Impact of Collaborative Exploration of Problems of Practice on Teachers' Visions of Critical Dialogic Education

• In Event: Imagining a World Anew: Designing Teacher Education to Support Expansive Visions of Multilingual Learners

Abstract

Students most impacted by the currents of institutional power are often afforded the fewest opportunities to critically question those currents (Adair 2014). Critical dialogic education (CDE) (Kibler et al. 2021), which emphasizes learners and educators co-constructing knowledge around issues of social justice and interrogating inequitable power dynamics, represents a powerful tool for addressing this disconnect (Karam 2021; Kibler et al. 2021). CDE offers particular benefits for linguistically-minoritized learners, including those designated as students with interrupted formal education (SIFE). SIFE have still-developing heritage- and English-language literacy, limited experience in formal schools, and significant cultural and linguistic assets typically undervalued in American schools (DeCapua et al. 2009). CDE offers opportunities for SIFE to act as agents in leveraging their funds of knowledge to question and resist systems of oppression (Kibler et al 2021).
Teacher educators hoping to support teachers in enacting CDE cannot rely on traditional models of professional learning emphasizing development of decontextualized ‘best practices’ that privilege certain ways of knowing and being (Horn 2020). Rather, professional learning about complex pedagogies such as CDE must instead engage teachers as agentive practitioners refining pedagogical judgment to meet the needs of specific students (Horn & Garner 2022).
Professional learning that supports educators in striving towards their visions—the pedagogical ideals they hold for their classrooms (Duffy 2002)—may offer affordances for teacher educators highlighting CDE, as visions may empower educators to resist situational constraints that hinder their capacity to enact CDE (Vaughn 2014).
We describe here our partnership with four teachers of SIFE as they strive to enact and refine their visions of CDE through collaborative analysis of problems of practice. We ask: How does collaborative exploration of problems of practice impact educators’ visions of Critical Dialogic Education?
Over four hour-long sessions, these teachers were first introduced to the foundational principles of CDE and given time to construct their own visions of CDE, and then spent the remaining three sessions collaboratively analyzing problems of practice impeding the realization of those visions. Drawing on data from meeting recordings, interviews, and educators’ initial and final visions, we engaged in both inductive and deductive phases of analysis designed to identify how participants’ visions changed and the critical moments underlying those changes.
Perhaps the most important learning from this study is that visioning alongside collaborative exploration of problems of practice can powerfully impact educators’ focus on linguistic and cultural responsiveness, student agency, and equity. From the end of the first session to the fourth, educators’ visions showed immense growth in their focus on these elements. We can presume these changes were not due to the first session’s direct instruction, as participants wrote their original visions immediately following instruction; therefore, the key work underpinning this change seemed to be the interaction of visioning with collaborative exploration of problems of practice. This has significance for the work of teacher educators, who must interrogate how to shape professional learning experiences that support educator agency in meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse student populace within a restrictive educational environment.

Authors

• Heather M Meston, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author

• Emily Phillips Galloway, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author