Teacher Learning as Group Composition: Thinking With the Theater Arts

• In Event: Instructional and Technological Innovations in Education

Abstract

This cross-professional study investigates teacher learning groups within schools. It addresses two critical problems associated with learning groups: (1) What are the products of teacher learning group activity? and (2) How does activity within the groups promote composition of these products? It exploits contemporary theater-arts practices that promote collaborative creativity to create an analytical framework for teacher learning group activity. Applying the framework to three elementary school teacher learning groups, it identifies a range of resources produced within the groups, including instructional strategies, analytical categories, and inquiry questions, and factors that contribute to or constrain the development of such resources, including coherence of purpose, use of structures, and mode of interaction. It identifies implications for learning about practice across professions.

Author

• David Allen, College of Staten Island - CUNY