Early childhood Jewish education classrooms are bubbling with exploration and learning—and not just the children. Within everyday practice, educators use their curiosity, observations and innovative thinking to address classroom needs. However, this work is often done alone without set (or compensated) time for intentional data collection and meaningful reflection. Action research within a group context has the potential to counter both the lonely journey of teaching and the need for a systematic approach towards problem-solving. 

Action research requires cycles of inquiry to generate new knowledge and approaches based on specific issues of interest in the classroom or program. Educator researchers ask questions, collect data, implement interventions, analyze results, share findings and consider future inquiries. Action research, coupled with ongoing group reflection, is an empowering tool for professional development.

This article showcases the inspiring voices of The Action Research Community of Practice (ARCOP) participants. ARCOP, a partnership between The Paradigm Project, Jewish Early Childhood Leadership Institute, and Jewish Theological Seminary, consisted of 10 early childhood educators, directors, and education consultants, and two facilitators (the authors of this article). The group met virtually twice monthly for the span of 6 months to learn about and carry out action research in their professional contexts. 

Below are some of the major themes that arose from participant self-reflection. The words of the group sparked implications for the future, such as the demand for ongoing collaborative reflection to become standard practice for early childhood educators.

Learning New Perspectives: Desire to Collaborate 

Group reflection is predicated on a commitment to collaboration with other educators: “Collaborative reflection is vital to the work we do.” Along with learning about action research as a methodology, participants engaged in whole-group, small-group and pair discussion. In between large group meetings, they met in a consistent pairing, their chavruta. Together with one of the facilitators, chavrutot helped each other refine research questions, examine observations, co-think difficulties or confusion in their research, analyze data and consider implications and implementations. The last 10 minutes of the chavruta time were spent doing reflective journaling about the experience.

Consistent meeting times with various opportunities to reflect contributed to a culture of sharing. One member revealed “how important it is to exchange ideas with others and reflect together. Even though this brings us to a vulnerable place, it helps us to grow. Sometimes sharing with others might be harder, but it definitely gives great growth opportunities since new perspectives come to play.” These discoveries highlight the importance of learning communities, where ongoing relationships are fostered through mutual support.

Confidence and Self- Efficacy 

Within these reliable and caring professional relationships, educators build trust and confidence in themselves as researchers. Self-efficacy encompasses the educator’s perceptions of their own capacities to be skillful and effective educators. Educator self-efficacy relates to professional support from others, as illuminated through this statement from one participant: “If teachers don’t feel secure, taken care of, motivated, then they won’t be as diligent in their work performance or as friendly with children.”

One participant wrote that she gained skills to “frame an inquiry that can truly be addressed and that I can do something to change the environment.” She alludes to how her learning informs her ability to affect change. Overall, there was an enhanced self-assurance as it “helped me understand the potential impact of my own curiosity to support the experiences of colleagues, children and families.” 

Action research necessitates the asking of questions and assessing one’s teaching. As educators participate in the simultaneous process of action research and collaborative reflection, they encounter many moments to learn more about themselves. They gain confidence and skills to question their interactions, behaviors, and curricular choices.

Intentionality in Action Research 

Early childhood educators often perceive data as ominous, yet they engage in various forms of data collection for numerous purposes on a daily basis. Placing the term data on these everyday educational practices minimizes the fear that many educators encounter with the word and helps them develop a researcher’s lens.

One member reported that she has “always known how important observation and data collection” are but “came back to revisiting this practice, this time with a new perspective, being very clear in what we are observing for. I have begun observing with more intention and less biases.” Similarly, another educator described putting “a new practice in place and has noted the responses. I am going to add to my action plan and try a survey using qualifying results. I am so excited to be trying this new method of data collection.” Learning about data collection and engaging in ongoing reflection illuminates the empowering significance of data and makes it more accessible.

Focus and Accountability 

A learning community provides accountability and focus to those who might otherwise put their professional growth on the back burner as they attend to the innumerable tasks required of educators. One member described “being reminded of how structure (timelines, deadlines, group conversations) can help keep my thought processes on track.” Ideas are often left hanging for too long; questions remain unanswered until they become irrelevant or ignored. A community of practice acts as an accountability group. There is space to share intentions or aspirations and keep each other on track. A combination of fixed meetings with the large group, pair meetings with a staff facilitator in between deadlines, and occasions to give and receive feedback fostered a system of accountability that worked. Success was possible with preparation and commitment and time to refocus.

