Category Archives: constructivism & learning

The National Writing Project – from the other side of the globe

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Since I heard read about the National Writing Project in the United States (while studying for my Masters), I have been inspired by the philosophy of the project, the way it is organized and the way teachers respond to its activities. I have often daydreamed about flying to the States to take part in a three week summer workshop and then attempting to reproduce the experience here in Israel.

When I finally read this article by Locke, Whitehead, Dix and Cawkwell (2011) my daydream came to life again. Throughout the reading I found many connections with my own study. I will jot down some of those thoughts here.

I did not know that there was an attempt in NZ in the 1980s to create a NZ Writing Project. The idea certainly did suit the NZ literacy scene of that decade. After the project ceased to function in NZ years ago, the researchers recently revived the idea and created a six-day non-residential workshop for teachers, based on the NWP model.

As I read the article I asked myself: Does this mean that my study is irrelevant? That all has been done before? The  answer is, of course, quite the contrary.  I believe this study is another anchor to hold on to, another sign that what I am doing is important. Somewhere else in the world, with a different group of teachers, others are using similar principles of professional learning to reach out to educators with their unique professional needs.

Here the authors are emphasizing the NZ context. I should look closely at how they do that so that I can think hard about how to emphasize the Israeli context in my own thesis and publications. In the past I have heard this stressed in feedback on my work.

 The article is of course relevant in that it is another example of practitioner research in the field of teacher learning and teacher education. There certainly are many of these articles being published in respected journals. The authors write:

“These objectives had given rise to a series of research questions, which are currently being investigated via a series of methodological lenses: ethnographic, case study, critical discourse analysis and self-study, but reflecting overall an action research ethos” (p. 277).

I am interested in the way they have chosen the phrase “action research ethos”? This approach encourages me to return to the way I  am trying to envision my work as practitioner research within a narrative framework. As I read this article I don’t see the need to choose one approach over the other.

I believe the authors (as a group or individually) will publish additional articles on this interesting project. Here they chose to examine two of the many research questions arising from the study. This is also a structural feature of the article that I should examine. The authors describe the study as a whole and then zoom in close in order to present material relevant to two research questions and then zoom out again.

Additional thoughts:

I should inquire into the intensity of a 6 day workshop rather than a ‘once a fortnight’ session.

How do you say “writers workshop” in Hebrew? “Sadnat Ktiva” – סדנת כתיבה really doesn’t say it all for me.

Could I set up one course as a workshop based on the NWP principles?

Do I have to be an expert writer to run a workshop like that? Why does this question arise when I am thinking about a NWP style workshop? It doesn’t occur to me when I am planning and implementing my own courses here.

Could a workshop like this be a follow up to my courses? Stage 2 maybe? Could I do it in the summer? It is possible – but the  only time unit possible today in Israel is 30 hours.

The mix of primary and secondary school teachers from several subject areas is an interesting aspect. The article seems to indicate that this has positive potential, but would be better in a longer workshop.

And finally… I must find a way to participate in a writing project workshop – maybe in NZ…

Thanks to SB who sent me the article!

Locke, T., Whitehead, D., Dix, S., & Cawkwell, G. (2011). New Zealand teachers respond to the ‘National Writing Project’ experience. Teacher Development, 15(3), 273-291.

Relational Teacher Education: A new and inspiring concept for me

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I recently read an interesting article by Dr Julian Kitchen, Associate Professor in teacher education at the Brock University in Canada.  As I read I found many links between Kitchen’s work with preservice teachers and the work I am trying to do with practicing teachers.

 Kitchen quotes Dewey: “…education is development from within” (Dewey, 1938, p. 17). This resounds with thoughts about learning versus development. Development is seen as something that comes from the outside, that someone “does it” to the teachers whereas learning is something internal, it is the union of stimuli from outside with the personal knowledge, experience, intelligence and beliefs of the teacher. This learning is of course something gradual which develops slowly, at an individual pace. This is far from the “boom” of “being developed” at a seminar or short course.

 

According to Kitchen “Relational teacher education is a reciprocal approach to enabling teacher growth that is respectful of the personal practical knowledge of preservice teachers and builds from the realization that we know in relationship to others. Relational teacher education is sensitive to the role that each participant plays as teacher and learner in the relationship, the milieus in which each lives and works; it stresses the need to present one’s authentic self in relationships which are open, nonjudgmental and trusting” (Kitchen, 2005, p. 196).

