Teacher action research and student voice: Making sense of learning in secondary school

Listening to students’ voices to make sense of learning

The field researcher was situated within the school full time and worked weekly with each teacher, recording a class and then conducting teacher and student focus group SR interviews. During the teacher SR interview, the field researcher shared anecdotes from the SR student focus group thereby enabling teachers to reflect on the students’ experiences and understandings of learning within the context of their own intentions for that class. Each week teacher researchers were provided with transcripts of student focus group and their own interviews to review in preparation for workshops every two weeks. The transcripts constituted a safe way of relaying student voices to the teachers with the researcher and field researcher serving as interpreters of student voices. During meetings, we would collectively view excerpts from video recordings or use excerpts from the student or teacher SR transcripts to provoke reflection on and in practice. The lead researcher served as a mentor encouraging collective analysis of the SR transcripts, coinquiry into the meaning conveyed through student voices, and discussion of next steps. The cycles of filming, SR interviews, and collaborative analysis and reflection continued throughout the school term as collaborative teacher self-study on and in (one’s own) action.

In practice, while the teacher researchers contributed to discussion on each other’s transcripts, the weekly cycles of classroom observation (filming) and SR interviews meant they gave greatest attention to the messages that lay within the transcripts from their own students. In keeping with the original goal of the research project, the teachers were motivated to discover if what they were doing in their classroom was promoting student learning and if not, to consider alternative approaches informed by the voices of their students. Each week, in subsequent classes, teachers would acknowledge what they were hearing from students, what they were learning about their own teaching, and how they intended to respond in terms of classroom practice. As students began to experience changes in the teachers practice, they became more confident in their role as critical informants of teaching and learning and took a more active role in the analysis. Students shared, reviewed, and discussed transcripts of the SR interviews with the researchers. They began to identify recurring patterns in their classrooms through analysis of their own and each other’s transcripts.

Researchers, teachers, and students contributed the analysis and interpretation of findings in the final weeks of the project as we prepared a collaborative presentation for a national conference (Kane et al., 2004). The following section draws on this collaborative analysis and on the researcher’s reflections to report disruptions in classroom roles, relationships, and practice and to discuss what was learned by teachers, students, and researchers.

Bringing teachers and students into direct dialog

At the outset of this study, communication between teachers and students was generally respectful, at times light hearted, but largely limited to classroom questions, content explanations, and questions as to the students’ well-being. Initial surveys and focus groups revealed that opportunities for student voice were interpreted by students within a context of power and control: “We don’t have a voice because teachers overrule.” Students suggested that if teachers listened more attentively to students it might help student learning, yet there was no evidence of teachers and students talking explicitly about learning or how students learned. While initially sceptical that their “voices” would be taken seriously, students were willing to participate, and as one students suggested, “maybe if the teachers actually listened to us, they could have a much deeper understanding of what we are going through in the school.”

Prior to this study, on the whole teachers had not given much thought to privileging student voice in terms of learning about teaching, nor had they initiated discussions on learning with their classes. While teachers agreed to look to their students as a way of examining their own practice, the reality of listening to students’ feedback on their lessons was initially somewhat threatening to some. One teacher expressed “fear of what students would say about me” and others were reluctant to accept that the students’ feedback was worthy of serious consideration.

I know we talked about students giving us feedback but do they really know anything about the technicalities of teaching – I mean, you [researcher] would be better placed to tell me what you thought of the lesson and where there are things to improve.

Contrary to their initial commitment to student voice, there was resistance to accepting students as authorities on teaching. Teachers expressed nervous, at times dismissive comments about the insights from students and they looked to the researchers for feedback on their teaching practice. Countering this resistance, the lead researcher refused to take the position of “authority on teaching,” encouraging teachers to take risks she directed them back to examining the students’ transcripts as thoughtful accounts of how teaching was being experienced within their class. She drew attention to elements in the transcripts that reflected teachers’ focus on content-driven practice and prevented them from “seeing” students as something other than “learners.”

I had to come to grips with that, to know that something that would be valuable for me would be to hear what my students actually felt, what they thought about the process through which I taught them, the process in which they actually participated in the class.

The lead researcher took the role of facilitator in these reflexive discussions as she compelled teachers to not turn away from the process, but to allow themselves to be drawn in by what they could learn from students. She challenged the teachers to find answers to questions: “How is my teaching affecting students?” “Where is the learning?” “Who am I teaching for?” Taking up the challenge, the teachers listened to how their teaching was being experienced by students and opened their minds to alternative ways of understanding classroom practice.

