Becoming a reflective community of practice

Abstract

This paper explores the collaborative research relationship among a faculty of education, district school board and a teacher’s self‐regulatory body. Each group possessed different objectives; however, all agreed that reflection, teacher inquiry and standards of practice would unite their research journey. These educators’ awareness of ‘reflective’ inquiry grounded their project in the belief that personal professional narratives can reflect and address the challenges of teaching. With a strong focus on narrative and associated narrative‐activities such as narrative discussion and narrative‐writing as qualitative research tools, these educators deepened their own reflection on practice, and eventually gained insights that led to transformations in their teaching. Over 200 teachers were involved. The implications of this partnership exceeded the writers’ initial purpose and revealed the importance of reflective teaching in a community of inquiry. This project reminded the writers that professional learning is at the center of practice and teacher educators who engage in ongoing processes to refine their teaching will be better able to support classroom teachers in refining their professional practice.