Recommendations For The Future Of Critical Research

By Author: Beryl
Total Articles: 95
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Critical research can be an important component of the repertoire of teachers and university researchers who want to develop and understand pedagogical practices that lead to excellence and power for all students. When we consider the most pressing problems in our discipline, the tenets of critical research, and the two preceding examples, several recommendations emerge.

First of all, we need much more thorough training in critical research at the preservice teacher education through doctoral levels in schools of education. It is possible now for teachers to become certified without ever having to take courses on research methodologies or having to learn much at all about how to collect and analyze data that emerge from their classrooms. Critical research can become an important facet of teacher learning inside of teacher education courses; that is, teachers can learn about their own practice as they also learn how to become better researchers of classroom practice. By the same token, our doctoral students Dolce Gabbana have few spaces inside of their language and literacy ...
... course work where they learn how to conduct the kind of research that has been described in this article. Although we need courses at each of these levels that are aimed at the specific needs of preservice teachers, Masters students (some of whom may be practicing teachers), and doctoral candidates, it is also possible to imagine how graduate schools of education might create spaces for these populations to come together to learn more about the applications of critical research methodologies to literacy education. For example, it is possible to create research seminars that allow students to explore specific research questions in specific classroom contexts. Perhaps doctoral students can work closely with preservice and practicing teachers inside of a classroom as they enhance their teacher-researcher identities while developing innovative curricula and figuring out the most appropriate ways to document the learning and the challenges that accompany these particular classroom practices. Although learning doesn't have to be standardized, it would be helpful to begin developing a consensus around appropriate and powerful ways to convey literacy learning in English classrooms. How can teachers best do this? How do critical educators work within oppressive conditions that constrain what it is they teach and how they are to teach? How can university researchers better contribute to the classrooms where they are working while also informing the field? How do university researchers balance these dual responsibilities while also trying to communicate effectively to their colleagues via scholarly journals and books and, at the same time, seek additional outlets and audiences for their work?

A second recommendation concerns developing mechanisms for distribution and enhancement of critical research in literacy education. At present we do have journals and conferences where research can be shared, but the nature of the research presented varies widely and we rarely hold extended conversations concerning what makes critical research critical, or what constitutes exemplary critical research. As a field we can insist that as our journals make more space for critical work that they also push contributors to refine and improve their explanations of their research methodology and their rationale for the claims that they make about the Discount D&G Jewelry connection between interventions and outcomes. Our journals can also open up spaces that allow teachers and university faculty to hold discussions about how we come to know what we know in the areas of critical research and powerful literacy education even as we push ourselves to get better at what we do. As a field of educators and researchers, working together to create the research skill sets and the mechanisms for distribution that contribute to more dynamic and accessible spaces for exchange among teachers, students, and university researchers gives us the best chance of capturing and theorizing the life in literacy classrooms that we know can and should exist for all of our students.