Improving Practice in Early Childhood Education 

Both action research and the context of group learning (community of practice) have the potential to improve professional and institutional practices among early childhood editors. The following list indicates the main takeaways from the data and implications for normalizing professional communities like ARCOP within schools, programs, and across communities:

1. Group learning (COP) and action research share goals and in unison reinforce the impact of reflection, collaboration and change.
2. Action research is valuable for self-efficacy and shifting educational practices. It strengthens the need to reflect, collaborate and critique one's teaching. 
3. Engaging in action research within a COP enhances the commitment to identify as a researcher learn from others, remain focused an gain confidence.
4. Bringing educators together virtually from various schools and across the country can be successful. Monthly large group and chavruta meetings allowed for discussion and community building that played an important role in educator and professional development.
5. Along with joining educators from different programs and cities, a school can stimulate a culture of lifelong learning and research by organizing either an all-staff COP or groups of staff COPs. 
6. Participants may be any early childhood professional, such as educators, directors and consultants. Action research is a useful framework to be implemented across contexts. 

The Jewish people are no strangers to the power that comes from establishing and participating in a community. Professional development is no different. 

On January 6th, I watched the events at the Capitol unfold and admittedly felt paralyzed. As a partner to faith communities in developing civic education, I wanted to offer wisdom to our teachers and promote confidence in our democratic institutions to students, yet acknowledge the gravity of the day and a sense of shattering that revealed how fragile our system of government can be.

When I had collected myself, I reached out to our educators to offer a few concrete resources, extend my support, and note the challenge the next day would bring as they navigated students’ responses to our evolving political world—a daunting role they have undertaken for quite some time. As responses came in, I was—as I frequently am—bowled over by the teachers’ bravery and creativity. Across our interfaith, cross-partisan network, the stories from classrooms were astonishingly moving, and reflective of the ways in which educators can weave together civic education with religious teachings.

A history teacher at an all-boys yeshiva shared honest reflection through the framework of the war of the Chashmonaim and communal rehabilitation following the desecration of the Temple, with a focus on the עַל הַנִּסִּיםprayer. He referenced a passage from an 1838 Abraham Lincoln speech which warned the members of the United States that destruction of the union is most likely to arise from within: “At what point is the approach of danger to be expected? If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad, I answer. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” To help students feel accountable, the teacher encouraged them to consider how lessons from the intricate process of rebuilding the Temple illuminate an avenue for fortifying, if not restoring, the foundation of American democracy.

The director of humanities enrichment at an all-girls yeshiva created a schoolwide program in which students were invited to join a reflective discussion: What do you know? What questions do you have about what happened? What are your concerns? Together, they studied quotes from leaders on the peaceful transfer of power: Washington in 1783, Jefferson in 1800, Bush and Gore in 2000, and McConnell, Pence and Schumer in 2021. Students were asked to consider the values reflected in these statements and how they resonate with their values. In looking ahead, students participated in an interactive art project, articulating on Post-its their responses to the prompt, “As an American I can…” Their notes were shared on a public wall for all to see.

A Muslim educator in our Civic Spirit community who leads a civic fellowship for students from Islamic schools introduced an important challenge for her group. She asked the students to use the iceberg visual exercise, which she had learned at the Civic Spirit Summer Institute, to imagine the values, concerns and fears of the individuals who engaged in the Capitol insurgence, along with those who sought to defend the Capitol. Her goal was to encourage the fellows to understand how values impact emotions and outlook, which in turn drives behavior. Though recognizing how the Capitol event was morally charged, this teacher bravely equipped her students with the urgent civic skills of empathy, discourse, and solution-focused thinking.

Each of these educators modeled components of a pedagogical approach we have found to be most effective when tackling contentious topics: engage a student’s heart, mind and hands in processing current events and fostering their ability to own their role in shaping the future. Our organizational theory has always been the same: in preparing the next generation to participate in democracy, we must look to the wisdom of our faith traditions.

How do we prepare our Jewish young adults to come of age? We ask them to study with an expert, consider how the words of Biblical Hebrew link to their modern lives, and demonstrate competency by leading prayers, reading a verse, and teaching a message of Torah.

Similar to the inheritance of a bnai mitzvah, we believe that one cannot sufficiently be asked to participate in the democratic public square without the study of founding texts, practice of civic skills, and connection to community and country. By drawing from their expertise in preparing students to be engaged members of the Jewish community and exploring the rituals we celebrate to entrust the traditions and values of Judaism, day school educators can acknowledge the discord on our national stage and play a pivotal role in helping students embody the responsibilities of citizenship—as Americans, Jews and American Jews.