 

When I read this article, many of the things he wrote seemed to suit my view of my teaching and gave them a name. I had never heard of “Relational Teacher Education” before and hadn’t even thought about giving a name to my style of teaching. After completing my MEd thesis, I did make a conscious decision to respect the knowledge and experience the teachers bring with them and I even talk about this explicitly throughout the course. Many of the comments I receive from teachers at the end of my courses relate to these points.

 I also strongly believe in the social aspects of learning. In the past my courses have been built on sharing classroom experiences and I will definitely build on that this year. I will dare to give more time for sharing.

I am interested to explore the way that each individual (including myself) is both a teacher and a learner in the course.

 

Kitchen identifies seven important characteristics of relational teacher education:

“1. Understanding one’s own personal practical knowledge

2. Improving one’s practice in teacher education

3. Understanding the landscape of teacher education

4. Respecting and empathizing with preservice teachers

5. Conveying respect and empathy

6. Helping preservice teachers face problems

7. Receptivity to growing in relationship”

(Kitchen,2005, p. 196).

Some thoughts on these issues:

1. I must be committed to examining my own knowledge and experience. One of my advantages is that I really teach children and can try out the things I am talking about. I must remember to find more time to reflect on my own teaching both at school and in the course.

2. I am interested and committed to improving my teacher education. It took me years to feel comfortable with the title “teacher educator” but that indeed is what I am. I think I am improving over the years and this year, through my intensive written reflections, I should improve even more. What I should do is find a significant friend to read those reflections and discuss them.

 

3. I am trying to understand the landscape of teacher education – and my thesis is part of it. I don’t like dealing with politics but I have discovered that teacher education is a highly political issue. Maybe all teaching is? I have been leaving the policy documents to the end in my literature review and I think I should dive into them.

 

Kitchen writes: “I began to discover that we as teachers often have been told that our stories are inauthentic and that experts have the answers. I became aware that we have been forced to obey “objective” studies, even though they often run contrary to our classroom experiences. I awakened to the realization that we must discover our own voices because, as Roland Barth (1990) observes, “When teachers stop growing, so do their students” (Kitchen, 2005, p. 199).

 

My aim is to add to the growing body of teacher stories, stories which may at some stage be publishable. Teachers must know that they can learn from writing and rewriting their teacher stories and reading and responding to those of their peers.

 

Kitchen (2005) explains that “Relational teacher development and education recognizes the roles each participant plays as teacher and learner in the relationship and is sensitive to the milieus in which each lives and works (p. 200). I have often stated in my reflections that I am acting as teacher and learner in my sessions. I learn from each teacher I lead. Through my thinking about their work I reflect on my own and alter my own classroom practice and workshops.

This article contains a letter Kitchen wrote to his preservice students before meeting them in one of his courses. He writes: “This letter both invited preservice teachers to reflect on their tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1958) and expressed my personal professional commitment to developing meaningful and respectful personal professional relationships with each of them. By sharing my experiences, I illustrated my engagement in reflective practice. By listening authentically to their stories, I modeled respect for teachers as curriculum makers. By providing them with reflective tools, I assisted my preservice teachers as they explored their personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988)” (Kitchen, 2005, p.200).

 

I would love to be able to write this kind of letter to my participants and for them to write a reply to me as their first task. This letter exchange could open up the communication between us and leave me with a far clearer sense of the teachers sitting in front of me than the dry questionnaires I have today. I wonder though if they take me as sincere before they get to know me? Israelis are so cynical. It certainly would take a lot of the talking out of the first stages of the course. I think I should give it a go – using Kitchen’s letter as a guide.

 

Kitchen writes “By responding personally and rigorously to their reflections on past and present experiences, I attempted to assist them in reconstructing their cognitive structures and their approaches to teaching. By engaging them in cooperative learning and team-building activities, I helped to foster a sense of community among those in the class” (p. 200-201).

 

What do I try to achieve in my own responses to teachers? I make connections between practice and theory, give names to the things the teachers are talking about, and aim to elicit extra or deeper understandings.

 

Cooperative learning is also a relevant issue – I am continually searching for ways to deepen this collaborative experience in just 30 hours.

