Mechanisms enabling knowledge production in learning study

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to add to the discussion about practitioner research in schools – by addressing mechanisms and systematic strategies based on theory in a research model, which enables the creation of knowledge products that enhance student learning and are sharable between teachers. Design/methodology/approach The research question is the following: Can a specific form of teachers’ research produce practice-based knowledge relevant beyond the borders of the local school context? This question is addressed through empirical examples from previously published papers on learning studies in natural sciences, mathematics and language. Findings This paper promotes the view that teachers in learning studies can create practical public knowledge relevant beyond their local context. The authors suggest that learning studies and variation theory can offer teachers mechanisms to create such public knowledge. Originality/value The paper proposes that teachers’ collaboration in professional learning communities, as in a learning study, not only has the capacity to increase students’ and teachers’ learning, but it can also be used to create practical public knowledge.

Teacher professional learning through lesson study: teachers' reflections

“…The lack of commitment to knowledge-dissemination at a school and TSA level limited the value of the JPD. “Sharing of results” should be the final key component of collaborative LS (Takahashi and McDougal, 2016; Kullberg et al , 2019; Whitney, 2019). Dissemination was limited to the spaces in which the LS teams had agency.…”

“…Funding streams in England for school-based inquiry are now directed largely towards school-based, rather than University-led, research. School leaders need to take responsibility for both providing inquiry opportunities and facilitating the dissemination of knowledge about practice generated from such inquiries (Godfrey, 2016; Kullberg et al , 2019; Whitney, 2019). This is not something for which leaders have been well prepared (Hargreaves, 1999; Talbert et al , 2010).…”

Learning study - a model for practice-based research in a Swedish theatre classroom

“…An important point to make which both Carlgren (2019) and Kullberg, Vikström, and Runesson (2019) stress, is that the results from a learning study also produce knowledge, as well as developing the teaching practice. The results from a local learning study can be made practical public knowledge and can be tried out in new classrooms (ibid.).…”

Reinvestigating the theory and practice gap in Participatory Educational Research

“…Following that line of reasoning, learning study is metaphorically a "knowledge machinery" (Knorr Cetina's expression), including its object of learning with the critical aspects which unfolds and then bridging the theory and practice gap (Carlgren, 2020). Further, learning study can generate new knowledge applicable beyond the local setting (Carlgren, 2020;Kullberg et al, 2020). From a pragmatic philosophical perspective, the research process is a development of a means-ends relationship (Carlgren, 2020).…”

“…How to bridge the gap varies in the studies, for instance, as forms of "cooperation" or "collaborative interaction" between researchers and student teachers in teacher training programs or subject teachers (Kullberg and Runesson, 2013;Pang and Runesson, 2019). Kullberg et al (2020) take the learning study approach to bridge the theory-practice gap by including teachers in collaborative work with researchers on improving students' learning and improving teaching as well as teachers' professional knowledge. The rationale is a phenomenographic non-dualistic ontology on which variation theory, a general learning theory and learning study have been based (Kullberg, 2010;Lo, 2012;Marton, 2015;Pang and Lo, 2012;Runesson, 2019).…”