Review of Student Research for Community Change: Tools to Develop Ethical Thinking and Analytic Problem Solving
by William Tobin and Valerie Feit, 2020. Teachers College Press, 127 pages.
Review by: Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.
This new text provides an explanation of a program – and a plan – for getting high school students involved in important hands-on research right in their communities. The two authors have become experts in encouraging young people to start on research early – not waiting for college. Despite more traditional approaches of letting students wait to become upperclassmen in college, the authors learned to forge ahead and assume students could do this work.
William Tobin is a research fellow with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. The program explained in this book is an example of the community work Tobin and his students have been doing to help their neighbors. Valerie Feit is co-director of school counseling for Rye Neck, New York schools. This program has been used successfully in three different applications at Duke.
The authors talk in terms of “tools” for coming up with research problems and questions, plans for finding out information, and guidance in making recommendations to solve the problems (pp. 23-24). I think of this book’s content in terms of methods for approaching the work. This looks like a method, with many parts, with rules, with suggestions, and with potential.
The authors provide tools for this “method” of teaching and learning they hope will be applicable in other settings. They have already had students complete research projects using this method. They use a qualitative approach, overall, in their research. However, they do not stress this fact in the book. Interviews and protocols to conduct them ground us in qualitative approaches to getting information from people to help students – and the community ultimately — solve problems.
The method connects clearly (in terms of policy and application) to national standards in the different learning areas, plus Common Core college-ready and work-ready emphases. The method looks forward to more advanced levels of inquiry than the more traditional benchmarked studies of the past. It does this by assuming students can do more advanced and challenging work if they can see the purpose for it, the rewards for it, and the connections of it to real-life goals.
While I will not give away the content and all the goods here, I will say that this appears to be a good “method” for getting students working on purposeful projects earlier than traditionally done. Aspiring to more is always good, especially if there is a research basis telling us the method can work.
As an educator (and community member, advocate, and other roles) I have always been interested in the “why” of doing things in education. Do we respect different learning styles? Where did we as teachers “learn” to do xyz in classes? Is there a good research basis for using certain materials? Has anyone ever proven it makes sense to do abc this way? All of these kinds of questions enter my mind when I look at a new approach. I wonder if this book could work in my neighborhood. With students who need resources like a place to live? In a community not very interested in helping others in need?
The authors emphasize how they have already served communities and how they need partners and cooperation. They remind us that institutions of higher education are supposed to be helping with such endeavors (p. 111). Reminding the readers that IHEs have non-profit status because they are supposed to be assisting in important research projects in the community, the authors urge readers to seek faculty who will sign on and become excited to participate.
I would recommend this book for a couple different uses. First, I would encourage K-12 and college educators read it to see what is possible if we assume students can do more and can meet challenges. The book is important in that way. Second, I would encourage educators to attempt to use some of the tools in a mini-project to ascertain the value of the method. Then, if teachers and college researchers or others can come together to formulate a bigger project, more in-depth labor can be done. Students do the work and need guidance and advice. They need to learn about ethics and the role it plays in inquiry (pp. 12-13).
This method, overall, is another good example of the more mature and advanced kinds of ways of thinking about education for secondary students and underclassmen. As I said above, there is a clear connection to getting students ready for what comes at more advanced levels.
How to use the book in times of distance-learning? How would students find neighbors interested in participating? How would they work with other students to come up with questions? What about brainstorming? Planning?
This might be a method that calls for a hybrid approach. The majority of the discussions could occur online (p. xvii) because of the power of the Internet. This could be done especially during shared times – online meetings. Different teams of students and teachers could work on different steps or themes of the research project. However, it might be necessary to be out in the community to approach potential members and to set up some of the meetings (pp. 112-113) and the interviews. The teams could conduct the remaining work online, such as the interviews, the discussion of them and other input, the drawing of conclusions from the various input sources, the writing of recommendations for intervention (or similar activities), and the follow-up and assessment stages for the entire project.
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