Teacher-composed cases of practice as and for dissemination, reflection and data

Abstract

The need to make evidence and implications of educational research widely available has prompted a burgeoning interest in knowledge mobilisation, which is a set of strategies supporting the active and intentional dissemination of research knowledge. For this, it is important to consider who might be the intended audience and end-users of this knowledge, as this impacts decisions throughout the research process. Researcher–teacher collaborations are effective contexts for knowledge-building and sharing, where both partners have different but equally valuable roles and contributions to make to the conduct, analysis and dissemination of research. This paper illustrates the value and uses of teacher-composed written and video cases of colleague coaching. The cases were generated as part of the Zooming project, a seven-school, 3-year research–practice partnership focused on developing teachers' data literacy and capacity to coach colleagues in this. To craft the cases, the teachers reflected on their coaching practices and relationships and identified what would be most useful for new coaches to know. The cases proved to be engaging tools for research dissemination, especially to a professional audience. In addition, the case writing challenged teachers to reflect on and analyse their coaching actions and the assumptions they brought to collegial coaching. The cases as data also provided researchers with a deeper level of insights into what teachers viewed as salient when coaching colleagues in data use. Teacher case composition offers a useful approach to knowledge co-production and a pathway to research dissemination by and for teachers and researchers.