Knowledge construction in a teachers' community of enquiry: a possible road map

Abstract

This action research is targeted at academic researchers who facilitate the construction of communities of enquiry in school–university partnerships and are interested in understanding the process of such an enterprise as well as the knowledge constructed within such communities. Our action research study provides a possible road map for such a project, indicating the interrelationships between teachers’ changing conceptions of knowledge, their emerging views of collegiality and their transforming sense of identity. It reflects patterns that emerged as we created a ‘big picture’ of the change process in which the relationships among these constructs are dynamic and mutually influential. This study offers implications for studying communities of enquiry as mechanisms for knowledge construction. Most importantly, it requires that researchers construct a relationship of mutuality between the teachers’ research and their own action research. Such a relationship will enable them to understand the teachers’ difficulties, to design and implement a plan for helping them overcome these difficulties and, finally, to reflect dialectically on that process.

Keywords:

• Action research
• Partnership
• Professional knowledge
• Relationality
• Teacher identity

Notes

1. An experimental school is a school that experiments with new learning environments. The experiment is funded by the Ministry of Education for a period of five years at the end of which the school is expected to mentor other schools in developing novel learning environments.