4 JANET MOYLES AND THE SPRINT TEAM

comparison with other areas of the curriculum. So it was that the SPRINT
Project Study of Primary Interactive Teaching eventually transpired. The
project ran for two years until autumn 2001. It involved several tutors and
researchers in two geographical areas Leicester and County Durham. These
two areas were chosen on the basis of convenience: originally the project had
been planned to take place in Leicester, but one of the co-directors moved
to Durham and thus the two-centre research became feasible and desirable.
The SPRINT team consisted of three co-directors (two in Leicester and
one in Co. Durham), four tutor-researchers (three in Leicester and one in Co.
Durham) and two part-time researchers, one each in the two locations. The
research involved 30 teachers (20 in Leicestershire and 10 in Durham) who
were either self-selected or approached through their headteachers. All took
part based on their willingness and enthusiasm to be involved in working
with the SPRINT team. The 27 female and three male teachers had a range of
experiences from newly qualified to 20 years. Sixteen worked in Key Stage 1
and 14 in Key Stage 2. Fifteen were classified as comparison teachers:
these teachers would be involved initially and towards the end of the project
through questionnaire completion, video observation and individual inter-
views, to determine how far their practice changed without any specific inter-
vention through working with the research team. The remaining 15 teachers
were designated as focus teachers, who would work as research-partners with
individuals within the research team. As the research design was essentially
a pre- and post-test intervention study, the focus teachers were similarly
interviewed and completed questionnaires, but their video observation was
accompanied by a new method we termed video-stimulated reflective
dialogue, essentially an opportunity to reflect with a knowledgeable research-
partner on ones own teaching (see Chapter 8 for further details). The practical
Copyright 2003. McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.

fieldwork with teachers lasted three terms during the first year of the project
and the analysis and interpretation of data was undertaken during the follow-
ing three terms. Focus teachers were videoed on three occasions and also
engaged in three video-stimulated reflective dialogues.
The data gathered have continued to generate rich and significant infor-
mation on teachers thinking and their development of pedagogic skills.
The data collection methods involved gathering both quantitative and
qualitative data. This has proved to be a powerful means of digging deeper
into teachers knowledge, perceptions, views, beliefs and understanding
of a range of pedagogical practices, including various types and forms of
interaction. The differences in approach of different teachers has been
informative and has also led to many more questions being addressed than
those previously outlined.
In writing this book we hope that primary teachers who read it will be able
to see themselves within its pages and identify with the practitioners who were
an integral part of the research. Most teachers have, for example, recognized

Moyles, Janet R., etc., Fred Paterson, and Veronica Esarte-Sarries. Interactive Teaching in the Primary School, edited by
Janet R. Moyles, et al., McGraw-Hill Education, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/palico/detail.action?docID=292119.
Created from palico on 2017-03-14 07:50:17.
 INTRODUCTION 5

the dilemma of listening to children while at the same time feeling the
urgency of moving them on so that targets can be reached and time-scales
(particularly with the literacy hour) adhered to. While some of the language
is based in research terminology (this is necessary to show the integrity and
rigour of the research process), there are also significant numbers of stories
about teachers with which teacher readers will no doubt empathize.
The research was grounded in what is usually termed a socio-
constructivist paradigm applied to teachers pedagogical development. In
effect, the research examined the thesis that, through review and reflection
on practice with a sophisticated partner and in the light of video evidence,
teachers might articulate their conceptualizations of interactive teaching and
refine their practice of it. The project adopted the framework of the Con-
cerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) (see, for example, Hall et al. 1979),
which details a progressive series of statements of concern about an innov-
ation (in this case, interactive teaching) interlinked with a sequence of levels
of use of the innovation. Further explanation will be provided in later
chapters.
Reflecting on and about practice (Schn 1983, 1987; Day 1999a, b) has
challenged both teachers and researchers to reconsider their teaching practices
in some depth and has involved systematic inquiry into . . . practice . . . to
deepen ones understanding of it (Lucas 1991: 84). At the outset of the
research, researcherpractitioner collaboration was thought likely to be
particularly effective because of the complementary exchange of skills and
knowledge (Day 1999a). Schulz (1987: 482) agrees, suggesting that it is during
moments of co-reflection that we explore and extrapolate pedagogical under-
standing and that it is often through reflection that we retrospectively con-
struct the meaning of our work. Day (1999a: 153) further suggests that those
Copyright 2003. McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.

leading change must ensure participants have intellectual, practical and

affective support: this was an embedded part of the process of the reflective
dialogues, intended to extend and deepen understanding. This is some-
thing available to all teachers, particularly through peer-evaluation of actual
teaching or through the use of video as in this project.
A specific feature of the project was teachers working in partnership with
experienced tutor-researchers. Some chapters in this book are written by these
tutor-researchers, who present their own and the teachers perspectives. We
asked the teachers to both deconstruct their practices and also to engage in
the process of reconstruction of the meanings of their practices as part of the
research. We will argue later that these are important aspects of teachers pro-
fessional understanding and development. The process of deconstruction
seeks to provide understanding and to make meaning from teachers actions.
According to LaBoskey (1993) and Zeichner (1994), professional reflection
requires a clearly defined focus and criteria for making judgements if under-
standing is to be achieved. Having an explicit focus on interactive teaching,

Moyles, Janet R., etc., Fred Paterson, and Veronica Esarte-Sarries. Interactive Teaching in the Primary School, edited by
Janet R. Moyles, et al., McGraw-Hill Education, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/palico/detail.action?docID=292119.
Created from palico on 2017-03-14 07:50:17.