INNOVATIONEXPERIMENTATIONACTION RESEARCH

Presented byShri. S. Selvaraj

DirectorKVS ZIET Mysore

OVERVIEWRATIONALE OF INNOVATION &

EXPERIMENTATION All India Competition on

InnovativePractices and Experiments in

Education for Schools and Teacher Education

Institutions.

NCERT

DISCUSSION ON ACTION RESEARCH

Mission and Objective of KVS

To initiate and promote

Experimentation and Innovations in Education in collaboration with other bodies like the CBSE & the NCERT

"The achievement of excellence can only occur if the organization promotes a culture of creative dissatisfaction."— Lawrence Miller

Improvemen

ts

• Process of making improvements by introducing something new

• Process of translating new ideas for improvement of teaching learning

NOVELTYCREATIVITY

• A new idea, method or device• Successful operation of new ideas• Changes that create a new dimension of

performance

CHANGE

• A creative idea that is realised• Capabilities of continuously realising a desired change

What is Innovation?Innovation is introduction of something new and useful, for example introducing new methods, techniques, or practices or new or altered products and services

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Individual teachers often explore new ways of transacting the curriculum in addressing the needs of students within their specific classroom context (including constraints of space, large numbers, absence of teaching aids, diversity in the student body, the compulsion of examination, and so on)

These efforts, often pragmatic but also creative and ingenious, by and large remain invisible to the school and the larger teaching community, and are not usually valued by teachers themselves.

The sharing of teaching experiences and diverse classroom practices can provide opportunities for an academic discourse to develop within school as teachers interact with and learn from each other.

This will also encourage new ideas and facilitate innovation and experimentation.

OBSTACLES IN THE

SYSTEM

EXAM-ORIENTED SCHOOL EDUCATION WITH PRESSURE FROM THE STAKEHOLDERS AND LEADERSHIP OF THE ORGANIZATION

LACK OF MOTIVATION ON THE PART OF THE TEACHER TO DEVELOP/IMPLEMENT INNOVATIONS

LACK OF CO-OPERATION BETWEEN COLLEAGUES AND THE LEADERSHIP/MANAGEMENT

TEXTBOOK-ORIENTED SCHOOL EDUCATION WITHOUT CONNECTING LEARNING TO OUT OF SCHOOL EXPERIENCES/GOING BEYOND THE TEXT

ABSENCE OF MINDSET/SUSTAINABLE CLIMATE/ENVIRONMENT FOR NURTURING INNOVATIONS

RELUCTANCE OF THE ORGANIZATION TO INTERNALISE AND FOSTER INNOVATIONS

LACK OF TRAINING FOR THE TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS TO ADOPT AND IMPLEMENT INNOVATIONS/RESEARCH

LACK OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM TOFOSTERT INNOVATIONS

THEREFORE

there is need to institutionalise the award system to give awards to schools and teacher education institutions, where all Teachers, Headmaster/Principal and Management exhibit greater involvement in implementation of innovations, insteadof giving prize to individual teacher.

All India Competition on Innovative

Practices and Experiments in Education for Schools

and Teacher Education Institutions.

SENSITISE TEACHERS ABOUT

THE POTENTIAL OF

INNOVATION FOR IMPROVED

TLP

OBJECTIVESENCOURAGE ISTITUTIONS TO TRY

OUT INNOVATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

ENCOURAGE ISTITUTIONS TO

IDENTIFY PROBLEMS AND

FIND SOLUTIONS THROUGH

INNOVATIONS /PROBLEM-SOLVING

APPROACH FOR IMPROVEMENT

TO CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT IN

FOR TEAMWORK AND

TOTAL INVOLV

EMENT OF

THE ENTIRE STAFF IN THE

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE

INNOVATIONS

TO PROVIDE A FORUM TO

TEACHERS AND TEACHER

EDUCATORS TO SHARE

THEIR INNOVATIVE IDEAS

WITH ALL STAKEHOLDERS

SCO

PETo devise a new approach/instructional strategy in any subject area

To prepare and use Innovative

TLMs

Identification and mobilisation/use of resources drawn

from the local community/

environment for improvement of

teaching-learning

Management of

Interpersonal

relationships

Assessment of learning outcomes.

To evolve strategies for inculcation of peace and other human values

To develop local specific curricular

materials for Teaching-Learning

To devise strategies for educating differently abled children.

To study learning styles of children.

