Reading an Article

Being a student means develpoing your research competences and learning receptive and producative research skills. Today, we will start with reading and reviewing a short article on research in teacher training and education.

Find attached the paper by David F. Labaree on educational research. Please, print out the article and read it carefully. If needed, translate terms or words that you don't know. You can also make notes on the margins. Bring the copy with you.

While reading the paper, follow this plan:

Before the class, do the following:

1. Highlight the most important ideas in the article, those you might use in your research to briefly explain Dr.Labaree's claims.
2. Highlight the quotes and refernces to other researchers (use a different colour). Be ready to define the author's perception of these ideas.
3. Answer the question: Why does the author consider educational research harmful?
4. Answer the questions: What does "Gresham's law" mean? Why does the author use this example? Is it used in direct or metaphorical meaning?
5. Answer the question: What does "sorting over learning" mean in the paper?
6. Define the highlights of the article. Highlights are the main ideas that can be formulated as statements.
7. Be ready to say whether you agree or disagree with the author's ideas. Support you point of view.
8. Provide an example of educational research (or a measure / strategy) that brought harm and another one that brought good - from your own teaching / learning experience or from your country's educational reforms.