Learning Opportunities in Collaborative Pre-K Teacher Workgroups

• In Event: Teacher Knowledge and Workplace Learning

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the learning opportunities afforded to pre-kindergarten teachers through their participation in collaborative workgroups. Using communities of practice theory (Wenger, 1998), we analyze group members’ modes of participation and use of conceptual resources. We identified three primary modes of participation—interpersonal management, validation, and collective reasoning—and examined how these modes differentially promoted or inhibited learning opportunities. We also found that workgroups varied in how they took up conceptual resources aligned with the PD and that some groups’ participation and use of resources evolved over the year. By foregrounding group processes rather than individual outcomes, we support a more thorough understanding of precisely how collaboration may or may not bolster educators’ enactment of new instructional practices.

Authors

• Kathryn Boonstra, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Helen Rose Miesner, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin

• Mary Elizabeth (Beth) Graue, University of Wisconsin - Madison