Enhancing Practice through Classroom Research

Caitriona McDonagh is an education consultant in postgraduate teacher education and action research. She previously researched her practice as a teacher of students with special education needs.Mary Roche lectured in teacher education. An education consultant, passionate about literacy, dialogical pedagogy, and action research, she is the author of Developing Children’s Critical Thinking through Picturebooks (Routledge 2015).Bernie Sullivan is a retired primary school principal and committed practitioner researcher. She is an educational consultant and supervises postgraduate action research projects. She is a reviewer for EJOLTS, and co-convener of NEARI.Máirín Glenn has extensive experience as a teacher and now works as a consultant for classroom research. Her work as co-convener of NEARI reflects her passion for values-based research.

• Foreword, Acknowledgements, Introduction, 1: Identifying an Area of Professional Concern or Interest, 2: Further Exploration of Educational Values, 3: How Can I Develop a Better Understanding of my Practice?, 4: Thinking Critically about Educational Practices, 5: How Do I Show the Situation as it is, and as it evolves?, 6: Finding a Research Methodology, 7: Providing Evidence of Enhanced Practice, 8: Developing Theory from Practice, 9: Promoting Well-Being through Self-study Action Research, Conclusion, Bibliography, Index

In this latest and revised book, the Irish authors have provided a well-written, very well referenced and accessible inspiration for teachers anywhere to investigate their practice. The book provides clear guidelines and questions to stimulate self-study action research while interspersing the advice with meaningful and credible accounts of how this has been done in each author’s own practice. I warmly recommend this book to any wanting to enhance their own teaching practice.Dr Pip Bruce Ferguson, Teaching DeveloperIf you’re setting out on a journey, travel with companions who know the territory but encourage you to explore your own path. The authors of this new edition of Enhancing Practice Through Classroom Research: A teacher’s guide to professional development provide readers with a thoughtful and supportive guide to developing and carrying out their own action research processes with a view toward deepening practice and encouraging personal and professional growth and well-being. Enjoy this opportunity to discover new ways of seeing the world, but don’t expect to come back unchanged!Mary Brydon-Miller, Professor, Educational Leadership, Evaluation, and Organizational DevelopmentELOD Ph.D. Program DirectorCollege of Education and Human Development, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292Reading this book is like talking to four wise and kind mentors. It is full of conversations that I wish I’d had as a beginning teacher, as a new postgraduate student, and as a new university lecturer. In fact, it is also the type of conversation that I still value and benefit from forty years into the job. The authors skilfully draw on their own, and other experiences, to explore, challenge and develop their own, and their readers’ criticality and educational thinking. In doing so, they have produced a text that is theoretically rich, while being fully grounded in the practice of education.Mary McAteer. Department of Professional Learning Edge Hill University, UK.(Teaching Excellence Framework Gold Award)