Search results for "Learning community."

Etude qualitative sur les représentations expertes du social et mobile learning

2013

Exploring Teachers' Motivation for Teaching and Professional Development in Ethiopia : Voices from the Field

2015

Teachers’ work, learning, and professional development are central to any effort aiming at improving schools. Consequently, teachers must consider themselves as a lifelong learner, engage in continuous professional learning and apply that learning to improve student learning and achievement. This article explores teachers’ motivation for teaching and professional development in secondary schools in Ethiopia. Data were collected via interviews and focus group discussions from 32 teachers. The analysis of the collected information revealed low salary and the absence of link between performance and reward as major motivational challenges for teachers. The identified motivational challenges wer…

Towards a learning community: understanding teachers’ mental models to support their professional development and learning

2021

Amidst societal, demographic and educational changes, teachers are expected to engage in professional development and learning (PDL) throughout their careers. This study explores school teachers’ mental models about their work in the framework of Senge’s learning organisation, aiming to support their PDL during curriculum reform and organisational changes. The study’s data comprise 41 semi-structured interviews with each teacher in one school community. These interviews were analysed using qualitative, data-driven yet theory-informed content analysis. In the first analysis phase, fragments of mental models concerning teachers’ work and their school community were explored. These fragments i…

Professional mathematics teacher identity: analysis of reflective narratives from discourses and activities

2012

Published verson of an article in the journal: Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10857-012-9216-1 This article focuses on the methodological use of reflective narratives from discourses and activities of an experienced primary teacher as evidence of her professional identity. The teacher’s reflective narratives emerge from her participation in a 3-year developmental and research project, Learning Communities in Mathematics, conducted at the University of Agder (UiA) in Norway. As background for our study, we firstly present the teacher in action with her sixth-grade pupils in a mathematics lesson, and then analyse sele…

Students’ Experiences of Reflective Writing as a Tool for Learning in Physiotherapy Education

2015

The purpose of this study was to examine physiotherapy students’ experiences of reflective writing. The students (n = 32) were asked to video record their practical activities at school and at workplaces, and to write reflective journals on their experiences. The research data about students’ experiences of reflective writing were collected by interviewing the students. The data were analyzed phenomenographically. The findings revealed four qualitatively different experiences of reflective writing: 1) writing as a useless task; 2) writing as a tool for deepening understanding; 3) writing as a tool for self-reflection; and 4) writing as a tool for professional development. These categories d…

School Staff-centered School Development by Communicative Action: Working Methods for Creating Collective Responsibility - From the Idea to Action

2020

School development is often seen as a concerted (re-)action to educational policies, curriculum development, and change in education laws or regulations, and sometimes, as stakeholders’ reactions to low school performance. Generally, school development incorporates organizational, managerial, and educational activities and measures. This is done to adapt to the new situation to achieve the desired changes and goals initiated by a given curriculum reform. In contrast, this paper focuses on school staff–driven development: It describes how teachers together with paraprofessionals contribute to school-development. Using collective responsibility creating working methods of communication, the e…

Understanding teachers’ mental models of collaboration to enhance the learning community

2022

This study examined representations of Finnish basic education teachers’ mental models of collaboration to reveal the background features that enable or hinder changes in a school community and teacher collaboration. In this case study, we explored 41 teachers’ mental models of collaboration in a one-school community to identify and understand the features that enhance or challenge collaboration. The findings raise the question of how collaboration can support a school’s transition to a unified comprehensive school, when teachers are accustomed to working alone with a strong sense of autonomy and diverse mental models of collaboration. The findings revealed that collaboration is mainly limi…

Agentic perspective on fostering work-related learning

2017

Despite the increased recognition of the role that professional agency plays in work-related learning, little is known about what supports it. Based on current theoretical notions, the first purpose of this paper is to show that professional agency is closely intertwined with work-related learning. The second purpose is to introduce some main principles that promote professional agency and describe three work-related training settings that are aimed at fostering learning by taking into account agentic perspectives. These complementary settings include an identity coaching programme, a leadership coaching programme, and a work conference. Based on the qualitative meta-synthesis, the paper fu…