Program description
As members of a vibrant community of learners, the faculty of SAR High School committed itself to a rich and dynamic professional development program over the course of the 2013-14 school year: Individualized Research Projects. Modeled after our very successful Senior Exploration program, where students choose keystone projects to independently research and explore, our teachers, either individually or in groups, took the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills and learn more about areas of genuine pedagogical interest. Based on faculty input, we identified four areas of educational interest to study this past year: Differentiated Instruction, Frontal Teaching and Group Work, Getting to Know Our Students Better, and Moral Education. Each staff member either chose a topic within one of these categories or created an independent study on a topic of interest, and then, after learning about four distinct methods of research, each teacher chose a method through which he/she would study and research the topic throughout the course of year.
These are the research methods that teachers used to explore their topics of choice:
Throughout the year, during meetings and independently, faculty devoted time to their projects with the goal set to answer their stated essential question with a meaningful product. This powerful website was created as a result. In it, please find faculty research papers, lesson designs, video presentations, and creative pieces of writing.
We hope that these resources will serve to enhance teaching and learning within SAR and inspire continued learning and professional development within our faculty.
These are the research methods that teachers used to explore their topics of choice:
- Action Research: Teachers designed research questions related to their practice and explore that question using real data and experience from their teaching environment.
- Narrative Inquiry: By paying attention to stories (their own and their students), teachers explored their topics to discover how stories give shape and meaning to those experiences.
- Instructional Rounds: Having its basis in the field of medicine, the basic premise of this method is that people best learn about the meaning of high quality instruction by observing teachers, students, and the work students are asked to do, followed by meaningful conversation and analysis.
- Technology: Teachers who chose this method learned about and accessed powerful and immediately implementable technological tools in order to sharpen and broaden their understanding of their topics.
Throughout the year, during meetings and independently, faculty devoted time to their projects with the goal set to answer their stated essential question with a meaningful product. This powerful website was created as a result. In it, please find faculty research papers, lesson designs, video presentations, and creative pieces of writing.
We hope that these resources will serve to enhance teaching and learning within SAR and inspire continued learning and professional development within our faculty.