Learning to become teacher researchers: a sandbox approach

Abstract

This article describes the learning and teaching approach taken within a Masters level specialism in Literacy Education within the context of learning some basics of undertaking qualitative investigation. Participants working as members of self-selected teams kept informal records of their activity, talk, reading, artefact creation, and archiving of documents in the context of engaging in a craft activity intended to produce a meaningful gift for an intended recipient. This informal corpus of information was generated as a hands-on approach to learning about how empirical qualitative researchers collect good quality data. It was then used as a resource for learning in a hands-on way some basic elements of data analysis. The participants subsequently learned how to refer to a contrived purpose and relevant literature to make sense of the craft process they had engaged in, and to discuss what they think they had learned about their process. The focus is on the work of one team who engaged in knitting a set of fabric “alphabet coasters” for learners who respond to tactile resources. The first half of the article maps some broad contours of the teaching approach taken by the instructors, who also participated as peripheral members of the team by providing feedback and suggestions within its Google Doc. The second half recounts the main elements of what and how the students worked and learned, drawing on the content of their 6600 word report for the course and their Google Doc.