The Role of Collegial Interactions in the Experiences of First-Year Teachers: A Spatial Perspective

• In Event: 67.030 - In This Thing Together? Exploring Educators' Collaboration and Collegiality

Abstract

This paper focuses on a subset of the first-year teaching experience related to socio-physical arrangement of space, school community, and new teachers’ collegial interactions therein. Many teachers have negative experiences in their first year, ultimately coming to conceive of teaching as an isolated craft. This can stifle learning and job satisfaction, causing high turnover of novices. This study employed a socio-physical spatial lens to explore new teachers’ interactions with colleagues throughout a full school year. By accounting for perspectives of new teachers – sometimes relegated to the margins of their school communities – this study found that the socio-physical arrangements of the school building influenced how the participants interacted with their colleagues and how they perceived their place within the school community.

Author

• Jessica Smagler, Teachers College, Columbia University