Studying Teachers’ Attempts at Change Through Narrative Inquiry

• In Event: Understanding Change Within Discussions of Mathematics Teacher Professional Learning Communities: Methodological Frameworks

Abstract

This paper highlights the use of narrative inquiry in studying mathematics teacher change in the context of participation in a collaborative action research group. Teachers read and discussed national recommendations disseminated through Focus in High School Mathematics: Reasoning and Sense Making (NCTM, 2009) and tested them in their practice. The focus of this paper is on the ways that narrative inquiry guided examination of transcripts of teachers’ group conversations, an important source of data to inform the narratives of their experience.

The research question guiding this study was, “What are the experiences of mathematics teachers as they attempt to align their teaching with recommendations through action research?” A strength of narrative inquiry lies in its ability to convey the meaning of an experience such that the reader can experience it vicariously (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Studying teacher change through narrative inquiry illuminates the complexity of the process of change, an aspect often underexamined in existing research on teacher change.

Narrative analysis was conducted through emplotment and narrative configuration (Polkinghorne, 1995), a process involving a synthesis of data sources to uncover the plot of the experience. While many data sources informed analysis, the transcripts of teachers’ conversations at group meetings were a particularly insightful form of data. Teacher discussions captured the complexity of teacher change in the midst of aligning their practice with NCTM recommendations. I analyzed conversations by coding according to the five categories of the experience framed by research sub-questions: contextual information, conceptions of reasoning and sense making, actions taken in practice, challenges, successes, and teachers’ interpretations. I organized excerpts pertaining to each teacher by category, then reviewed them and tested against other data sources until recurring themes and connections were identified. In the construction of narratives, I relied heavily on teachers’ quotes in order to maintain the voice of teachers and keep their perspectives central.

Discussions revealed teachers’ understandings of the recommendations for reasoning and sense making, as well as the aspects that held meaning in the context of their teaching. As teachers took actions to align their practice with recommendations, discussions centered on teachers’ developing goals, the challenges encountered, and successes. Teachers shared stories to illustrate the challenges and successes they experienced. For example, a common concern was students’ resistance to efforts to engage them in reasoning and sense making. “We are fighting a decade’s worth of ingrained math,” said one teacher after sharing examples that his students were well practiced at learning mathematics without reasoning and sense making. Throughout the collaboration, teachers’ talk illuminated the in-progress issues and concerns that teachers shared with each other.

This work is significant because examining teachers’ conversations as they engage in making changes sheds light on of the complexity of their experiences. This paper offers methodological guidance on a narrative approach to analysis of group conversations, suggesting the potential to learn about teachers’ in-progress concerns. An understanding of the complexity of teachers’ experiences engaging in change is informative to the design and facilitation of professional development.

Author

• Lindsay Keazer, Michigan State University