Windows on Teacher Learning: Emotion in View

• In Event: Situated Pedagogical Decision Making

Abstract

This qualitative case study explores the learning experiences of two first-grade teachers who inquired into their literacy instruction practices within their respective reading-workshops. Interviews, inquiry conversations, and classroom observations supported an examination of the nature of teachers’ learning experiences related to their literacy instruction practices.

Affective considerations in learning were a significant finding within this study, adding dimensionality to a particular sociocultural theory of learning. The ways teachers felt about themselves, their students, their community, and their work constituted a significant influence on what they said and did, as demonstrated on community, interpersonal, and individual planes of analysis. Documenting teachers’ learning lives thus implies the importance of affect in learning, demanding attention to its role in professional development.

Author

• Susanna M. Steeg, George Fox University