Dialogkompetens i skolans vardag - Publikationer - LTU - Luleå ...

Relation between tools used in action research and the ZPD 551
classes of pupils in all stages of compulsory schooling from pre-school to ninth-grade
classes. The composition of the project groups included a mixture of participants
from the different schools. Annual group sessions included the facilitator from the
university. The introductory work took place over four days and included the following
activities:
(a) The project groups started with the participants assembled in one of the five
schools hosting this particular group’s improvement work.
(b) The introductory work gave the participants time to reflect on classroom work.
Tools such as individual writing and facilitation were introduced.
(c) The third tool introduced was shadowing. Teachers contributed to or participated
in the shadowing of other teachers who were willing to be shadowed by
their colleague observers.
(d) All questions raised in practice during the shadowing sessions were used as a basis
for formulating the prospective question to be studied in the collaboration.
When the start-up phase was concluded, the procedures for change commenced:
(e) Each teacher was responsible for implementing the change experiments in their
own classroom. Individual writing, shadowing and video documentation were
used and further developed at each school.
(f) In between the physical meetings, each group had access to a cooperative writing
forum on the Internet.
(g) On four occasions each group had face-to-face meetings at different schools,
which included shadowing and group sessions with the facilitator.
(h) Together with the participating teachers, the headteachers at each school regularly
organised literature seminars (critical friend meetings).
(i) Additionally, and on an annual basis, several researchers were invited to give
short lectures as an important element of inspiration and an input of knowledge.
At the end of the three-year period, each group, as a community, made their own
written evaluation. In relation to the initial questions that they had created, they chose
a particular perspective from which to communicate their evaluated experiences in
the form of a report produced as a piece of collaborative writing. As both writing and
publication can be seen as an integral and important part in any action research
project, the question of the voice represented in the telling of the stories of a project
will always be important (Christensen & Atweh, 1998). It was therefore very important
that the authentic voices of the teachers in this project can be read in their
reports, which have now been published on the Internet. 4
Zone of proximal development
In the ZPD, a person’s competence is not of interest. Instead, the focus is on the
potential of understanding and acting. In Vygotsky’s theories about the ZPD, children’s
learning is in focus (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986). However, we would suggest that
it is not only learning among children that can be described by using the theories of