Can guided, practitioner-led action research lead to impactful CPD?

There is a significant amount of research that shows that when designed effectively, professional development can have a positive impact on the quality of teaching practice and the outcome for learners (e.g., Darling-Hammond et al., 2017 and the EPI’s review of the evidence).

However, not all professional development is equally effective. Helping teachers to improve their practice takes thought, planning and effort. It is most effective if it is of sustained duration, evidence based, and conducted within a supportive environment (Sims et al, 2021), but without creating unnecessary workload.

As an educational community at Richard Huish Sixth Form College, we aim to support an increasingly collaborative, reflective and evidence-based approach to curriculum planning and pedagogy. However, most of the evidence base, including the excellent work carried out by the Education Endowment Foundation, comes from research carried out at primary or secondary level. Within the sixth form sector it is easy to feel a bit overlooked. 

Could we do more to raise the level of enquiry and development within our sector?

For the past few years, we have been in the process of using our professional development to grow a research culture amongst our teaching staff. In 2022 we launched our first college wide Action Research project based around Formative Assessment, one of the key college priorities from the 2021-22 College Quality Improvement Plan.

Our Teaching and Learning team directed the process, by providing input based upon Wiliam & Leahy’s Five Formative Assessment Strategies in Action by Kate Jones. Members of staff worked together in course teams to construct their research activity based around an area of formative assessment that they wished to further explore. They were given the freedom to choose their methods of working, with a couple of teams choosing the Lesson Study approach. Lesson study is a Japanese model of teacher-led research where participants collaboratively research, plan, teach and observe a series of lessons as a group, using ongoing discussion and reflection to track and refine their interventions.

Staff gathered data during their normal day to day work and interactions. Within some teams, staff members arranged lesson swaps and observations of one another to support their investigations.

The outcome was that during the summer of 2022, our first action research booklet was published. Examples included investigations into ‘no comment marking’, ‘using the 5Rs of active feedback’, and ‘engineering effective classroom discussion for peer- to peer feedback’. We celebrated by sharing best practice, allowing staff to showcase and discuss findings with each other. 

What role can support and pastoral staff play in research?

However, we were aware that teachers are only part of the story. Students interact regularly with a much wider range of professionals to achieve success and we felt it was important that all academic and pastoral staff should be included.

So, in September 2022, we launched our next round of Action Research. This time all academic, pastoral and support staff were involved and could choose a theme or topic that was relevant to their work with students. We hoped that increasing agency would encourage buy-in and increase the relevance of the task to all.

Staff reflected upon college or course / area quality improvement targets and student feedback to identify a research question, in a method akin to that of the Lesson Study approach.

This resulted in a wide range of different projects including those looking at classroom-based themes, such as flipped learning, positive psychology, and independent learning, as well as research focused on pastoral and wellbeing aspects, such as retention, motivation and mental health. 

This flexible approach needed to ensure there was still fidelity to the original goal of conducting action research into areas of improvement, and yet allowed for contextual relevance based on the experience level of the staff members involved and the practicality of implementing different interventions (Simms et al, 2021). With such a variety of projects underway, however, ensuring quality, measuring impact, and supporting an evidence-based approach became more of a challenge.

To try to address this, we identified a timeframe, broken down into sections, with input from the Teaching and Learning team at relevant times through the project. Staff in our Learning Centre set up resource banks for further reading. Training days provided workshops based around some common themes emerging from the action research topics, and guided teacher-led conversations allowed colleagues to share ideas and offer support. Importantly, training days also provided time. This time allocation was given to allow space for thought and reflection, as well as to allow teams to plan the next steps of their research. 

The position we find ourselves in is summed up well by Saffron Lee, Assistant Principal at Richard Huish, who said in 2022: “We are creating a professional learning community that places us all in the positions of both teacher and learner, amateur and master, at various times.”

It is a bold step. But an exciting one. 

I am very impressed by the quality of the research different teams are investigating. My hope is that not only will useful processes emerge, but that the collaborative method itself will fuel ongoing enthusiasm for the honing of our creative craft of teaching and learning and supporting students. I look forward to the production of this year’s Action Research booklet and the celebration of the learning that has taken place at our ‘Summer Market Place’ event, and hope that it will continue to be a core and increasingly embedded feature of our Professional Development in future years.

Sarah is Head of College Teaching and Learning at Richard Huish College in Taunton.

References

Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., and Gardner, M. 2017. Effective teacher professional development. Palo Alto: Learning Policy Institute.

Fletcher-Wood, H., and Zuccollo, J. 2020. The effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students: A rapid review and meta-analysis. London: Education Policy Institute.

Jones, K. 2021. Wiliam & Leahy's Five Formative Assessment Strategies in Action. Woodbridge: John Catt.

Sims, S., et al. 2021. What are the characteristics of effective teacher professional development? A systematic review and meta-analysis. London: Education Endowment Foundation.

Teacher Development Trust. 2022. 'What is Lesson Study?' Available at: https://tdtrust.org/what-is-lesson-study/ (Accessed: February 6, 2023).

What is Lesson Study? - Teacher Development Trust (tdtrust.org)