Students’ Significant Learning in Higher Education as a Valuable Tool for Pedagogical Professional Development1: An Action Research
Main Article Content
Abstract
This paper aims to depict the valuable tools for pedagogical professional development through an action research about students’ significant learning in a context of higher education. This three-year educational action research was conducted with the participations of 108 students with 4 groups in a course of a bachelor program in pedagogy to collect data through the documental evidence relevant to the research issues using student reflection, student reflection, and teacher’s self-reflective journal entry. The data collection was framed using Padilla’s Unfolding Matrix before being analyzed for the findings and discussions. As a result, this study contributes to the contextual practices of Fink’s taxonomy that the teacher should exploit the values of the action research in the classroom with attention to the signals of problems and resolve them to change for better students’ learning from their feedback during the lessons.
Keywords:
Action research, significant learning, Fink’s taxonomy, pedagogical professional development
References
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D. MacIsaac, An introduction to Action Research, Online source, Retrieved on November 10, 2015 from http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/danowner/actionrsch.html, 1995.
D. Nunan, Action research in the language classroom (In Second language teacher education, ed. J. C. Richards and D. Nunan), Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990.
D. Hopkins, A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom research (2nd ed.) Open University Press, Buckingham, 1993.
E. Ferrance, Action research. Brown University Press, Lebanon NH, 2000.
G. Díaz-Maggioli, Options for Teacher Professional Development, English Teaching Forum, 41 (2) (2003) 2.
G. E. Mills, Action research: A guide for the teacher researcher (5th ed.). Pearson, Boston, 2013.
G. Hine, The importance of action research in teacher education programs, Issues in Educational Research, 23(2) (2013) 151.
H. Altricher and P. Gstettner, Action research: a closed chapter in the history of German social science?, Educational Action Research, 1 (3) (1993) 329.
I. S. Gerald, Action Research: A Sociotechnical Systems Perspective, Sage Publications, London, 1983.
I. Michell, Moving from Professional Talk to Teacher-Research. Prepared for Session 18.16 at the American Education Research Association meeting in New Orleans, 24-28, April, 2000
J. Dewey, How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process, D. C. Heath, Boston, 1933.
J. Elliott, Action Research for Educational Change, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1991.
J. K. Joelle, Quality teaching: reflection as the heart of practice. Scarecrow Press, Inc. - A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Chicago IL, 2003.
J. McNiff, P. Lomax, and J. Whitehead, You and your action research project. Routledge, New York, 1996.
J. McNiff and J. Whitehead, Action Research: Principles and Practice (2nd edition), Routledge Falmer, London, 2002.
K. Ado, Action research: Professional development to help support and retain early career teachers, Educational Action Research 21(2) (2013) 131.
K. Lewin, Action Research and Minority Problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2(4) (1946) 34.
K. Lewin, Group Decision and Social Change (In T.M.Newcomb & E.E.Hartley (Eds.), Readings in social psychology, Holt, New York, 1952.
K. M. Bailey, A. Curtis, & D. Nunan, Pursuing professional development, Heinle & Heinle/Newbury House, Boston, MA, 2001.
K. T. Hensen, Teachers as researchers. In J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (4th ed., 53-66). Macmillan Library Reference USA: New York, 1996.
K. Zeichner, Accumulating knowledge across self-studies in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 58(1) (2007) 36.
L. Darling-Hammond and G. Sykes, Teaching as the learning profession, Handbook of policy and practice, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1999.
L. D. Fink, A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning, Online document, Retrieved on Jan 25, 2016, from http://www.deefinkandassociates.com/GuidetoCourseDesignAug05.pdf, (2002).
L. D. Fink, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2003.
L. S. Shulman, Paradigms and research programs for the study of teaching (In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching, 3rd edition), Macmillan, New York, 1986.
M. Coats, Action research – a guide for Associate Lecturers, The Opening University: Milton Keynes, 2005.
M. L. Judah & G. H. Richardson, Between a rock and a (very) hard place: The ambiguous promise of action research in the context of state mandated teacher professional development. Action Research. 4(1) (2006) 65.
N. Sanford, Whatever Happened to Action Research?, Journal of Social Issues, 26.(4) (1970) 3.
O. Zuber-Skerritt, Emancipatory action research for organizational change and management development ( In O. Zuber-Skerritt, Ed.), New Directions in action Research, 1996.
P. Burnard, P. Gill, K. Stewart, E. Treasure, and B. Chadwick, Analyzing and presenting qualitative data, British Dental Journal, 204 (8) (2008) 429.
R. Padilla, The unfolding matrix: a technique for qualitative data acquisition and analyses, Studies of Qualitative Methodology 4 (1994) 273.
R. A. Schmuck, Practical Action Research for Change, Arlington Heights, Skylight Training and Publishing, 1997.
S. Kemmis, Action Research (in J. P. Keeves (ed.) Educational Research, Methodology and Measurement: An International Handbook. Pergamon Press: Oxford, 1988.
S. Kemmis & R. McTaggart, The Action Research Planner (3rd ed.), Deakin University Press Geelong, Australia, 1988.
T. Cain, and R. Harris, Teachers’ Action Research in a Culture of Performativity, Educational Action Research, 21(3) (2013) 343.
T. A. P. Le, Action research in the Vietnam-Australia Training Project. Teacher’s Edition 18. (2005) 8.
V.T.T. Phan, Action research as a professional development tool for EFL college teachers in the Mekong Delta, Unpublished MA thesis at Can Tho University, (2010).