Teacher Action Research

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Hot Topic Packet: Teacher Action Research.
The Adult Literacy Clearinghouse has just compiled this new packet of resources. The packet includes a variety of information to help educators better understand this topic. Some of the materials included are: What is Action Research?; Types of action research; Effects of an Inquiry Approach to Preservice Teacher Education; and Implications of Teacher Action Research for Inservice Teachers' Professional Development. A list of resources is included.

Focus on Basics, Volume 2, Issue C, September 1998, included an article titled Facilitating Inquiry-Based Staff Development. In this article, the author writes about "the tensions and contradictions [she] experienced facilitating a practitioner-inquiry-as-staff-development project."

Teacher-As-Researcher, from the ERIC database, discusses the purpose, the importance, and the effects of Teacher Action Research.

It's Friendship, Developing Friendship: A Teacher Action Research Study on Reading Buddies.
The author of this on-line journal article describes her experience with Teacher Action Research. Some of the topics covered are: Description of My Teacher Action Research Study; Different Points of Views; Action Research: Connections Between Theory and Practice; and What I have Learned From My Action Research Study.

The Implications of Teacher Action Research for Inservice Teachers' Professional Development.
This paper describes a collaborative action research project implemented in an urban professional development school and the impact it had on it's participants. It also covers Kincheloe's (1991) model of an action research cycle: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.

The ESL Starter Kit.
Virginia Adult Education and Literacy Centers developed this publication that is designed to help teachers and program administrators begin or improve an adult ESL program, including information on getting organized, assessing students, preparing teachers, understanding adult learners, and planning lessons. Ideas are included for dealing with multi-level classes, helping students with special needs, using volunteers in the classroom, cultural considerations, and evaluating your teaching. The Kit also offers an overview of curriculum development, and a resource list of curricula already developed.

Reduce Reuse Recycle: An ESL Textbook/Workbook and Teaching Guide. This ESL text was written with two goals in mind: a textbook which both teachers and tutors could use to teach immigrants how to speak, read, and write in English; and to communicate information about reducing, reusing, and recycling, thus increasing participation in local recycling programs by this population. The chapter headings include: What Does "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" Mean?; What Can You Recycle at Home and How?; What Is Hazardous Waste?; What Do Warning Labels Mean?; How Can You Be a Smart Shopper and Reduce Waste?; and more. Each chapter includes three to five ESL exercises, giving students opportunities to practice both written and spoken English with the information contained in the chapter. Includes a Teaching Guide and an Instructor Survey for feedback to developers of the text.

Equipped for the Future: Hot Topic Packet.
The Texas Adult Literacy Clearinghouse has just com-compiled this packet. Equipped for the Future is an initiative of the National Institute for Literacy (still in process), intended to define a content framework for adult learning standards, with input from the adult literacy and lifelong learning field, as well as adult learners and other "key customers and investors" in adult learning. The EFF content frame- work includes purposes of adult learning, common activities in which adults should be able to engage, generative skills needed for these activities (communication, interpersonal, decision making, and life- long learning skills), and knowledge domains adults should understand and be able to use in those common activities. EFF Standards have also been developed, and NIFL plans to develop means to assess student success under the EFF framework. This Hot Topic Packet includes articles summarizing EFF, describing its relationship to standards- based reform, and discussing use of the EFF framework in the classroom. Also included are materials from NIFL: EFF Content Frame- work; Skills Descriptions; Standards; Role Maps as Worker, Citizen/ Community Member, and Parent/Family Member; and Common Activities used to carry out these roles.

LLA Puzzles: Sets 2 through 10: Distributed by Laubach Literacy Action, each puzzle set includes reproducible masters and answer sheets for six word game puzzles (crosswords, word search, word scrambles, etc.) for use with adult literacy students.

