A group of British Columbia practitioners (Battell et al., 2004) also had a story to tell-about effective practitioners:

There are many instructors who have worked in the field since the 1970's, who have grown and learned and who have shared their experience in many ways over the years. The collective urge to document this generation of teaching practice coincided with the pending retirement of some of those experienced instructors. (p. 3)

What do you want to shine a light on?

The following list may be useful as you generate possible areas for research (Dana & Yendol-Silva, 2003). The topics might provide starting points to identify and reflect about questions, problems or promising practices.

• Help a particular group of students learn.
• Create a more supportive learning environment.
• Try out new teaching strategies.
• Explore relationships between your beliefs and your practice.
• Explore how your personal history/identity relates to your professional work.
• Learn about advocacy.
• Understand the teaching/learning context.

You could also complete one or more of the following sentence prompts (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982, as cited in Burns, 1999, p. 54; Burns, 1999, p. 55):

• I would like to improve....
• Some people are unhappy about.... What can I [we] do to change the situation?
• I am perplexed by....
• I have an idea I would like to try out in my program-What would happen if I did...?
• How can the experience of...be applied to....
• Why do some students...while others...? How can I find out what is happening here?
• I wonder what would happen if....
• A story I would like to hear learners tell is....