Kitchen explains that relational teacher education is based on respect. This respect is many things – starting on time (maybe with something that they won’t want to miss?), not wasting teachers’ time , making the most of their time. This need for respect is obvious in many ways but not always easy. When a teacher arrives without a pen and notebook, when she sits knitting throughout the whole session, when I have to fight to get a word in…

 

“My constructive criticism of student work is not an uncritical stance. Typically, in responding to personal portfolios, I mirror back my understanding: I note patterns that extend across their metaphor and look for five critical incidents and five personal narratives, I respond to their interpretations, and I share related stories from my experience. Each of these interactions serves as an opportunity for dialogue and professional growth for both preservice teachers and the instructor. Although this is a time-consuming process, the students respect the results. When they nominated me  for Professor of the Year in 2001, they spoke of my “rigorous expectations,” “constructive criticism,” and “in-depth personal analysis of both content and  structure.” At the same time, I deepen my understanding of teaching and learning by hearing what my students have to say” (Kitchen, 2005, p. 202).

 Kitchen isn’t boasting here, he is explaining what works in his courses and according to the feedback from my courses, this is similar to some of the remarks I have received. I too learn from reading and responding to my teacher-students.

 After getting excited about these inspiring concepts, I return to earth and ask myself: Is any of this possible in a 30 hour course?

 

Reference:

Kitchen, J. (2005). Conveying respect and empathy: Becoming a relational teacher educator. Studying Teacher Education, 1(2), 194-207.

Creating Collaborative Relationships of Power in Literacy Teaching-Learning

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This book describes another example of university-school collaboration project aimed at teacher learning.

A unique feature here is that the teachers determined the direction of inquiry and not the academic researchers.

The term collaborative here is used to describe the way the teacher researchers learned to work with the uni researchers AND how they learned to involve their students more in their whole language classrooms.

The authors discuss the production of knowledge about teaching and quote Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 1993, who explain that often knowledge about teaching is formulated in academic frameworks and then transmitted to teachers.

Pappas and Zecker also cite Gitlin (1990) who points out that most in most educational research, issues studied are almost never initiated by teachers. This balance of power in research implies that teachers have nothing to contribute from their professional knowledge.

“Teacher research promotes a new, distinctive way of knowledge of teaching because it privileges teachers as those with the authority to know about teaching” (p. 4).  

“Showing and talking about particular features of their teaching that were working well gave the teachers feelings of accomplishment and demonstrated strategies that others might try… On the other hand, airing difficulties or vulnerabilities in inquiries afforded opportunities to obtain new ideas or directions to consider” (p. 6).

The theory that all humans construct knowledge through social interactions = “socioconstructivist perspective on literacy” (p. 7).

  • Wells, 1994b
  • Wells & Chang-Wells, 1992

Vygotsky – 1962, 1978

  • Gutierrez, Rymes, & Larson, 1995
  • Moll, 1990
  • Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989
  • Wells, 1994a, 1994b, 1998
  • Wertsch, 1985, 1989, 1991

Pappas, C. C., & Zecker, L. B. (2001). Introduction: Creating collaborative relations of power in literacy teaching-learning. In C. C. Pappas, & L. B. Zecker (Eds.), Teacher inquiries in literacy teaching-learning: Learning to collaborate in elementary urban classrooms (pp. 1-13). Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum Associates.

Can’t get much clearer than that – PD = teacher collaboration

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In this letter to the new president of the US, Lieberman and Pointer Mace call for a move from traditional PD for teachers to a model of PD based on the collaborative learning  from teacher experience and knowledge. The authors explain that “Teachers work in isolation and only rarely have a chance to observe their colleagues or talk about their teaching work” (p. 226).

“But professional development, though well intentioned, is often perceived by teachers as fragmented, disconnected, and irrelevant to the real problems of classroom practice” (p. 226).

The authors claim that traditional top down forms of PD do not recognize the particular needs of classes, the teacher’s own knowledge and that there are varied ways of achieving successful learning in schools. (p. 227).

“Instead of creating the conditions for teachers to teach each other, support their peers, and deepen their knowledge about their students, teachers are being given a “one size fits all” set of professional development workshops that deny the variability of how teachers teach, and how they and their students learn” (p. 227). 

The article also explains the social aspect of learning, that people learn through interaction with others. “They learn through practice (learning as doing), through meaning (learning as intentional), through community (learning as participating and being with others), and through identity ( learning as changing who we are). Professional learning so constructed is rooted in the human need to feel a sense of belonging and of making a contribution to a community where experience and knowledge function as part of community property. Teachers’ professional development should be refocused on the building of learning communities” (p. 227).

  The NWP is quoted as a successful model of PD through teacher collaboration (of course the teacher as writer is also involved here).

