Teacher Research as a Way of Knowing

Abstract
In this article, Susan Lytle and Marilyn Cochran-Smith, two university-based teacher educators, argue for a different theory of knowledge for teaching - one that is drawn from the systematic inquiry of teachers themselves. In contrast to a knowledge base for teaching that privileges only the knowledge of the university researcher, the authors propose a knowledge base that includes the emic perspective of the teacher researcher, whose questions and processes are embedded in classroom practice. In their analysis, the authors draw on a wide range of texts written by teachers, including journals, essays, oral inquiries, and classroom studies. Lytle and Cochran-Smith conclude that teacher research, which historically has been marginalized in the field, challenges the assumption that knowledge for teaching is generated by outsiders only; they argue, rather, that school-based teacher researchers are themselves knowers and a primary source of generating knowledge about teaching and learning for themselves and others.

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