A complex dynamic systems perspective on teacher learning and identity formation: an instrumental case

ABSTRACT

Scholars have called for new conceptualisations of teachers’ learning that capture the complex, contextualised, and dynamic nature of professional growth. In this article, we describe the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) that portrays teacher learning as inseparable from the complex and dynamic processes by which teachers form their professional identities. The model depicts theoretical and procedural learning about teaching as integrated with other ontological and epistemological beliefs, self-perceptions and self-definitions, purpose and goals in teaching, and perceived action possibilities that constitute the teacher’s professional role identity. After describing the DSMRI, we demonstrate its application with an instrumental case of a science teacher who participated in a professional development (PD) institute designed to foster learning and motivation for implementing student-centred, inquiry-based instruction. DSMRI-guided analysis of pre-, mid-, and post-institute interviews highlighted the role of pre-PD role identities of learner and teacher in the teacher’s PD experiences, which, in turn, fostered both new alignments and new tensions in the teacher’s role identity that promoted an overall change towards a more student-centred teacher role identity. The article demonstrates the utility of the DSMRI for conceptualising teachers’ learning as contextualised and dynamic identity formation processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher learning
• identity processes
• complexity theory
• professional development
• reform-oriented teaching

Notes

1. The description of the DSMRI is inevitably limited by the scope of this article. The interested reader should consult Kaplan and Garner (2017) for a more extensive elaboration of the models’ assumptions, features, and mechanisms.

2. This report focuses on demonstrating the use of the DSMRI.

3. Pseudonym.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joanna K. Garner

Dr. Joanna Garner is a Research Associate Professor and the Executive Director of The Center for Educational Partnerships at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Her complex systems approach to design-based research on educators’ learning, motivation, and identity formation and change forms an integral component of the Center’s collaborations across the university, in schools, and in informal educational contexts. Garner is an active member of the American Educational Research Association and is a past Section Editor for The Journal of Experimental Education.

Avi Kaplan

Dr. Avi Kaplan is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia. His research interests focus on motivation and identity development, with a particular interest in the role of the environment in these processes. His recent research involves the application of the Complex Dynamic Systems approach to identity and motivation, and the use of collaborative design-based interventions for promoting educators’ and students’ motivation and identity exploration around the curriculum. His recent publications include chapters in the 2012 APA Educational Psychology Handbook on the application of motivation theory to educational practice, and in the 2016 Handbook of Motivation at School on learning environments and motivation, and special issues in the Educational Psychologist and in Contemporary Educational Psychology on identity formation and motivation. Avi is a Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Eastern Psychological Association. He is also the current Editor of the Journal of Experimental Education, and serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Educational Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, and The Educational Psychologist.