2007 RECIPIENT OF THE TEACHER-AS-RESEARCHER AWARD

The Teacher-as-Researcher award, established by NERA in 1993 to promote educational research and to encourage the development of research among junior researchers, focuses on recognizing teachers for outstanding efforts to conduct Action Research in their classrooms and to use the outcomes to improve teaching and learning. Action Research has been defined as, "a systematic, sustained, and publicly shared way of learning and improving one's self and one's practice" (Arhar, Holly, & Kasten, 2001). Each year we honor a teacher researcher that has identified a question, issue, or problem, defined a solution or intervention, applied the intervention, collected data regarding the intervention, analyzed the findings and used the information to take action.

The Teacher-as-Researcher Award recipient for 2007, Beth Mowry, graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, and for ten years held various positions in Girl Scout Councils in Pennsylvania. Upon relocating to Brooklyn, Beth enrolled in Brooklyn College to earn her Master's Degree in Science Education. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and with faculty honors in May, 2007.

Beth has taught 6th and 7th grade science and is currently teaching 10th grade earth science at Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. Beth's study, Peaks and Valleys: A Teacher/Researcher Teaches Science to Students with Special Needs, examines the researcher's experience as a first year teacher and her class-a self-contained special education class of sixth and seventh grade students of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds in an urban middle school.

This ethnography illuminated deep differences between the culture of a science education teacher and the culture of a special education teacher. Training, expectations and classroom practices of these two specialists in education differ vastly, one not being familiar with the practices of the other.

The study has implications for university faculty, school administrators and teachers. Primarily, university faculty must be aware that the cultures that are formulated in teacher training programs may be in conflict with other educational cultures. Teachers can learn from the successes, insights and failures of this teacher in her first year and administrators can learn about the implications that can arise when teachers are placed in positions out of their expertise.

Congratulations to our Teacher-as-Researcher for 2007!