Embodiment, Professional Collaboration, and Teacher Learning

• In Event: Roundtable Session 96
  In Roundtable Session: Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Curriculum, Research, Moral Education

Abstract

In this paper I highlight the significance of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s contribution for the study of teacher learning. I particularly draw on his notion of embodiment to show that professional knowledge is embodied knowledge and that teachers make sense of their professional world through their intentional action. In light of these ideas I offer a reinterpretation of some studies of in-service teacher learning and contrast my interpretation with a professional learning model that has been influential in the Canadian and U.S. contexts. I indicate that this model would benefit from questioning the nature of professional practices in education

Author

• Augusto Riveros, University of Alberta