Communication between students and teachers was supported initially through the research process as the researchers “translated” the students’ voices to the teachers through SR transcripts and anecdotes. Teachers communicated back to students what they were learning about teaching and students witnessed the impact of their own voices in the teachers’ transformed teaching practice. As students witnessed their own teachers’ willingness to be influenced by their feedback (Rudduck & McIntyre, 2007), they became increasingly forthcoming and moved beyond describing what was happening in the classroom to talking about the impact that teaching was having on their learning. The student SR held classroom practice as the object of student observation and reflection and their transcripts revealed increasingly rich interpretations of teaching and learning.

We can talk about how we learn and how she teaches us. We can tell her that if you do this we understand better than the way you currently do it. We can tell her what, why and when she does something that is helpful to us. … We understand each other better, get along well and we feel free to tell her if we think that she might be able to do something better and hopefully [she feels] the same way with us.

The research process generated a shifting context where both teachers and students were engaged in reflection on and in practice leading to “cycles of respectful dialog” initially channelled through the researchers. With growing confidence, however, the dialog moved into the classroom as teachers created spaces for learning-centered conversations during class. For less vocal students, teachers adopted a system of fast feedback using “tickets out of class” (Russell, 2006) where students could record feedback and questions anonymously.

They just drop their ideas and feedback in the box as they walk out …. those cards provide me with evidence of how they are experiencing my teaching. The cards tell me if they [the students] understand what I thought I was teaching them. That is what I realise now and it is so simple – a little 3 × 5 card – and if they don’t get it, if they are not learning, then I need to know that and I need to do something about it.

The researchers facilitated communication between the students and teachers, but we were not responsible for the emerging dialog—this, the teachers and students created and sustained within their classrooms. The research enabled the teachers to experience teaching as praxis, as a dialectical relationship between teacher and student, and environment and self, bringing teachers to new understandings of classroom experience (Koutselini, 2008). Through a growing commitment to learning-centered dialog, both teachers and students found a sense of empowerment as they negotiated new ways of acting in the classroom.

What teachers learned—Reframing classroom practice as partnership

The participating teachers demonstrated courage allowing their teaching and the thinking underlying their teaching to be scrutinized by their peers, researchers, and students over multiple weeks. All six teacher researchers report being affected by this experience in ways that disrupted their “default” style of teaching and challenged understandings of the respective roles of students and teachers.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time this year not only critiquing myself but actually coming to accept the critique of the students and listening to and dialoguing with the students. You always heard them, but you didn’t necessarily listen. But when you have it on paper in front of you, and when it’s on video going in front of you, you can’t ignore it, you see yourself in a slightly different light.

Teachers not only had opportunities for reflection on action but, through the SR interviews, they were able to engage in delayed reflection in action (Schön, 1987) and the novel dynamic of bringing students’ voices into the teachers’ research pushed them to question taken for granted conceptions about students, teaching, and learning. Reflexive discussions facilitated by the researcher called on teachers to view their teaching practice from multiple (often contradictory) perspectives and to consider carefully what meaning they were finding in their own and the students’ reflections. For some teachers, it was a revelation that the students who were in the classroom with them each day, were well positioned to provide informed comment on teaching practice.

Through student feedback I have come to see that the things I have been doing as a teacher for years and years weren’t suiting their needs. Students might have been trying to tell me this forever but I never heard them, or never thought of them as people who could advise me on teaching, who could help me improve. But it all makes sense – we are in the classroom together and the only ones who can let me know how my teaching helps them to learn are the students.

The students’ voices and the emerging dialog served as a catalyst for teachers to negotiate new relationships with students and to reframe their own practice. As teachers created spaces for conversations on learning, they became “more aware of how they [students] actually learn” which caused them to rethink how students are positioned and to “view them more as partners in the classroom.”

Since we have been in this research together they can talk to me about learning and I can learn a lot from them about my teaching. But I need to make it happen, I need to create the spaces within my class for conversations on learning. …  I don’t think, before the research, I ever talked to any of my students about learning as such. In fact I am not sure we talked about it much as teachers either.

There evolved a “dialogic reflective model of professionalism, forged in alliance with students in the first instance” (Wisby, 2011, p. 41) as teachers explored alternative approaches to teaching in partnership with students.

