‘Let’s focus on us’: recounting educators’ facilitation practices in improving collaborative commitments of learner-teachers during an action research course

ABSTRACT

This article explores situations for improving the collaborative commitments of a group of learner-teachers undertaking action research projects about their own learning processes in a teacher education setting. The encounters are recounted based on the 16-week experience of educators (the first two authors) while facilitating, guiding, and supporting an action research course offered at a college of education for senior undergraduate learner-teachers in Eritrea in the academic year 2018–2019. We have employed the theory of practice architectures to identify conditions that constituted our facilitation practices. We analysed transcriptions of our practice-based series of discussions and course artefacts, including diary entries, learner-teachers’ action research reports, and interactions on the WhatsApp group page created for the course. Problematizing processes of learning, proactive guidance approaches, and modelling collaborative initiatives were among the facilitation practices that we argue have significantly influenced the collaborative commitments of the learners in their action research projects. We also discuss the implications of our facilitation practices that sought to model the qualitatively loaded terms that constitute the course, i.e. collaboration, action, and research. Some implications for teacher education practices are highlighted.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaborative action research
• teacher educators
• learner-teachers
• practice architectures
• Eritrea

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. According to guidelines of the higher education in the country, a credit hour is the value in time allotted to cover teaching a course in duration of one hour per week for a period of a semester. One semester is equivalent to 16 weeks.

2. Before the restructuring of higher education in the country in 2018.

3. Affiliated with the Ministry of Education.

4. The course design is annexed with this article for reference.

5. All five authors.

6. CoE CAR 2018/19 BiolEduIVgroupWhatsApp page

7. Groups were inviting the first two authors during their weekend discussions at informal settings to discuss their projects and/or take part in their action research projects as participant interviewees.