Research: Holding Up a Mirror
Teacher-researchers use their own classrooms to investigate education questions.
Diane D. Painter was a special education teacher in the middle of her career when the educational questions that she couldn't answer started to nag at her. For instance, she wondered, what was it about the new computers in her classroom that seemed to make it easier for her students to learn to write? Painter hadn't a clue.
The thing to do, she decided, was to go back to school, earn a doctoral degree, and become an educational researcher. That way she could find out for herself the answers to all the pesky teaching questions that popped into her head at night.
Painter was well on her way to doing just that when a professor offered some advice that changed her life. "You know, Diane," he said, "you don't have to go through a Ph.D....
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or purchase this article.
Subscribe to Education Week and Save
Get a full year and save up to 45%!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
- Elementary School Teacher
- Success Academy Charter Schools, New York, NY
- Middle School Language Arts Teacher
- TEAM Schools, Newark, NJ
- Chief Academic Officer
- Adams 14, Commerce City, CO
- Project Manager- (Hawaii)
- Pearson Education, HI
- Program Coordinator
- Institute for Educational Advancement, South Pasadena, CA
