Teacher Agency and Collaboration in U.S. In-Service Teacher Development

• In Event: Developing Quality Teachers: International Insights From Europe, the United States, and Hong Kong

Abstract

Objectives
Research illustrates the value of creating learning opportunities for teachers that are designed around teacher collaboration (e.g. Babinski, Amendum, Knotek, Sánchez, & Malone, 2018; Martin-Beltran & Peercy, 2014). Research also shows that teacher agency is a critical factor in translating successful professional development into classroom practice (Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Riveros, Newton, & Burgess, 2012). However, teacher agency is generally understudied and undertheorized (Biesta, Priestley & Robinson, 2015; Priestley, Biesta & Robinson 2015; Riveros, Newton, & Burgess, 2012) and as such may not be sufficiently understood to impact teacher learning practices across national contexts. This study examines teacher collaboration and agency further in a U.S. professional learning program with already documented popularity and strong learning outcomes among the teacher participants (Viesca, Dray, & Leech, 2017). Specifically, we seek to impact theorizations and understandings of teacher collaboration and agency in professional learning in sufficiently complex ways as to be relevant across varied national contexts by asking:
• What aspects of teacher agency and collaboration do teachers identify as impactful to their learning?
• What relationships do teachers’ perceptions of agency and collaboration in the professional learning program appear to have with their learning outcomes (both self-reported and assessed through pre-post surveys)?
Conceptual Framework
This study draws on recent research (e.g., Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2015) that suggests a more complex and ecological definition of teacher agency. We see teacher agency not as something the teacher has, but rather something she does (Biesta, Priestly, & Robinson 2015), and that doing is an emergent phenomenon of the teacher and her assemblage—that is, agency is not an individual phenomenon, but is collective and distributed, and encompasses both human and nonhuman elements (Strom & Viesca, 2019), including learning in collaboration with other teachers.

Methods
We analyzed pre-post survey data on the Beliefs about Multilingualism in Schools Survey (Hammer, Fischer, & Koch-Priewe, 2016), an instrument originally developed in German and Germany, but translated for use in the US in English (N = 380) and responses to both Likert scale and open ended question on the Learning Activities Survey (LAS, King, 2009) (N = 760), a questionnaire completed by participants at the end of their participation in a professional development eWorkshop.

Results
Pre-post survey data illustrated statistically significant growth. Principal factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted to assess the underlying structure for the 18 LAS items regarding aspects of the eWorkshop and their impact on learning. Teacher agency and collaboration emerged as salient to teacher learning in the eWorkshop. Elements of agency included selecting learning materials to engage with and using guiding questions to inform learning decisions. Elements of teacher collaboration included planning, discussing, and sharing ideas and work with colleagues. Open-ended LAS responses illustrated teacher leadership as also salient as well as intricately connected to agency and collaboration.

Scholarly Significance
Complex, but expansively investigated and theorized understandings of teacher collaboration and agency as offered in our full paper, can and should inform professional learning approaches across varied cultural and linguistic contexts.

Author

• Kara Mitchell Viesca, University of Nebraska - Lincoln