To develop innovative strategies for classroom management leading to improvement in the organisational climate or better use of available resources in the class or school.

Submission of Project ProposalsTo concerned Principal, Regional Institute of Education (RIE) of the region concerned (Annexure-I) latest by 31 July.

PRELIMINARY INFORMATION AND PROJECT REPORT

TEMPLATE

Microsoft Word Document

Innovation in Schools: CBSE Project

BACKGROUND

Increase in debate about innovation in education since

2008

PRINCIPLE OF ‘RADICAL EFFICIENCY’ to derive maximum outcome using fewer resources

FROM TRADITIONAL TO INNOVATIVEcreating opportunities for ideas to develop. Ideas develop in a network of collaboration INVOLVING THE LARGER POPULATION, firing new ways to create alternate pathways

NEED FOR INNOVATIONIMPLICATIONS OF RTE

With the changing demographics, there will be an increase in young population, and thus innovation may have the biggest payoffs

CBSE, BY CALLING FOR INNOVATIVE PAPERS FOSTERS CRITICAL PEDAGOGY-GIVING PRIMACY TO THE LEARNERS VOICES

‘encourages project or enquiry based learning, making student’s voice more meaningful and encouraging peer to peer teaching, learning and mentoring thereby exhibiting a positive learning

experience and environment.

PROJECT UPLOADShttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHNpTENtSDZIaW9jUG5jdUd3UkNzOEE6MQ.

1. All schools affiliated to CBSE to upload their innovative practices with evidence

2. Please note that photographs and videos cannot be uploaded directly on CBSE website. Only links can be uploaded

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION3. demonstrated excellence in implementation4. capable of being replicated in other schools5. any one area where your institution has acquired a cutting edge

and created awareness and made waves among members of the community including parents

SUGGESTED THEMES AND COMPILATION Microsoft Word Document

Action Research in Education

Currently overseen by Maureen Parker

Originally prepared by Dr Stephen Waters-Adams

© S Waters-Adams, Faculty of Education, University of Plymouth, 2006

1 Why should I use action research?Because you want to change your practice. You may be concerned that things might not be going as you wish, or you may need to implement a new initiative but are unsure how to do it effectively. What you want is a way of sorting out these concerns that offers practical solutions, but that derives from the specific circumstances of your practice. You know that someone else’s solution may have merit, but that it is never quite right for the individual situation within which you work. You know that practice is always influenced by context.

2 How does this qualify as research?Because the act of finding your solution makes you understand your practice better – not only what you are doing, but also the factors that affect what you do. Action research therefore has two aspects. The starting point is to sort out a problem or issue in practice; to this extent an action researcher seeks a solution. But the process can also be used as a deliberate attempt to understand practice better – a traditional research attitude. What is most important in both approaches is that you are open, honest and rigorous.

3 What do we mean by Practice?From the perspective of action research, the best way to think about practice is the way you carry out your professional actions. This is, of course, what you do, but it is also why you think you should be doing things the way you do. You will hear of the ‘theory-practice divide’; action research as an approach cuts across this divide, encouraging a practitioner to consider both aspects as part of a single whole.

The aim of an action researcher is to bring about development in his or her practice by analysing existing practice and identifying elements for change. The process is founded on the gathering of evidence on which to make informed rather than intuitive judgements and decisions.

GAUGING.. GATHERING..

Perhaps the most important aspect of action research is that the process enhances teachers’ professional development through the fostering of their capability as professional knowledge makers, rather than simply as professional knowledge users..

KNOWLEDGE MAKERS vs KNOWLEDGE USERS

In an age of centralisation and the proliferation of national guidelines and strategies, action research can help teachers feel in control of their own professional situation

ACTION RESEARCHERS AS MASTERS/ PATH FINDERS

Consider:What aspects of your professional practice are you currently interested in developing?

4 What is action research about?Action research is a practical approach to professional inquiry in any social situation. As its name suggests, action research concerns

actors – those people carrying out their professional actions from day to day - and its purpose is to understand and to improve those

actions. It is about trying to understand professional action from the inside; as a result, it is research that is carried out by practitioners on their own practice, not (as in other forms of research), done by someone on

somebody else’s practice. Action research in education is grounded in the working lives of teachers, as they experience them.

Carr and Kemmis (1986) describe action research as being about:• the improvement of practice• the improvement of the understanding of practice• the improvement of the situation in which the practice takes place.

