Reflections on Research for Teaching: collaborative inquiry with a novice teacher

Abstract

Abstract The research reported here began as a traditional research project tracking the changes taking place in a novice teacher's practices as she enacted a new approach to teaching writing in her classroom. However, this work evolved into collaborative inquiry jointly conducted by the university researcher and the classroom teacher. This paper tells the story of this partnership in inquiry and argues for the intentional collaboration of university researchers, teacher educators and practicing teachers. Such collaboration is viewed as one means of providing support for novice teachers, as a way of offering challenges to the teaching and thinking of university researchers and teacher educators, and as a means of improving teaching.