Teachers shifted their teaching focus from teaching content to how they could promote student engagement in learning. Classroom conversations which previously focused on teacher questioning or checking for student understanding came to resemble a more dialogical model of student participation (Fielding, 2004) with teachers actively listening. Where previously teachers would independently plan and introduce new units of work to students, teachers saw an opportunity to enlist student collaboration in deciding how to approach new areas of study. Teachers shared formal curriculum documents with students and discussed learning objectives and how best to achieve them. In the passage below from a science teacher researcher, we see how engaging students as partners in learning led to new ways of planning and teaching within his classroom that he would not have come to alone.

I’ve begun to actually ask my kids how they would like to approach new topics. We look at the curriculum documents together and work out what is expected but instead of me planning it all the students discuss it and come up with their own ideas and some of them are great. Sometimes I have to unpack some of the language for them but once they have a sense of what the documents demand, they talk in groups about what they have to learn, how they want to learn it and how they can demonstrate they’ve learned. Then we come back together as a class, explore what resources we might need, map out the coming weeks and post it up on the wall and away we go. The plan stays on the wall where we can all refer to it as we move through the unit – sometimes we chop and change as we go along, sometimes we need more time - but the cool thing is that we are doing it together. And strange as it may seem the students are super serious about holding us accountable so they spontaneously take on roles as peer tutor. It has shifted everything around, I’m not the only teacher in the classroom anymore, it’s a bit strange at first and we still have issues from time to time but then we have our dialogue to fall back on. We call ‘time out’ and talk about what is happening – we have key questions – What is the learning goal here? How can we get there? What do you [students] need from me [teacher] to get there? And somehow it all works.

In the scenario above, the teacher realized that his leadership within the classroom did not depend on him being the sole authority, making all the decisions. Contrary to initial fears concerning the possible erosion of a teacher’s authority in the classroom, listening to the students’ voices enhanced his practice and his understanding of how to support student learning. Through trusting the students (and indeed the students trusting him), he was able develop deeper relationships with his students which in turn resulted in reframing the ways in which teaching and learning was enacted within his classroom (Flutter & Rudduck, 2004; Rudduck, 2007). Through letting go some of his authority, the teacher enabled increased student participation and commitment as he and the students renegotiated the hierarchical structure of teacher and learner “to build new knowledge and solve problems working jointly” (Prieto, 2001, p. 89).

Within all six teachers’ classrooms, differentiation of power remains a reality and as Pedder and McIntyre (2006) caution “[h]owever good pupils’ ideas might be, it is the teachers’ responsiveness to them that is ultimately important” (p.145). The teachers in the MSL project all adopted new practices within their classrooms as a consequence of listening to student voices; they transformed their teaching practice to varying degrees. There evolved a willingness on the part of the teachers to see students as partners and there exists a “growing confidence between teachers and pupils that they are both deriving benefits in the classroom” (Cook-Sather, 2009; Pedder & McIntyre, 2006). Through preserving classroom time for dialog about teaching and learning, teachers share ownership of classroom practice with their students with a focus on who they are teaching and how their teaching is supporting learning.

What students learned—Becoming researchers of learning

From the outset, students were aware that teachers were seeking their collaboration in an effort to enhance teaching and learning in their classrooms. Students acknowledged that they had never before been asked to talk about how they learned and so they initially were a little wary; unsure whether anything they might say could possibly bring about change in their classrooms. The focus group SR interviews with the field researcher provided a safe space and gave them opportunities to develop a way of speaking about teaching and learning (Cook-Sather, 2002) and their role in it. Students acknowledged that prior to participating in the research, they saw the classroom as a space where the teacher taught and, all going well, they, the students learned. When viewing the video recording, they could articulate quite clearly situations in class where they did not learn—“I’m just sitting there waiting for him to get it over with because I didn’t understand anything that was going on because he was flying through it so quickly I never got a chance to even begin to understand what he was doing.” When learning did not happen they could identify what they perceived the teacher was doing wrong—going too fast, not explaining, not giving examples—but they did not see themselves as having a role in challenging the way they were taught. Rather, they found alternative pathways to learning through their peers—“I wait until after class and have a friend explain it to me and yeah, it like clicks and I get it”; in general, students saw their role as passive, sitting and waiting for teaching to make learning happen.

When we reflect on what was learned by the student researchers through participation in the MSL project, we can identify two key areas. First, students learned that they could influence the ways in which they were taught; they came to trust that their voices mattered.

Having a voice in chemistry class is really different, and it’s helpful because now you don’t feel scared to tell her [teacher] ‘I can’t, I just don’t get you’, and now, instead of her thinking I’m just a pain, she stops, listens and tries explaining it a different way or asks one of the other kids to explain it.

Students’ voices were “incorporated into action taken by others” (Holdsworth, 2000, p. 358) and through cycles of respectful dialog teachers and students became “inquiry partners” (Anderson et al., 1994). Students became interrogators of teaching practice, identifying ways in which teachers’ pedagogical practices supported or stymied their learning and in so doing began to coconstruct teaching practice with their teachers.

Second, students gained new understandings of the complexity of teaching and learning and a growing awareness of their own roles as active learners rather than passive recipients. In recognizing the power of their voices to affect teaching practice, the students acknowledged teaching and learning as a shared responsibility: “because now we’re saying things to Mr. X and he’s trying to work on them, and then you have more responsibility to learn because you’ve asked him to change.” Through watching their own action in the video, they came to understand that they have a role in learning: “I can see in the video how I respond to the teacher and when I am with it or not and I can see where I missed stuff and why.” Students became researchers, examining their own actions as they inquired into ways in which their learning was sustained and/or constrained in the classroom.

Now I can see where I fit in this and if I am not learning, if I am slack, if I just can’t be bothered one day I can’t go saying it is the teacher’s fault because I am part of this and I can tell him if I don’t get it. I have to tell him when I can’t work it out – or how else is he gonna know?

Through their recall of in-class thinking and action, students demonstrated capacity for critical reflection on and in learning practice. Teaching was no longer something done to them and responsibility for learning was no longer vested only in the teacher’s practice. Students recognized that learning required something more from them; they became active learning practitioners. For many, this new ownership of the learning process was a catalyst for changes in their own classroom practice and engagement.

I used to think I was really bad in math cause I couldn’t understand it, I thought he was a useless teacher. But with this research I can see what I am doing in class and I can see what I have to do, it’s not just him [teacher] – I need to really try and understand instead of just hoping it’s gonna make sense. I am really into it now, like I go to class saying in my head I gotta listen and ask questions and it works, I can make it happen.

The student above demonstrates that empowerment and emancipation were experienced by students alongside of their teachers. No one instructed the student to be more engaged or more attentive (although no doubt teachers had implored him to be so many times), rather his involvement as a coresearcher of teaching and learning had caused him to reflect on his own behavior in the class and awoken in him an growing sense of responsibility and agency in the learning process.

What researchers learned about researching teaching and learning

Typically, when researchers conduct research projects they seek to understand a concept or practice more deeply, to generate knowledge or theory through a systematic empirical inquiry. The MSL project presented an opportunity for us to explore with teachers and students whether teaching practice could be enhanced through consulting students. Through the use of SR, we found ways of assisting students to make explicit how they experienced teaching and learning in the classroom (Rudduck, 2006). We worked with teachers as they made sense of the students’ voices. We challenged them to consider alternative ways of thinking about teaching and we supported them in reframing their practice.

Researchers, teachers, and students formed partnerships that shifted as the MSL project progressed. As researchers we were continually negotiating between roles as “insider and outsider, facilitator and collaborator, participant and observer” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993). As researchers we were welcomed inside the school and were initially positioned by both teachers and students as experts. We partnered with students as they told us what was “wrong” in the classroom and they looked to us to “fix” their teachers. We worked in partnership with teachers as they examined their intentions and practice and looked to us for advice on improving their teaching. However, our commitment to teacher action research lead us to resist the mantle of expert as we learned to prompt, to encourage, and to challenge teachers to reach beyond their initial comfort levels to engage with student voice. The field researcher due in part to her youth and her open personality encouraged and reassured the students so that they were willing to use their voices. As the research progressed, we served more of a facilitator role, enabling communication through SR transcripts and creating opportunities for teachers and students to work in partnership and learn from each other’s expertise, not ours.

As a teacher-initiated inquiry, the MSL project was coherent with the epistemological underpinnings of action research that call for participation to be voluntary and collaborative. As researchers we learned that when researching teaching and learning, it is critical to create spaces and processes through which those most involved in teaching and learning are given voice and provided with opportunities to engage with the voices of each other. It was through creating spaces and safe channels for dialog that the researcher facilitated this embedded teacher professional development with emancipatory outcomes for both teachers and students. The students and teachers were located inside the research process “as producers of knowledge about teaching and learning, not as the receivers of the research” (Oliver, 2005, p.1). Students were located “inside” as experts on their own learning and classroom practice and teachers were located “inside” as researchers of their own practice with students. Together, they generated knowledge on teaching and learning (Bradbury-Huang, 2010). As researchers, we learned to step back to the fringes to listen, to challenge, to question, to support and eventually, to step outside the process as teachers and students negotiated new partnerships through respectful dialog that promised to be sustainable beyond the research process.