Senior interns in the Baylor School of Education’s (SOE) Teacher Education Program will showcase their research to Baylor faculty and to mentor teachers, principals and district administrators from local school districts at the SOE’s Action Research Symposium.
The symposium will be held on Thursday, April 9, from 4:30-6 p.m. at the Lee Lockwood Library, 2801 West Waco Drive.
Alexa Samuel, BSEd ’14
Students’ qualitative and quantitative findings will answer “the wondering” they experience while working in pre-K through 12 classrooms. The research is known as “Action Research” because it takes place in an actual pre-K-12 classroom by a practicing teacher.
The symposium showcases the work of senior interns, who are teaching full-time on public school campuses while also conducting action research with their students. This form of research answers questions about specific classroom practices or sets of students Baylor seniors encounter during their internships.
Baylor SOE master’s candidate Alexa Samuel, BSEd ’14, said she gained valuable knowledge from the research she conducted as a senior. “I studied stations versus whole-group learning to find out which is more effective in teaching math,” said the Middle Grades Mathematics major. “I did a four-week study, with one classroom taught as a whole and another classroom in stations. It was a really intense study.”
Samuel said she learned about research methods and how to present results, but a lot more. “I learned more about my students than I ever would have otherwise,” she said. “And I learned about myself and the best teaching methods for me.”
Teacher candidates pursuing all levels of certification conduct research and are supported in the data-collection process by onsite mentor teachers. Each SOE senior intern is required to participate individually, but Baylor juniors, who are working in classrooms as Teaching Associates, may also opt to present research in teams.
“Research doesn’t have to be excruciating,” said Dr. Krystal Goree, SOE faculty member and Director of the Office of Professional Practice. “It can be a lot of fun even if you’re someone who doesn’t come by loving research naturally.”