The Power of Questions

Book excerpt: The Instructor's Guide provides a suggested framework that outlines each class session, complete with detailed assignments and rubrics for assessment. Teacher research is a tool that can help you continue to learn throughout your career. Pursuing your own questions has the potential to foster genuine understandings of educational methods, re-invigorate your teaching practices, and re-shape your curriculum for the benefit of your students. The Power of Questions makes connections between investigating issues related to your practice and designing research curricula for your students. Beverly Falk and Megan Blumenreich carefully illustrate and scaffold the research process for you by breaking it into smaller steps. They cite examples of real teacher researchers' studies as they provide advice, study questions, and exercise that help you: formulate a research question design a study investigate prior research on the subject choose the best tools for collecting evidence analyze your findings and apply them to the issues and dilemmas in your teaching life share what you've learned with others make research a regular part of your practice. Unlike any other book on teacher research, Falk and Blumenreich provide you with analogous research projects for your students that support a classroom environment of inquiry and discovery. For teacher educators, an accompanying online instructor's manual includes rubrics to support and assess teacher professional development. Whether you are a preservice, inservice or veteran teacher, through the inquiry and reflection of teacher research you can learn about your practice and your students and gain a deeper understanding of the potential that the inquiry process has to support powerful student learning.