Teacher transformation: Creating texts and contexts in study groups

Abstract

This ethnographic study describes events and interactions that occurred between a group of teachers involved in a Teachers' Study Group in order to examine the process of transformation and essential transformative conditions. Data collected over a two year period includes field notes from participant observation, audio tape transcriptions, video-tapes, interviews, and written reflections by teachers and the researcher. An analysis of reflective dialogue and assessments by participants determined the transformations, the process of transformative learning that occurred for the participants and the formation of the collective group. Findings from an integrative analysis of discourse determined transformative events and conditions which were socially constructed and facilitated the transformation of individual teachers and the group as a whole. The paradigms underlying research and implementation models on teacher learning and change was examined and challenged. Two major directions were taken in this study. First, the transformation of an individual teacher as she engaged in inquiry through the cyclical progressions of the study group process is presented in a case study. This case study focuses on the construction of meanings and ideologies and the internalization of these meanings and their effects on learning, change and transformation for the teacher. Second, the process of transformation within the context of the study group is explored. This is presented as a case study which examines the transformation of the group showing how the participants constructed "transformative social events" whereby they could "live" and experience transformative learning through critical personal and collective reflection. The data suggests that transformative learning occurs through the process of face-to-face interaction between participants (teachers and researcher) in social contexts designed for the purpose of reflection, learning, and change. In order to understand the process of transformation, it is essential to examine the interrelationship between context and activities that participants use to constitute the culturally, socially, and historically organized social worlds they inhabit. From this view the relationship between context and product (ie. language) is considered a process that emerges and changes. Participants are situated within contexts which are capable of rapid and dynamic change as the event they are engaged in unfold.