Another example is the networked communities in the UK (studied by Jackson, 2006; Jackson & Temperley, 2007). “The school networks helped to create practitioner knowledge (from teachers’ experience), public knowledge (from research and theory), and new knowledge (from what was created together). (p. 229).

“These networks of teachers from different schools managed to raise achievement for students, taught the participants how to work collaboratively linked yo “rigorous and challenging joint work”, and managed to build trust in helping make teaching public as they developed and distributed leadership among the teachers (Earl, Katz, et al., 2006)” (p. 229). 

 See: Networked Communities

http://www.ncsl.org.uk/networked/networked-leo-search.cfm

http://www.nlcexchange.org.uk

Gallery of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org

 “Living archive” of teaching practice

http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/insideteaching/

“The teacher communities described here exhibit the best we know so far about effective professional development. They focus on instruction; are sustained and continuous, rather than short term and episodic; provide opportunities for teachers to lern from one another both inside and outside the school; make it possible for teachers to influence how and what they learn; and engage teachers in thinking about what they need to know (Hawley & Valli, 2007)” (p. 233).

 Lieberman, A., & Pointer Mace, D. H. (2008). Teacher learning: The key to educational reform. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(3), 226-234. Retrieved from http://jte.sagepub.com  

New Articles

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TI: Teacher Learning: the Key to Educational Reform
  AU: Lieberman, Ann; Pointer Mace, Deslree
SO: Journal of Teacher Education,  2008   VOL. 59   NO. 3   ,pp.226-234
AB: This letter to the next president of the United States recommends the transformation of teacher in-service learning as a powerful means of education reform. Too often, professional development is perceived by teachers as being idiosyncratic and irrelevant. The authors recommend a reconceptualization of professional learning for practicing teachers, in which educators are involved in learning communities, these communities evolve over time, and they revolve around norms of openness, scholarly rigor, and collaborative construction of professional knowledge. The authors describe three such environments of professional learning—the National Writing Proje ct, the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and the Quest Project for Signature Pedagogies in Teacher Education—and recommend that the incoming chief executive should capitalize on the strengths of such programs and extend them to many more teachers nationwide.
KW: teacher learning • communities of practice • professional development • online networks
TI: Teacher learning through reciprocal peer coaching: An analysis of activity sequences
  AU: Zwart, R.C.; Wubbels, Th.; Bolhuis, S.
SO: Teaching and Teacher Education,  2008   VOL. 24   NO. 4   ,pp.982-1002
AB: Just what and how eight experienced teachers in four coaching dyads learned during a 1-year reciprocal peer coaching trajectory was examined in the present study. The learning processes were mapped by providing a detailed description of reported learning activities, reported learning outcomes, and the relations between these two. The sequences of learning activities associated with a particular type of learning outcome were next selected, coded, and analyzed using a variety of quantitative methods. The different activity sequences undertaken by the teachers during a reciprocal peer coaching trajectory were found to trigger different aspects of their professional development
KW: Learning process; Learning activity; Activity sequence; Reciprocal peer coaching; Professional development

 

