Learning With and From Each Other: Professional Learning Communities as Spaces for Studying Our Teaching

• In Event: The Role of Practice, Rehearsal, and Inquiry in Apprenticing Preservice Teachers to Professional Practice

Abstract

This study investigated how prospective teachers engaged in professional learning communities, composed of their peers and teacher educators, to explore/problematize their practice(s) and their effects on student learning. Prospective teachers videotaped and analyzed their practice to learn how the discourses/contexts in which they are/were situated influenced their teaching and learning. Findings indicate that videotaping promoted prospective teachers’ reflection-on-action, as they noticed issues of practice not previously visible to them. Their development of the knowledge and skills required to analyze/resolve what they noticed were profoundly influenced by the contexts in which they are/were situated and how they discursively positioned themselves and others. Implications for teacher education programs with regard to creating spaces for studying teaching are discussed.

Authors

• Sharon B. Hayes, West Virginia University

• Johnna Bolyard, West Virginia University

• Sarah Selmer, West Virginia University

• Ugur Kale, West Virginia University