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

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Teacher learning would be enabled through teacher reflection on existing knowledge, experience, and practice. It would involve challenging teachers' current thinking and guiding them towards new understandings. Learning would involve teachers in reconstructing their existing knowledge rather than the passive assimilation and memorization ofnew knowledge. I hoped to use teachers' prior knowledge and practice as a central aspect in creating learning opportunities for this group ofteachers. It would involve using teachers' existing conceptions and understandings to challenge and engage teachers' thinking and their practice. The curriculum for teacher learning was developed from teachers' needs, as expressed by teachers and as observed by me in conjunction with the proposals in the new Revised National Curriculum Statement for EMS. 3.5 APPLYING WENGER'S SOCIAL PRACTICE THEORY OF LEARNING: WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES? Although the theory significantly informed both the TEMS programme and the present research study, it does have some limitations. The purpose ofthis section is to identify such weaknesses in a South African context and to indicate how such wealmesses were addressed in this study. The model does not pay attention to wider social and economic inequalities within which participants in a community ofpractice are embedded. As such it does not offer insights into understanding inequalities and disadvantage that may be peculiar to individuals within a community. These phenomena are particularly overt in a context like South Africa where issues of ethnicity, social class and gender are likely to influence the structuring oflearning opportunities in learning a community. Wenger does not explore the barriers to learning posed by tensions originating from structural unevenness ofpower in communities ofpractice and how such unevenness can contribute to exclusion. He does not offer a detailed framework to explain ways in which communities could disempower members and how community tensions can be understood. The challenge 107
that the Wenger framework presents is to incorporate the broader issues of social and economic inequalities that may exist beyond the actual site oflearning, fully into the analysis oflearning. This is particularly significant in a South African context characterised by widespread social and economic inequalities. The model does not offer insights for explaining discontinuities in learning that stem from unequal access to learning. Learning opportunities may depend on an individual's status within a community. In learning communities more powerful members are able to gain greater access to learning opportunities. The model does not acknowledge that the development ofthe individual needs to be viewed as a negotiated process that is subjected to both facilitative and oppressive forces that may exist within and beyond the community ofpractice. Wenger's model ofa community ofpractice presents an account oflearning based on the formation ofa group-referenced identity. For Wenger, the group represents the primary unit ofanalysis, where learning becomes inseparable from forms ofsocial engagement. Exploring an individual member's learning trajectory is difficult using Wenger's model, as the model does not provide adequate tools for such analysis. This is significant, as a key barrier to learning is in fact discontinuity in the learning trajectory. In a teacher learning community, assessing the learning ofan individual teacher presents a challenge, as Wenger's model is silent on this issue. Wenger fails to deal adequately with teachers as individuals despite the explicit focus on identity. Understanding individual dispositions and personalities and how they play themselves out in a learning community are ignored in the model. The social approach to learning presented by Wenger is at the expense of an analysis ofthe way individual members ofa community ofpractice learn. While Wenger acknowledges the reflexive transformation ofindividuals in a community ofpractice, he does not offer a framework to explore how this occurs. The challenge then is to theorise a model that integrates individual members' learning in a community of practice. 108
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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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America. Goodson (1992) and Calderh
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learned meaning and value for them
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Page 75 and 76: Davisson (1984), Lumsden and Scott
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Page 81 and 82: • Understand and promote the impo
Page 83 and 84: 2.7 CONCLUSION This chapter began b
Page 85 and 86: (Walford 2001; Anderson 1999). With
Page 87 and 88: • It places value on the research
Page 89 and 90: The main research question in this
Page 91 and 92: Lave and Wenger emphasise the centr
Page 93 and 94: 3.3.2 The Work ofWenger (1998): Com
Page 95 and 96: agree with the way it takes place o
Page 97 and 98: Figure 3.3: Refined intersection of
Page 99 and 100: eflecting. The ability of a communi
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Page 105 and 106: system or institution and the influ
Page 107 and 108: 3.3.2.4 Learning Practice has to be
Page 109 and 110: new possibilities for meaning. Brok
Page 111 and 112: These characteristics indicate that
Page 113 and 114: engage with one another and acknowl
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Page 117 and 118: who were regarded as peripheral. A
Page 119 and 120: Ideally I would have wanted teacher
Page 121: they represent key ingredients in s
Page 125 and 126: more useful and effective than part
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
Page 139 and 140: In this qualitative study, my inter
Page 141 and 142: collection. He questions whether co
Page 143 and 144: physical context, the complex body
Page 145 and 146: completed, final text: rather, they
Page 147 and 148: the teacher over classroom events (
Page 149: 'connoisseurship'. I realised that
Page 152 and 153: In this study, the criteria for the
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
Page 163 and 164: were cordial and professional. The
Page 165 and 166: CHAPTER FIVE HOW HAD TEACHER LEARNI
Page 167 and 168: individual participants changed dif
Page 169 and 170: He received his schooling under the
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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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