Enacting a Vision of Teacher Education by Developing a Common Interpretive Zone

Abstract

This collaborative self-study explores the co-construction of professional teacher education knowledge through mentoring, framed within the notion of working in an interpretive zone. The study is set in a learning community established in a college of education where Ilana was the head of the elementary department and Edith served as a new clinical supervisor. Using data collected from electronic correspondence, this self-study illustrates the co-construction of our knowledge of practice in two ways: (1) the development of our personal perceptions through self-study of reciprocal relationships, conversations, and active attempts to improve our teacher education practices; and (2) the impact of working collaboratively in the interpretive zone as a source of expanding learning, changing the curriculum, and initiating new activities. The development of our professional self-understanding occurred by reframing knowledge of practice as conflicts, using them to evaluate and reconstruct experience, and performing transitional actions on the boundaries between dominant and new activities.

Keywords:

• collaboration
• learning community
• mentoring
• interpretive zone
• conflicts
• activity theory