Strengthening Family Literacy: How States Can Increase Funding and Improve Quality.
The National Institute for Literacy compiled this report since several state legislatures have recently enacted family literacy legislation and Congress has passed laws strengthening support for family literacy. The new laws call on states to create state plans that, for the first time, specifically include family literacy as a way to meet adult education, early childhood, and literacy needs. Compiled to assist family literacy leaders who are strengthening support for family literacy in their own states.

The Basics of Saving and Investing: A Teaching Guide.
The National Institute of Consumer Education has provided this resource "to share a common educational goal: to enhance the knowledge and skills of individual investors." This teaching guide is an introduction to financial planning and investing.

Workplace Literacy Pilot Project: A Discussion Paper.
This paper is based on a review of the Canadian National Literacy Secretariat's experience with workplace pilot projects. It examines the Secretariat's experiences with innovations in workplace learning activities and organizational change strategies, and with changes required that might better enable workplaces to become "learning organizations." The report is intended as a resource for developing workplace literacy activities that contribute to transforming the lives of individuals, their communities, and their workplaces.

Multilevel Classes: Connections: A Journal of Adult Literacy: Summer, 1997, Volume VII, published by the Adult Literacy Resource Institute, SABES Greater Boston, offers this collection of ESOL articles. Some of the articles include: What Does it Take?; A Teacher Steps Aside in the Multilevel Classroom; Why Teach in Groups Instead of Individualized?; and Learning to Cooperate/Cooperating to Learn.

Project SELF: Self-Esteem for Life Fulfillment, developed by the Kansas State Board of Education. Project SELF activities and materials are designed to raise learners' self- esteem and confidence. Lessons use a problem-solving approach, integrating self-esteem and daily living skills used in social interaction, employment, learning, and family life. Assessment is provided in the form of a self- esteem survey, learner checklist, and teacher checklist. Eight lesson plans are included, as well as suggestions for creating additional lesson plans. An appendix provides instructional techniques, characteristics of self- esteem, and a listing of additional resources.

[Available for check out from the Adult Literacy Clearinghouse. Call (800) 441-7323.]

Banquet: April 19, 1999, Speakers at the National Center for Family Literacy Conference.
After preliminary comments by Wally Amos and a history of NCFL's first ten years by Sharon Darling, this video offers a 30-minute talk by Regina Lynn, a family literacy mother telling her success story. That is followed by a 30-minute speech by author/musician/journalist James McBride. He talks about his book, "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother." McBride talks about growing up Black, and his views on race and identity. The book is his mother's success story, telling how the Polish Jewish immigrant battled racism and poverty to raise her twelve children. New York Times book reviewer, H. Jack Geiger, says of McBride's book, "The triumph of the book--and of their lives--is that race and religion are transcended by family love."

Eggs and Issues Breakfast: April 19, 1999, Speakers at National Center for Family Literacy Conference.
Harold (Bud) Hodgkinson gave this 45- minute presentation to the NCFL Annual Conference in 1999. Currently Director of the Center for Demographic Policy at the Institute for Educational Leadership, Hodgkinson is a lecturer/researcher/consultant on demographic and education issues. He spoke on changing demographics and implications for family literacy programs now and in the future. Hodgkinson focused on increasing diversity and how that diversity is concentrated in some 200 of our 3,000 counties in the US. Clearinghouse staff who reviewed the video found it engaging because the speaker imparted the demographic information and its ramifications with frequent doses of humor.

Tuesday Breakfast Session: April 19, 1999. Speakers at National Center for Family Literacy Conference.
In the first 12 minutes of this tape, a family literacy mother, Melinda Skates, a Native American from Kansas, tells her life/literacy history. The next speaker for 30 minutes is Dr. Thomas Armstrong, author, speaker and teacher with experience from primary through doctoral levels. Armstrong had a regular column in "Parenting" magazine for four years and has authored numerous books on learning and human development. He spoke on "The Eight Kinds of Smart", or the theory of multiple intelligences, and the application of this theory in family literacy programs. Call 1-800-441-7323 or e-mail tcall@tamu.edu the Adult Literacy Clearinghouse for these items.