Reflections on collaborative inquiry in Cyprus: lessons for researchers and practitioners

Effective teaching in mixed ability classes has dominated much of the Cyprus government's agenda for educational reform. However, there remains widespread dissatisfaction with Cyprus teachers' ability to teach in mixed ability classes. A factor behind the unsuccessful attempts of the Ministry of Education and Culture to improve teaching in mixed ability classes is that little attention is paid to the method of supporting teachers during in-service training and to the development of a praxis of educating where the skills of action learning as a professional practitioner upon one's own practice and in collaboration with others are seen as central to a teacher's continued professional development. In this paper, the authors reflect on their experiences from different research projects which were designed and implemented following collaborative inquiry, not only for experienced researchers who act as critical friends to schools but also for practitioners who want to carry out investigations in their school context and to improve their teaching in mixed ability classes. The authors first analyse what they mean by collaborative inquiry, and then present the advantages and difficulties of this sort of research as they have seen them through their experiences in the research projects they were involved in within the trusted community of joint and shared revelation.