Teachers’ collaborative learning – development of teaching in group discussions

Abstract

Teacher learning and the development of in-service education for teachers are both an active area of research and a broad challenge. In working as teachers, theory and practice are often seen as divided, or problems in teaching and the requirements of development are solved on the basis of experience. This study focuses on collaborative teacher learning as part of an in-service education course that supports teachers in connecting learning theories with practical knowledge and that aims to create new knowledge and practices for teaching. The starting points for the study are the changes of the curriculum and theories of learning. The aim is to analyse developing of teaching in teachers’ collaborative group discussions and how the theoretical knowledge of learning theories is connected with developing teaching practices. The research method of the study was data driven, systematic and qualitative analysis of the content of the discussion. The research data consist of video recorded group discussions of two teacher teams from the in-service education course meeting. The analysis focused on developing talk and further, on finding interconnections between the developing talk and the theories of learning. The analysis shows three different ways how the learning theories emerged in method developing talk. The findings indicate that theoretical knowledge can be used or left unused and imply that creating and changing teaching practices is challenging. However, the findings show that theoretical, research-based knowledge on learning theories can be applied to developing teaching practices in the teachers’ collaborative knowledge creation process. Long-term in-service education based on collaborative knowledge creation and supporting the interconnection of theoretical knowledge of learning and experience knowledge of teaching is a promising way to arrange and develop in-service education.

Keywords:

• in-service teacher education
• collaboration
• learning theories
• teaching practice

Acknowledgements

The present study has been supported by The Finnish Doctoral Programme in Education and Learning (FiDPEL) and Elli Suninen-Rachel Troberg Foundation. I would also like to thank P. Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, T. Tuomi-Gröhn and P. Korvela for their valuable comments on a draft of this article and M. Hölttä for assistance with figures.

Notes

The names of the teachers in displayed citations are changed.

1. I use the term developing talk instead of e.g. development talk to emphasize active developing that happens during an episode.