Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

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3.4 HOW I DEVELOPED MY PERSPECTIVE OR 'THEORY' OF TEACHER LEARNING AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE TEMS MODEL FOR TEACHER DEVELOPMENTILEARNING I completed my undergraduate teaching degree in the late 1980s. This was in the midst of the apartheid era at a university previously designated for South Africans ofIndian origin. Although Christian Nationalist Education (CNE) and Fundamental Paedagogics was being contested as the dominant ideology, strong elements ofthe doctrine still pervaded the teacher education curriculum at the time, with courses like Didactics still part ofthe curriculum. Distinct behaviourist notions ofteaching and learning underpinned the curriculum. My exposure to different perspectives on teaching and learning began with my postgraduate study (Honours and Masters in Education). I was also strongly influenced by my political activist roots, teacher activism in particular and socio-constructivist literature on teaching and learning. The work ofsituative theorists like Lave (1988), Lave and Wenger (1991), Wenger (1998) and Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) in particular, has influenced the model for teacher development in the TEMS project. Other researchers in the field of 'learning communities' that have influenced my thinking include Grossman et al (2001), Putman and Borko (2000), Philips (2003), McLaughlin and Talbert (2001) and Gallucci (2003). (A detailed review ofresearch on learning communities is contained in the literature review in Chapter Two). In deciding on a model for teacher development, I was careful to accord teachers an active role in their own learning. I hoped that teacher leaders would emerge during the process. Local teacher leaders were especially important in enabling this teacher learning programme. I was hoping to identify lead teachers who would be situated in teaching practice while also having an understanding ofthe need to help other teachers translate the new curriculum ideas into practice. They would be viewed as central agents in the education oftheir peers. Teachers as learners would be actively involved in conversations about teaching and identifying learners' needs. 103
Ideally I would have wanted teachers to have time to watch one another teach and to have conversations about their teaching. I expected that conversations among teachers would provide opportunities to grapple with the meaning ofthe new curriculum (with regard to EMS and EMS teaching) and to appreciate what the new EMS curriculum meant for practice. I envisioned that in the group processes, learning would focus not only on understanding new EMS content ideas but also on translating these ideas into practice and figuring out how to manage the practical challenges that may emerge in the process. In participating in discussions about practice, teachers would be active in their own learning. I saw the curriculum for teacher learning as involving an array of 'artefacts' that included the new Revised National Curriculum Statement, materials that teachers used and developed, teachers' practice, materials that I had developed and provided, as well as the teacher development workshop sessions. The curriculum for teacher learning was designed to support teachers' learning about Economic and Management Sciences and their learning about how these ideas could be translated into practice. Teachers' daily practice and their efforts to engage with teaching EMS was an important component ofthe curriculum for teacher learning in the TEMS project. Learning would involve teachers participating in inquiry and reflection about their practice and in solving pedagogical problems that were meaningful to teachers as learners. Such conversations would afford opportunities for teachers to work together to 'figure out' what practising EMS teaching might involve. They would also be afforded opportunities to gain insights from others on the practical problems ofputting EMS teaching ideas into practice and to construct solutions to these problems together. In adopting this perspective, I tried to ensure that knowledge was not a commodity, which I as the university academic (EMS expert) brought to the project. Instead, knowledge was in part constructed through the reflection and thinking enabled by the 104
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Teacher Learning in a Community of
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ABSTRACT Conceptualising teacher le
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DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated
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DECLARATION I, Suriamurthee Moonsam
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ASSOCIATED CONCEPTS UNDER STUDY WIT
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Observation ofJohn's teaching after
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A SYNTHESIS OF THE STUDy...........
