a different borough, with severe consequences to students and teachers, as well as by the endless modifications to the school's managing staff, making it difficult to establish shared projects.

Also by the authoritarian practice of defining projects at the central level, just from what those bodies believe to the good for the school.

Collaborative Librarianship | Vol 1 | Iss 3

There is no room for pedagogical proposals from the problems faced by the school. When the latter do propose something, thanks to teachers' involvement, the material and human resources support is nonexistent. Studies carried out in other countries 19 reveal that in the absence of participation from the actors involved in the definition of innovations, particularly from teachers in the case of school institutions, those innovations do not materialize. Despite this picture, the research showed the gaps in which it worked and those that it made wider. Many were the difficulties. However, the results could be identified: However, the study also made clear the difficulties in establishing collectives.

The long-standing competitive practice present in society, highly stimulated by the teaching system through the fragility of a precarious statute of professionality, was one of the factors most strongly felt as being difficult to overcome. The established practice in the intermediate levels of the administration Regional Office of the policy of 'favors' and 'accommodations', which could be clearly seen in the attribution of classes, apart form the authoritarianism and administrative centralism that do not recognize competence as a criterion for promotion, also hampers any proposal of projects and transformation of practices based on the processes collectively discussed and assumed.

The fieldwork data of the researches carried out here have confirmed results from other qualitative studies conducted by researchers from Brazil and from other countries, which have pointed to the enormous potential for the transformation of the practices afforded by collaborative action research.

They have also revealed the importance of their results fertilizing the development of transformations in public policies and, in particular, in the forms of management of education systems, valuing and supporting initiatives and projects originated in schools, creating the structural conditions for their establishment as spaces for analysis and political and pedagogical proposals, from a common goal of effective democratization of education, both quantitatively and qualitatively, with a view to a really inclusive school.

Inclusive socially, politically, economically, culturally, scientifically and technologically. Research in Science Education , v. Cartografias do trabalho docente. Mercado de Letras, Paz e Terra, El maestro como investigador en el aula: El maestro como profesional reflexivo. Pimenta has written six books and numerous articles published in Brazilian and international journals. Action belongs to the subjects, it is typical of the human beings and they express themselves in it.

In action, we act according to what we are, and in what we do it is possible to see what we are. Practice belongs to the social sphere and expresses culture objectified, the accumulated legacy, being typical of institutions. One of the most important roles of today's Library Media Specialist is collaborating with teachers to design instruction. Out of his many years of experience in collaborating with teachers in a large public high school, the author describes this collaboration process and presents lessons in various disciplines to spark student inquiry.

Reimagining The Research Project: a Faculty – Librarian Collaborative Project at Ohio University

These reproducible lessons are immediately usable and will serve as prototypes for developing other lessons. Research tells us that students learn in a variety of ways visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc. Out of his many years of experience in collaborating with teachers in a large public high school, the author offers this book to describe this collaboration process and presents lessons in various disciplines that can be used to spark student inquiry.

Students also learn best when they can interact with the material and each other, and are stimulated by the activities. Therefore, the units contain a variety of learning methods such as listening to music and oral history, using computers for research and interaction, watching videos, reading books, and discussing articles with classmates. There are also a variety of suggested end products using different media. The Nations of the World Report. Developed with teachers by a school librarian, these units actively engage students in the learning process. A must-buy for school libraries!

In clear, jargon-free language, Volkman lays out an argument for using his style of collaborative research units. Using multiple methods and media helps students learn material more effectively. Volkman shows examples of research units he has used incorporating various media and methods in stations that can be set up in the media center…Volkman's accessible writing provides a well-thought-out, no-nonsense book that will be useful to the novice or experienced school media specialist in junior high and high school settings.