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Toward the Construction of a Local Knowledge Base on Teaching and Learning by and for Teachers and Learners

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research

Abstract

Teacher action researchers in Moravian College’s action research-based Master of Education program have rejected Taylorist notions of scientific management that have led to the de-professionalization and de-skilling of USA’s teachers throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This chapter provides an overview of how teachers connect their actions to the origins of action research, make a commitment to oppose injustice, construct curriculum and professional knowledge, become critical as they expand participatory frameworks, and learn with and from other teachers in dialogue with their exploration of what has emerged as their own local action research tradition. The research conducted by teachers in the Moravian program documents how discourse-rich, authentic, and purposeful curricula promote student achievement in support of a Comenian vision of universal education.

The productivity of this Bethlehem Steel worker, referred to as “Schmidt,” was key to Frederick W. Taylor’s landmark book, Principles of Scientific Management. Noll was credited with loading 45 tons of pig iron a day, in 1899, to increase his day’s pay to $1.85.

Pennsylvania Historical Commission Marker,

East 3rd & Polk Streets, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the 175 Moravian College Teacher Action Researchers, 2003–2015, whose work is chronicled here and the Moravian College Student Opportunities for Academic Research (SOAR) program and the undergraduate SOAR fellows Christopher Ossont, Valerie San Filippo, Brianne Schoolcraft, and Brittany Wilczewski, whose scholarship has contributed to this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA, USA

    Joseph M. Shosh

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  1. Joseph M. Shosh
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Leadership & Education Sciences, University of San Diego, San Diego, California, USA

    Lonnie L. Rowell

  2. School of Education, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

    Catherine D. Bruce

  3. Education Department, Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

    Joseph M. Shosh

  4. Center for Collaborative Action Research, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Margaret M. Riel

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Shosh, J.M. (2017). Toward the Construction of a Local Knowledge Base on Teaching and Learning by and for Teachers and Learners. In: Rowell, L., Bruce, C., Shosh, J., Riel, M. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40523-4_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40523-4_39

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40523-4

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