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TEMS RNCS EMS GET DoE INSET ELRC SA
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In describing the subject-pedagogy
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teachers lacked content knowledge r
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acknowledges the importance and pec
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some formal Mathematics teacher edu
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study, the coordination functions w
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It foregrounds the fact that the co
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school. Higher education opportunit
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frame models for projecting future
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teacher education by the state, (as
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schools, classrooms, management and
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Although the Teacher Audit indicate
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One ofthe first curriculum reform i
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entrenched design feature of C2005,
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In Chapter Five, I set up a narrati
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LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 INTRODUCTION
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As indicated in the previous chapte
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This view is supported by Putman an
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Learning is social in nature (Putma
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Constant reflection on and understa
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Teachers drew on their membership i
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The above arguments about the lack
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change. She highlights the importan
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Differences in the cultures oflearn
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persons and is not considered solel
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and offers insights into how learni
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Page 85 and 86: (Walford 2001; Anderson 1999). With
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Page 91 and 92: Lave and Wenger emphasise the centr
Page 93 and 94: 3.3.2 The Work ofWenger (1998): Com
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Page 117: who were regarded as peripheral. A
Page 121 and 122: they represent key ingredients in s
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Page 127 and 128: 3.6 CONCLUSION This chapter provide
Page 129 and 130: • While my professional input int
Page 131 and 132: • Cycle ofhypothesis and theory b
Page 133 and 134: observer played themselves out. A c
Page 135 and 136: organised events and linked communi
Page 137 and 138: In keeping with ethnographic princi
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Page 143 and 144: physical context, the complex body
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Page 149: 'connoisseurship'. I realised that
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Page 154 and 155: In Chapter One I described the sequ
Page 156 and 157: tactic by indicating to research pa
Page 158 and 159: On the occasions that I delivered b
Page 160 and 161: "Confidentiality involves a clear u
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Page 165 and 166: CHAPTER FIVE HOW HAD TEACHER LEARNI
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He received his schooling under the
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school regularly updated the books
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gone on to become really wealthy. I
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John noted that in planning the cur
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Significant changes had thus occurr
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just transfer it. For example, bank
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Extract from the lesson: John: Pupi
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schoolwork as 'economic work'. This
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John: Now we are not looking at thi
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cardboard and drawing or sticking i
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John: Now I want you to remember wh
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John succeeded in drawing on the sp
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at her maths books to which the tea
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issues that his pupils were raising
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5.5 JOHN'S CHANGING PROFESSIONAL ID
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to achieve their joint enterprise o
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5.6 JOHN'S INCREASED PARTICIPATION
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John regarded the close interaction
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As stated earlier, because the 'con
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CHAPTER SIX USING WENGER'S CONSTRUC
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6.2 SECTION ONE AN ANALYSIS OF TEAC
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understanding it at all. I just don
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In the final interview that took pl
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MM: Shirley: learning outcomes and
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the little things like we started i
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understandings and conceptions ofth
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Extract from Mary's final interview
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Teachers were able to describe the
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The essential differences between D
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Debbie's school, Eden Primary was l
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what he's saying. And in that lesso
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they were excellent, really good. I
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Extract from first lesson observati
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out of the material that they had.
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largely recall, repetition or were
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Third extract from Debbie's second
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From the above extracts and discuss
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with a new set ofsubjects. Without
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was three kilometres away from the
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In the next extract, Ben referred t
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for making bread. The difficulty an
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T: P: T: P: T: P: T: Look again. Is
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stemmed from a discussion at the TE
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Key to the table A = Good/substanti
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was doing the budget and where they
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ofher school and the TEMS community
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Extract from Beth's final interview
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fox the invitations and arrange for
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Table 6.6: Teachers' learning in te
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CHAPTER SEVEN AN ANALYSIS OF TEACHE
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As we saw in Chapter Six, the core
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who did or did not want to become f
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The following extract offers a narr
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difficulties (ibid.). In the above
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A community moves from the potentia
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Cindy began the workshop with a tho
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oundaries" (Wenger et al 2002:97).
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7.4 AN ANALYSIS OF THE TEMS GROUP A
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necessary to learn what they needed
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Figure 7.2: Brokering relationships
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the group. Wenger (1998) notes that
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knowledge ofothers. It is therefore
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MM Shirley MM: Mary: MM: Mary Have
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The following extract from a worksh
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MM: Shirley: How many EMS workshops
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Table 7.2: Criteria for the emergen
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Soudien, a leading South African ac
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hand, adopts a 'narrow' perspective
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As mentioned earlier, Wenger's work
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literature review revealed that the
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Another important feature ofWenger'
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'Identity' namely, 'learning as bec
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(Hargreaves 1995). Teacher professi
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for the purposes ofprofessional dev
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teacher growth. CPD in Africa subsc
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knowledge of subject content is ser
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South Africa, due cognisance must b
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8.3.7 An arena for engaging and con
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the provision of appropriate profes
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level conceptual thinking". They wa
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Collaboration within teacher learni
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has for teacher learning in a South
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Bourdieu, P. (1986) The Forms ofCap
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Department ofEducation (2002) Revis
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Homan, R. (2002) The principle of i
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Mattson, L. (2000) Teacher identiti
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Smylie, M.A., Bay, M. & Tozer, S.E.
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Westheimer,1. (1998) Among schoolte
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APPENDIX 2 INTERVIEW SCHEDULES (INI
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2. What information have you been g
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APPENDIX 3 EXAMPLE OF JOURNAL ENTRI
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APPENDIX 5 EXAMPLE OF INDEPENDENT O
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