The Role of a Professional Learning Community for STEM Teacher Educators (Poster 4)

• In Event: Research on STEM Professional Learning Communities: Attending to Teacher Learning, Agency, and Equity

Abstract

Objectives
Research has widely documented the pivotal role that PLCs play in K-12 education (Hord, 2009). Yet, PLCs are rare in higher education. As a group of teacher educators (TEs) striving to promote equitable STEM learning environments, we formed a PLC to support one another in grappling with conducting equity work in sociopolitically contested times. Here, we ask: How did our PLC interactions provide support and open up learning opportunities for us, particularly in moments when preservice teachers (PSTs) expressed resistance to our instructional objectives?

Theoretical perspective
Drawing on K-12 PLC research that highlights the sociocultural nature of teacher learning (Horn & Garner, 2022) and the effectiveness of collaborative, nonjudgmental, inquiry-oriented learning spaces (Horn & Little, 2010), we argue that PLCs in higher education are especially critical, as TEs striving to foster equitable and just teaching practices often find themselves working in isolation with little to no institutional support. We conceptualize PLCs for TEs as humanizing spaces serving to refine educators’ praxis and pedagogies through collective sensemaking, empathy, and solidarity (Allen et al., 2022).

Methods
Our PLC grew organically as we sought space to reflect on tensions we experienced in our efforts to support secondary STEM PSTs to develop asset-based orientations and enact responsive, equitable instruction. Using discourse analysis, we examine how we took up and responded to one another’s vexations in our PLC, and what learning opportunities these interactions afforded.

Data Sources
We draw on a wide range of data from our PLC interactions over one semester, including video- and audio-recorded debriefs, emails, and field notes. Here, we focus on two debrief sessions that took place after a highly-charged class meeting that raised vexations and pushback from PSTs, and draw on the larger dataset to contextualize our findings.

Findings
Analysis revealed that our PLC interactions focused on highly emotional work. Debrief conversations raised multiple tensions, frustrations, and vexations, stemming from our desire to be responsive to PSTs’ concerns while also holding on to our commitment to supporting PSTs’ uptake of equitable STEM teaching. Reflecting on PSTs’ resistance required us to share vulnerabilities about our own teaching and uncertainties about next instructional moves. For us, our PLC served as an act of empowerment and agency, disrupting power hierarchies among our group and fostering a deep sense of solidarity in our efforts to teach for justice. Our PLC helped us stay accountable to our commitments and values as we advocated for a view of teaching and learning as a humanizing and dignity-affirming endeavor.

Significance
This study contributes novel insights regarding interactional dynamics within a PLC for TEs. By naming and characterizing these dynamics and their affordances, we offer an evolving framework for cultivating productive PLCs for TEs where they can become more reflective and agentic in their practice, context, and positionalities (Rodriguez et al., 2024; Tolbert et al., 2018). We hope this work informs and inspires other TEs to cultivate PLCs that foster agency, liberation, and justice in education, especially in places where such work is contested for teachers and teacher educators alike.

Authors

• Lama Ziad Jaber, Florida State University

• Carla Finkelstein, Towson University

• Shannon G. Davidson, University of Alabama

• Allison T. Metcalf, Florida State University