Case Study 13: Teacher As Researcher Activities To Build Relationships And Support Learning

Class members in a graduate course explored a number of “teacher as researcher” activities and exchanged ideas about the usability and potential contributions of these for helping them to get to know students, to support students’ learning needs, and to add to students’ positive experiences in the classroom and school. This chapter draws upon the completed course assignments of one of the teachers in the course to illustrate the activities and teachers’ reflections about their value. Like others in the course, the case study teacher concluded that these activities can provide a deeper more comprehensive picture for teachers not just about students’ prior knowledge, but about their lived stories as well. Teachers saw the activities as being valuable to use with all new topics in the curriculum. There were brief activities for beginning new topics and other activities for concluding or reviewing completed topics.