The notion of improvement can be problematic when viewed from the outside. One person’s improvement can be another person’s deterioration. It depends on the beliefs and values underpinning the individual’s perspective. Paradoxically, however, this uncertainty is perhaps the one truth of professional practice. Practice is contingent upon the practitioners’ intentions, values and beliefs and the situation in which those elements are given form. Educational research through action research does not produce understanding that has universal truth; it is about me in the here and now

Consider:To what extent do you ever merely implement a teaching directive? Is it possible?

Action research can thus be used to:• understand one’s own practice;• understand how to make one’s practice better;• understand how to accommodate outside change in one’s practice;• understand how to change the outside in order to make one’s practice better

5 How does action research work?At its heart, action research involves the careful monitoring of planned change in practice. A decision is taken that a particular action may either yield improvements or provide information as to the nature of the teaching situation. The action is thus used as a research tool. Both elements of action and research are of equal prominence in the approach.

Emphasising the individual nature of action research, Jack Whitehead (1985) puts forward a simple representation of how the process feels:1. I experience a problem when some of my educational values are negated in my practice;2. I imagine a solution to my problem;3. I act in the direction of the solution;4. I evaluate the outcomes of my actions;5. I modify my problems, ideas and actions in the light of my evaluations.

5 The action research ‘cycle’

This sequence underpins the process of the inquiry but be prepared to find fuzzy edges between the stages as your inquiry proceeds. For a start, you will probably not start with planning; there may be much monitoring and observation of existing practice (reconnaissance) before you are ready to plan and implement a change. As you become more involved with your research, you may find it hard to detach one element of the process from another. You may find yourself reflecting as you are acting – something that Donald Schön (1983) calls ‘knowing-in-action’ – and monitoring also will take place as action proceeds. However, once that first change is implemented the action research cycle proceeds generally in the above manner.

6 Individual or collaborative?So far, this account has focused on the individual nature of action research, reflecting Whitehead’s perspective on the process. This is not to say that groups of people within a school or college cannot undertake a collaborative action research project, exploring how best to change institutional practice, but it is important to realise the individual nature of practice itself.

7 MethodsThe prime criterion for choosing a particular data gathering method in action research is whether it is anticipated that the method will give useful information about the practice under study. It is sometimes thought that methods used in action research are purely qualitative. This does not have to be true. Although the overall analysis of the data generated by any methods used will be qualitative in nature, numerical or statistical information may be of great value to that analysis. For example, a statistical breakdown of examination passes may be a useful piece of data when exploring the effect of aspects of practice.

What is most important is that the researcher understands that different research methods illuminate only particular aspects of a situation. None gives us a whole picture. In seeking evidence of her practice, or the effectiveness of a change in practice, a teacher needs to look at it from different perspectives; she needs to employ a triangulation of methods.

In this case, ? might be children’s engagement during science sessions. Each method will give access to different aspects of the situation. There will still be areas not illuminated, but more is known than if only one method is used. Also, cross-referencing of data from different methods adds to the overall reliability of the research process

As long as they are aware of the limitations of a particular method, action researchers may thus use any of the following to help them reflect on their concern:• observation schedules – of children, students or

themselves;• audio and video tape recording;• structured or semi-structured interviews;• class records;• statistical indicators;• field notes;• sociometry;• photography;• repertory grids;• questionnaires;• etc.!

8 Summary• Action research is a practical way for individuals to explore

the nature of their practice and to improve it.• Action research encourages practitioners to become

knowledge-makers, rather than merely knowledge-users.• Action research uses action as a means of research;

planned change is implemented, monitored and analysed.• Action research proceeds in an action-reflection cycle or

spiral.• The process can be messy; as research proceeds, wider

links are likely to be identified.• Action research is carried out by individuals, but these

individuals may work collaboratively.• Action researchers may use a variety of research methods,

both qualitative and quantitative.• Action researchers must ensure triangulation in their

methods.

SPOT CHECK!!!!!!20 QUALITIES OF AN INNOVATOR-How many of these do you possess?

1. Challenges the status quo2. Curious3. Self-motivated4. Visionary5. Entertains the fantastic6. Takes risks7. Peripatetic (moves about)8. Playful/humorous9. Self-accepting10. Flexible/adaptive

20 Qualities of an Innovator11. Makes new connections12. Reflective13. Recognizes patterns14. Tolerates ambiguity15. Committed to learning16. Balances intuition and analysis17. Situationally collaborative18. Formally articulate19. Resilient20. Persevering