When you become an observer from a doer.

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My life as a teacher changed when I came in touch with the term Action Research while teaching at the IB. This happened when we had a workshop with an American lady. I realized that all along I was an amateur action researcher in the classroom, without knowing so. That is, I was always studying the learning process happening in my classroom in order to improve upon it (Hine, 2013). Once I understood the process of action research, I became a conscious researcher and it changed my whole perspective to teaching.

Instead of a participant, I became an observer and a learner. This empowered me as a person and gave me the courage to face each day as a new day. I started action research to improve the lives of the children but then found it improved my own life also (Hine, 2013). Being a teacher, pedagogical research has value for me only if it is applied in the class. What is it that works for learning? That is the question driving my work. Mine is a practical and action based research (Painter, 1999).

With this clarity in mind, I explored several trends in education, but with an eye to apply them in the classroom and not to gather data on them. I explored Multiple Intelligence, Flip the class using internet (TeAchnology, 2012), Collaboration and Project Method of teaching. The most rewarding was when I opened the space for students also by including them in the flow of decision making in the classroom. They were collaborators and not students (TeAchnology, 2012). By and by, slowly I developed my own ethos of teaching that led to me being able to teach a diverse group of students by keeping inclusivity in the mind. I had found my own way of teaching that was the way of ever present growth of me as a teacher. For when you focus on including diversity in the class as the chief focus, you keep growing and learning about new ideas in education.

References

1. Hine, G. (2013) The importance of action research in teacher education programs. http://clt.curtin.edu.au/events/conferences/tlf/tlf2013/refereed/hine.html

2. Painter, D. (1999) Teacher research could change your practice. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20200217170158/http:/www.nea.org/tools/17289.htm

3. TeAchnology. (2012). Current trends in education. Retrieved from http://www.teach-nology.com/currenttrends/

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