TI: Interaction in Online Courses for Teacher Education: Subject Matter and Pedagogy
  AU: McCrory, R.; Putnam, R.; Jansen, A.
SO: Journal of Technology and Teacher Education,  2008   VOL. 16   NO. 2   ,pp.155-180
AB: This article explores results from a research project studying teacher learning and faculty teaching in two online courses for teachers in a master’s degree program. We focus on the interactions among students in online small-group discussions. We argue that three aspects of the online cours es impact the way students enter into discussions online, and consequently, what they have opportunities to learn: (a) the subject matter itself, (b) the representations and media through which the subject matter is engaged, and (c) the tasks students are asked to carry out online. In addition, we argue that students’ disposition to engage in constructive discourse (or not) is an important and only partly controll :able factor in what happens in online discussion.
KW: Educational Technology; Collaboration; eLearning;Professional Development;Teaching Methods;Multimedia
TI: ‘That’s not treating you as a professional’: teachers constructing complex professional identities through talk
  AU: Cohen, Jennifer L.
SO: Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice,  2008   VOL. 14   NO. 2   ,pp.79 – 93
AB: Public debates about the role of teachers and teacher performance place teachers at the center of a range of national and local discourses. The notion of teacher professional identity, therefore, framed in a variety of ways, engages people across social contexts, whether as educators, parents, students, taxpayers, voters or consumers of news and popular media. These highly contested discourses about teachers’ roles and responsibilities constitute an important context for research on teachers and teaching, as researchers and educators ask how changes to the teaching profession affect teacher professional identity. This article investigates the identity talk of three mid-career teachers in an urban, public school in the USA, to better understand how the teachers used language to accomplish complex professional identities. Research approaches to teacher identity often focus on teacher narrative as a key tool in identity formation. The analysis presented here extend s our understanding of language as a resource in teacher identity construction by using discourse analysis to investigate how speakers use implicit meaning to accomplish the role identity of teacher. The analytical lens draws on an interdisciplinary framework that combines a sociological approach to teacher as a role identity with an investigation of language as a cultural practice, grounded in the ethnography of communication. The analysis focuses on how teachers use specific discourse strategies – reported speech, mimicked speech, pronoun shifts, oppositional portraits, and juxtaposition of explicit claims – to construct implicit identity claims that, while they are not stated directly, are central to accomplishing teacher as a role identity. The analysis presented here focuses on the particular implicit role claim of teacher as collaborator. Findings show that, in their identity talk, the teachers strategically positioned themselves in relation to others and to institutio nal practices, actively negotiating competing discourses about teacher identity by engaging in a counter discourse emphasizing teachers’ professional role as knowledge producers rather than information deliverers, collaborative, rather than isolated, and as agents of change engaged in critical analysis to plan action. Awareness of how these counter discourses operate in the teachers’ conversation helps us better understand the cultural significance of identity talk as a site for the negotiation of the significances for the role identity of teacher. In addition, the notions of role identity and implicit identity claims offer an accessible way to talk about the complexity of teacher identity, which can be helpful for increasing awareness of the importance of teacher identity in teacher education and professional development, and in bringing teachers’ voices more prominently into the debates over education
KW: discourse analysis; id entity talk; secondary school teachers; urban schools; teacher characteristics; role identity

 

TI: Teachers reflecting on their work: articulating what is said about what is done
  AU: Marcos, Juan Jos; Snchez, Emilio; Tillema, Harm
SO: Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice,  2008   VOL. 14   NO. 2   ,pp.95 – 114
AB: Teachers’ written reflections on their work, which report on a change in their practice, were the object of this research. Taking teachers’ articulation of their plans and actions in teacher journals as our source, this s tudy’s aim is twofold: (1) to describe how teacher reflect in a self-initiated and non-framed way on their own practice, and (2) to review teacher self generated reflections in reference to models of reflection. In this way, we tried to disclose what precisely teachers write (said) when reflecting on their work (did) in order to appreciate their way of describing what matters in their work; and position this in reference to models that conceptualise (“talk”) on how to actualise (‘walk’) reflection. This ‘double’ articulation of reflection is gauged in two ways, i.e., on: a) completeness, that is, whether it includes relevant components of reflection (models) to be found in the literature, and on b) recursiveness, that is, whether the written account gives evidence of an integrated cyclical, i.e., recursive process of re-view, which appraises and looks back on what has been accomplished. The results show that teachers do not work along the lines identified in current refl ection models (i.e. providing clear problem definition, searching for evidence, planning for change, and reviewing plans). Instead, many teachers use a narrative and valuing appraisal of their accomplishments; not so much cautiously reviewing their actions but prospectively commenting on plans and solutions for future action. The data lead us to be cautious about the prominence of reflection models as advocated in the literature to be applied to teachers’ written accounts of their practice.
KW: teacher reflection; action research; teacher research; self-studies; reflective action; professional development
TI: Making Connections: Grounding Professional Development in the Developmental Theories of Vygotsky
  AU: Eun, Barohny
< SPAN class=”heading abbreviation”>SO: The Teacher Educator,  2008   VOL. 43   NO. 2   ,pp.134 – 155
AB: Professional development is grounded in the developmental theories of Vygotsky in an attempt to better understand the mechanism underlying teacher development. The rationale for the use of Vygotskian framework is provided in the context of describing the various models of professional development. Within this theoretical framework, it is argued that concepts formulated by Vygotsky that are relevant to the education of students in school settings are also applicable to the professional growth of teachers in their work places. Various implications for effective professional development are presented by linking the developmental aspects of professional development and major tenets of Vygotsky’s developmental theori es.
TI: Fitting the Methodology with the Research: An exploration of narrative, self-study and auto-ethnography
  AU: Hamilton, Mary Lynn; Smith, Laura; Worthington, Kristen
SO: Studying Teacher Education,  2008   VOL. 4   NO. 1   ,pp.17 – 28
AB: Sharpening our approaches to methodology in self-study research can strengthen our work and clarify questions that arise for readers unfamiliar with this research genre. Our article considers three methodologies – narrative, auto-ethnography and self-study – that privilege self in the research design, believing that addressing self can contribute to our understandings about teaching and teacher education. We address two questions: In what ways, if any, does the methodological choice affect the inquiry of the researchers? When, if ever, might self-study be the best choice for inquiry? For this, we use one selected work to explore the critical elements of these methodologies to determine usefulness. This is not a discussion to determine which approach is better; rather it is a discussion to explore w hen one method might be privileged over another and why
KW: methodology; research design; self-study; narrative inquiry; auto-ethnography
TI: Balancing Acts: Negotiating authenticity and authority in shared reflection
  AU: Calderwood, Patricia E.; D’Amico, Kathleen M.
SO: Studying Teacher Education,  2008   VOL. 4   NO. 1   ,pp.47 – 59
AB: In this self-study, a teacher educator and an experienced teacher analyze an unexpected shared opportunity to mentor pre-service elementary educators. Our partnership arose during a graduate course on literacy development for elementary students, serendipitously captured during an extended electronic conversation with the pre-service candidates. We uncovered an interplay between authenticity and authority that generated enhanced professional development for each of us and for the teac her candidates who were enrolled in the course. As well as reflections on our own practices, implications for teacher education development and pedagogy are noted.
KW: teacher education; professional development; collaboration

