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Relation between tools used in action research and the ZPD 557
this medium to share their experiences, and raise questions or ideas concerning the
improvements being attempted in the classroom. In this case, the web dialogue was
a ‘voluntary tool’ and it was open for everybody to discover the different ways in
which the tool could be useful. After an initial year of trial and error, it became clear
that participants found it hard to give challenges within the group, and responses were
not infrequently of a confirmatory nature (Wennergren, 2004b). There are studies
where participation in cooperative writing, as a part of a university course, have
contributed to learning (Bonk & King, 1998; Dysthe, 2002).
Facilitating
Facilitating in this case refers to the involvement of a person from the university
whose task it is to support a group of teachers. The purpose of facilitation includes
the opportunity to reflect on activities in the classroom, as well as providing an insight
into associated research possibilities. In this context, the pedagogical task for the facilitator
may be seen as using different forms of scaffolding to guide the participants to
search for different answers to their authentic questions, but also to challenge their
thinking about practice. To develop new knowledge, the discussions include variations
of perspectives in order to elucidate the difference between easy highways in
zone 1 and taking on the role of someone searching for narrow pathways in the ZPD.
The main point is to support the participants to become actors in the period of
change. Thus it should be borne in mind that a facilitator (as an action researcher)
challenges the academic tradition regarding concepts of competence and expertise.
Inevitably, there will be different opinions if it is going to be possible to make everyone’s
voice heard when the power relation, as in this case, is essentially asymmetric
(Greenwood & Levin, 1998).
Data processing
The data used in this article were written texts made by 50 teachers participating in
the school improvement project described previously. Over a period of three years
these teachers sent written descriptions and reflections to one another and to the
facilitator. In total, this was done six times, and some of the material that they
produced was subsequently analysed during the facilitation sessions. Furthermore,
data were taken from the shadowing documentation and the network conversations
that were held separately in the seven groups (groups A–G). Bearing in mind the
assurances of individual anonymity given to the participants, views expressed by
individuals are in this article referred to in terms of the group to which they
belonged.
The analytical process started after the first meeting of the project. After each
occasion, the written descriptions and reflections of the participants, together with
those of the facilitator (one of the researchers/authors), were analysed by the groups.
Separate groups made written conclusions for each period.
The final concluding analysis was made by the two researchers/authors: