The primary purpose of this study was to investigate a biographical approach to understanding how we, as teachers and co-researchers, think and act; and how we have come to think and act the way we do in our classrooms. The term autobiographic praxis was central to the study as a specific conceptualization of a teacher's knowledge. Until this study, autobiographic praxis existed as a biographical conceptualization of a teacher's personal, practical and professional knowledge based. This study used the work of Butt and Raymond who, with two teachers, Lloyd and Glenda, working as co-researchers, explored and reported these two teacher's stories highlighting elements of their knowledge held. Based upon that work, this study, through ethnographic field work, returned to the respective teachers classrooms and utilized elements of their stories to guide both observation and interviews about their classroom practices. This exploration of teacher knowledge held and teacher knowledge expressed was an attempt to show the potential of a methodology which integrates autobiography, classroom observation and biographic and ethnographic interviews. The results with respect to the two teachers, Lloyd and Glenda, indicated that:(1) the substance and process of knowledge they held can be accessed through collaborative autobiographic inquiry, and (2) that the knowledge expressed as elements of classroom action can be observed in a stronger interpretive light if guided by understandings of their stories, such that (3) methodologically through biographic and ethnographic interviews elements of knowledge held, as revealed through autobiography, can be brought into a dialogue with the actions of knowledge expressed, as observed through ethnographic
participant observation, and thus (4) the resultant findings were that in the thoughts and actions of the two teachers significant indicators were present to illustrate a strong harmonic relationship between who they were as persons, and who they were as teachers, due specifically to a synchronicity between their knowledge held and knowledge expressed. The process, of doing the sudy, illustrated the potential of biographic conceptualization of teacher knowledge accessed through a method of inquiry which featured story, observation and interview. The findings of this study were considered desirable in that teachers and researchers, working together, should attempt to engage in action research concerned with achieving a dialogue between teacher thought and action. / x, 194 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:ALU.w.uleth.ca/dspace#10133/22 |
| Date | January 1989 |
| Creators | Paul, William James, University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education |
| Contributors | Butt, Richard |
| Publisher | Lethbridge, AB : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Education, 1989., Education |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Relation | Thesis (University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education) |
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