Thoughts on Borko, H., Whitcomb, J., & Byrnes, K. Genres of Research in Teacher Education

What was particularly helpful about this piece was the consistent format. The authors described a genre through the introduction, explained its central features, gave an example, and discussed the contributions and limitations of the genre. I had not previously read literature about the genres in teacher education, so the content was new for me. However, I am familiar with practitioner research because of our emphasis of this genre in our PDS.

I am currently engaged in researching a professional development experience for elementary teachers that I co-designed a year ago. We, the other co-author and I, have been using grant money that we received to fund our work. As I read, I realized that the descriptions under interpretive research seemed to fit appropriately. Then, as I continued reading, I wondered if design research was also a part of our methods because we designed a model based on research, have implemented that model in a school, and are refining it based on feedback as we progress throughout this academic year. Those characteristics made me wonder if we were actually combining two genres just as the authors suggest should happen. At the end of the piece, the authors call for rigorous research and the combination of such genres to accurately capture the intricacies and phenomena that happen in complex spaces known as classrooms.

Ultimately, this piece gave me some background information on research genres so that when the time comes to describe my methods for my dissertation research, I will have a piece upon which I can draw.