Abstract:
Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) hold considerable promise for teacher learning in the workplace. It is a community setting whereby teachers co-operatively engage in critical inquiry and updating their teaching practices. Current attempts to identify the processes of teachers’ professional learning of pedagogical practices are nested within activities organised for professional development and does not mirror the naturalistic environments in which teachers are engaged in as part of the authentic school context. In this work, we draw upon Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to analyse a case of a group of elementary school teachers working on lesson design using knowledge building pedagogy to enhance student learning. We ask what are the patterns of interaction and organisational factors enculturating new pedagogical innovations into the teaching practices of teachers?
Using the analytical framework of de Lange and Lunc (2008), we analyse the dialectical nature of teacher conversations recorded over a period of two years. Results showed that teachers accommodated the emergence of tensions and conflicts that challenged established pedagogical practices. By objectifying the work of the teachers through activity theory, the vignettes in this presentation demonstrate how knowledge building was sustained over time during the PLC and into the classrooms as an outcome of the shared objects created during PLC meetings. The outcomes of shared objects include innovation as seen from the way thematic writing tasks were implemented as action research as well as permanent advancement of ideas as evident from instructional designs for the science topic of systems. Critically, through a close analysis of teachers’ conversations during PLC, activity theory has potential to make salient how these teachers engaged in the trajectory of knowledge building through shaping and reshaping of the object of designing KB lessons for students.
In conclusion, professional workplace learning resulted from negotiating individual objects for creating shared objects and managing tensions arising from co-creation for making professional decisions. We argue for negotiating shared objects as supporting professional learning and action at the education workspace.
Using the analytical framework of de Lange and Lunc (2008), we analyse the dialectical nature of teacher conversations recorded over a period of two years. Results showed that teachers accommodated the emergence of tensions and conflicts that challenged established pedagogical practices. By objectifying the work of the teachers through activity theory, the vignettes in this presentation demonstrate how knowledge building was sustained over time during the PLC and into the classrooms as an outcome of the shared objects created during PLC meetings. The outcomes of shared objects include innovation as seen from the way thematic writing tasks were implemented as action research as well as permanent advancement of ideas as evident from instructional designs for the science topic of systems. Critically, through a close analysis of teachers’ conversations during PLC, activity theory has potential to make salient how these teachers engaged in the trajectory of knowledge building through shaping and reshaping of the object of designing KB lessons for students.
In conclusion, professional workplace learning resulted from negotiating individual objects for creating shared objects and managing tensions arising from co-creation for making professional decisions. We argue for negotiating shared objects as supporting professional learning and action at the education workspace.