Teachers Search and Research: Questioning Educational Practices (Teacher As Researcher‪)‬

Teachers engage in responsive teaching every day. They collect information about their students, interpret that information, and make instructional decisions (any decisions, really) based on the information collected, on their observations and other gathered information. This process emcompasses the responsive teaching cycle (adapted from Whitin, Mills, & O'Keefe, 1990). Although common, many of these searches for responsive teaching are part of a classroom's private life. The difference between teachers searching and teachers researching lies in the systemization and purpose of the process and in the reliance on data. According to Hansen (1997), "A teacher researcher, among other things, is a questioner. Her questions propel her forward" (p. 1). Teacher researchers engage in a "deliberate, solution-oriented investigation that is group or personally owned and conducted" (Johnson, 1993, [paragraph]2). They study their own practices while seeking to address specific situations (Corey, 1953).