 Information from the Israeli Macam center

Vygotsky knew it all along! Frustrated student should have listened!

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vygotsky.jpg 

Why didn’t I listen to Vygotsky before I embarked on this isolated study venture?

I am finding it difficult talking to myself about all of this all the time –  The brilliant Russian psychologist knew that I would needs heaps of significant social dialogue in order to finish this thesis (and this degree)successfully. Why wasn’t I paying attention?  

Image from: http://hagar.up.ac.za/catts/learner/2000/scheepers_md/images/vygotsky.jpg

Collaboration and dialogue in a teacher community

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 The work of this group of teachers is based on the premise that “inquiry is central to the work of teaching, that it requires community, and that communities of practice can take  a myriad of forms” (p. 596). These teachers have formed a community of learning, despite the geographical distance between them.

An interesting point made is that the teachers searched for this kind of professional support group despite the fact that they were seasoned teachers. They mention feeling disappointed and secluded in their classrooms.

The authors, teacher educators, are concerned with two problems:

  1. Teachers are expected to teach “in dialogic ways” but have never been taught anything in this manner.
  2. They “rarely have the opportunity to experience sustained exploration of a complex idea, let alone through dialogic practices” (p. 598).

The authors cite Gavalek and Raphael (1996) who described learning as “as a complex, iterative process of social engagement, reflection, and transformation” (p. 602).

The authors argue that teachers are detached from their colleagues in their work and that their professional lives are dictated by others. “Missing from the lives of teachers is the opportunity to articulate and investigate with others the means for improving our practice and the learning of those with whom we work.” (p. 606). Learning communities are suggested as an appropriate solution.

The authors base these understandings on the theories of learning suggested by Vygotsky (1978). “Individuals learn, but that learning begins, and is based in, social activity or the social plane. This social plane is reflected in the public and shared discourse of the teacher study groups as ideas are appropriated and transformed” (p. 606).

The work of Swales (1990) and Gee (1992), also helped the authors understand the significance of social communication. “Knowledge of the language practices within a discourse community provides access to that community and defines who the community members are. Language is a key factor in the development of our identities-as professionals, as educators, as literacy educators, and as teacher researchers.

Understanding the importance of the discourse community helps us to create opportunities for access and opportunities to harness the power of conversation to move beyond the immediate setting and effect important changes in practice” (p. 606).

I like the balanced statement appearing at the end of the article:

“Thus, while we are not naive about the historical privileging of academic research in which teachers serve as “subjects” or “informants”, we are also not sanguine about such work. We underscore teacher research as another powerful, but-like university-driven research-also limited genre for the study of education” (p. 606).

Raphael, T. E., Florio-Ruane, S., Kehus, M. J., George, M. A., Levorn Hasty, N., & Highfield, K. (2001). Thinking for ourselves: Literacy learning in a diverse teacher inquiry network. The Reading Teacher, 54(6), 596-607.