This qualitative case study explored a professional development project designed to support teacher learning. A group of teachers and instructional supervisors met regularly for an academic year to create alternative assessment practices for the elementary classroom. The team of instructional supervisors planned and led meetings that encouraged the development of knowledge through interaction among teachers and reflections on classroom practice.
In the study I explored the following questions: a) What were the actions of the instructional supervisors as they planned and worked with teachers? b) How did teachers interact within the environment designed for the social construction of knowledge? c) What actions created ambiguity for the participants and what actions accommodated the ambiguity? d) How does knowledge I constructed through this research enhance my practice as a teacher educator?
The theoretical frame for this study was grounded in the work of researchers such as Dewey (1904), Vygotsky (1978, 1981), Lave & Wenger (1991), Rogoff (1990), and Short and Burke (1991) who suggested a social constructive perspective on knowledge. These researchers argued that knowledge is constructed through interactions among individuals. The interaction involves a process that is both dynamic and fluid. Through this process knowledge is constructed and reconstructed. Subsequently, the participants take more control over their thinking and their actions within the practice.
Materials that were gathered and interpreted for this study were accumulated over the period of a school year from September 1993 through June 1994. They included fieldnotes from sessions with the teachers, transcriptions of audio recordings of interviews with the teachers, transcriptions of audio recordings of planning meetings with the instructional supervisors, analytical notes on the research process, anda research journal. Analysis of materials was a continuous process that began with the writing of analytical notes during the transcription process. I identified major themes from the collected materials and selected the theme of ambiguity as an important theme for understanding the nature of the environments studied. I wrote descriptions of both the learning environment created for the teachers and the planning sessions conducted by the team of supervisors. I described the role ambiguity played in the project and how the instructional supervisors and the teachers accommodated ambiguity.
As a result of my research I developed several meaningful insights; through working with the planning team members I developed an appreciation for the complexity of organizing a transactional process in order to accommodate teachers' inquiry. Within the sessions with the teachers I recognized how the providing of opportunities for conversation enhanced interactions. I came to appreciate the complex nature of ambiguity as I understood how ambiguity is a part of the learning process. However, it is important to develop and then implement processes to accommodate ambiguity before that ambiguity reaches a critical point. If one does so then the participants in the learning environment are not overwhelmed. If the ambiguity is accommodated within the environment then the participants are encouraged to seek out multiple perspectives. / Ph. D.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/38765 |
| Date | 11 July 2007 |
| Creators | Potts, Ann D. |
| Contributors | Teaching and Learning, Lalik, Rosary V., Garrison, James W., Moore, Sandra J., Murphy, Susan B., Niles, Jerome A., Stremmel, Andrew J. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation, Text |
| Format | xi, 391 leaves, BTD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | OCLC# 35286267, LD5655.V856_1996.P688.pdf |
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