Research Thoughts

Yesterday I posted about Living the Questions and about shifting a focus to view myself as a teacher-researcher. I have some ideas in mind about what I will research next year, and I look forward to mapping out my ideas into a more formal (yet tentative) plan during the summer. However, I know one thing for sure. One of my goals next year will be to capture and document more of the everyday life of my classroom.

In Living the Questions Shagoury and Power stated, "[...] much teacher research is rich in classroom anecdotes and personal stories," (p. 2). On my blog I often reflect about my students and my teaching, which I will continue to do, but I want to also focus on slice of life story style writing. I want to better capture book club conversations, casual conversations with students about books, read aloud discussions, conferences... Regardless of the research question, I agree with Shagoury and Powers, stories about teaching and my students will add so much.

I already participate in Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Tuesdays and the month long challenge on another blog, but I often focus more on my family. At times when I slice about school, I do not get as detailed with posts about individual students since it is so public. Instead, I will start a writer's notebook dedicated to classroom slices where I can candidly capture those moments and then later I can decide about sharing with student consent. I am excited to see what I will notice and discover in the years to come.

Another avenue that I am excited to mention to my colleagues is considering a staff research group. We already have a book club where we meet once a month at a local coffee shop. Some of my colleagues are approaching the point in their Master's programs where they will be conducting thesis research. If they are interested, I would love to grow together as researchers. Living the Questions would be a great resource to support us as we navigate the process together.