Conclusion
By confronting the diversity of methods in this book, and by viewing their thought-in-
action links, we hope that you will be helped to arrive at your own conceptualization
of how thought leads to actions in your teaching, and how, in turn, your teaching leads
to the desired learning in your students. What we hope your reading of this book has
also done is challenged you to identify your values, and to question them, perhaps
leading to reaffirmation, perhaps not. But teaching is not only thinking and holding
certain values; it is also action. We hope, therefore, that this book has encouraged you
to experiment with new techniques—to try them, observe the consequences, make
adjustments, and then to try them again.
In order to move from ideology to inquiry, teachers need to inquire into their
practice. They need to reflect on what they do and why they do it, and they need to be
open to learning about the practices and research of others. They need to interact with
others, and need to try new practices in order to search continually for or devise the
best method they can for who they are, who their students are, and the conditions and
context of their teaching. It is to this quest that we hope this book has in a small way
contributed.