Action Research in Teacher Education: Classroom Inquiry, Reflection, and Data-Driven Decision Making

One of the growing interests in teacher education lies in how and what teachers learn across time and space in the complex ecologies and technologies of today’s society. Teacher research has been implemented in teacher education programs as a powerful, exploratory tool for teacher candidates to inquire about educational problems and to improve their knowledge of teaching practice. This article presents insights gained from review of 18 action research projects completed by classroom teachers enrolled in a graduate reading methods course. To better understand what teachers learned through the action research process and how their self-study impacted teaching and learning in their classrooms, qualitative research methods were used to analyze the teachers’ projects. The data revealed action research impacted literacy instruction, teachers struggled with how to make their literacy instruction explicit, projects focused on specific literacy topics, teachers used a range of resources for their selected intervention and shared information with each other and with colleagues in their respective contexts