Annotated Bibliography of Resources for Educational Reform, Coherent Teaching Practice, and Improved Student Learning

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• Cole, A. L. (1989). Researcher and teachers: Partners in theory building. Journal of Education for Teaching, 15, 225-237.

"Inside-out" research is the term Cole uses for the collaborative research of teachers and researchers that takes place within the classroom. Cole describes this work as a "mutually informed, mutually beneficial, and mutually useful endeavor," undertaken for the purposes of understanding and describing real-life classroom situations and directly improving practice. Collaboration is being rediscovered in educational research. Collaborative research involves the sharing and development of ideas and understandings through reflections and discussions organized around teaching events. While the focus of this article is on the role of collaboration in educational research, Cole does report on a study in which she and two teachers worked as co-investigators to study their expressed beliefs. She includes field notes, written reflections, discussion transcripts, and a written descriptive summary to illustrate the reciprocal, reflexive, and responsive nature of the research as a cycle of experiential learning. She concludes that each partner in the inquiry contributes differently to the attainment of the common goal of understanding classroom practice, and that both partners benefit from the research.

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