Exploring collaborative interaction and self-direction in Teacher Learning Teams: case-studies from a middle-income country analysed using Vygotskian theory

ABSTRACT

This article explores teachers’ learning from a Vygotskian perspective, which emphasises collaborative interaction and self-direction. The article describes case-studies of three senior teachers in socio-economically disadvantaged Egyptian primary schools where collaboration and self-direction were systemically discouraged. It analyses how, through a teacher development intervention, the teachers learned to use collaborative interaction to support their own learning and felt more creative, authoritative and powerful after being guided to exercise self-direction.

KEYWORDS:

• collaborative interaction
• self-direction
• Egyptian system
• teacher learning teams
• Vygotsky’s theories of learning and development

Acknowledgments

Many thanks are due to the senior teachers who allowed us to research their practice over the course of the Intervention. Thanks are also due to Prof. Alex Moore and Dr. John Hardcastle for their very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Education Development Trust.