What I needed to know.
I needed to find a problem over which I had considerable control to use for my action research study. As the job of a teaching assistant is one of supporting teachers and children there are not that many areas of my daily routine where I actually have that level of control. I therefore decided that I needed to use a form of action research called first person research where the emphasis is on researching and acting to improve some aspect of my own practice. This way I could be sure that I had an adequate level of control.
Classroom Displays
During my course I got very interested in classroom displays. They are a big part of my job. I found out that most people in our school think they are important both for helping children to learn and to show what has been learned.
I did a lot of research about how and why displays are used. I looked at what makes a display helpful to children's learning. I read books and articles about displays and the effects theorists thought displays had on children's learning. I interviewed teachers and children in our school about what they thought a good display should be like.
(You can find links to extracts from this work on the Links Page at the end of the exhibition)
I collected photographs of many of the displays in our school, and some from other schools, and put them on a photo-sharing web site called Flickr. I started a group there so that other people could put their display photographs on too. My pilot research showed that there were some problems with this approach.
I did a lot of research about how and why displays are used. I looked at what makes a display helpful to children's learning. I read books and articles about displays and the effects theorists thought displays had on children's learning. I interviewed teachers and children in our school about what they thought a good display should be like.
(You can find links to extracts from this work on the Links Page at the end of the exhibition)
I collected photographs of many of the displays in our school, and some from other schools, and put them on a photo-sharing web site called Flickr. I started a group there so that other people could put their display photographs on too. My pilot research showed that there were some problems with this approach.