A Case Study Of Teacher-Researcher Development In A Learning Community

Teacher learning and learning communities has been a hot topic of interest in the field of teacher education and development. Despite the bulk of studies exploring from multiple perspectives how such individual and community learning promotes teacher professional development, there exists a detachment of teachers’ individual learning from group interaction in the context of teacher learning communities. Particularly, there is not enough literature addressing the psychological aspect of teachers’ learning process mediated by social interaction in such learning communities.Guided by socio-cognitive theory, this narrative case study inquires into 10 College English teachers’ 18-month learning experiences in a Project-based, Administrationsupported, Researcher-guided and Teacher-oriented learning community(PART). Specifically, by focusing on the interaction between the teachers and their learning community, this study inquires into how this group of teachers actually learn to become teacher-researchers in the context of PART. Research questions guiding the study include:1) How do the teachers perceive their psychological and social learning experiences in PART?2) What changes and development do these teachers gain through their learning in PART?3) What factors facilitate or hinder their learning in PART?Research data are collected from multiple sources including in-depth interviews, observations, concept maps and case documents. Based on themes drawn from data coding and clustering, within-case and cross-case analyses, teacher-researcher development stories are used for presenting and discussing the findings. Meanwhile, this research uses Nvivo 9.0 qualitative data analysis software to facilitate the analysis of multiple sources of data. The major findings are the following:Firstly, the learning and development of the teachers in PART is realized in a two-way learning regulation process(psychological and social) mediated by three-dimensional dialogues between the teachers and their contexts. The two-way learning regulation process consists of two aspects(psychological and social) and three phases(forethought, volition or performance control and evaluation). In terms of the teachers’ psychological learning process, this research finds six psychological regulation strategies used in their learning process, namely, "group-efficacy" and "substitution" in the forethought phase, "appropriation" and "co-tasking" in the control phase, and "referential evaluation" and "adaptive reaction" in the evaluation phase. Meanwhile,in each of the three phases, teachers’ social interaction is realized by continuous dialogues in three different dimensions, namely, dialogues for knowledge between the teachers and their classroom-based research projects, dialogues for communication between the teachers and other members in the learning community as well as inner dialogues for self-reflection by teachers themselves. Based on the data analyses, the researcher constructs a two-way learning regulation process model that depicts how the psychological regulation and social interaction co-function for the teachers’ learning in PART.Secondly, as a result of the teachers’ learning in PART, the teachers’ growth into teacher-researchers is found to cover the following three aspects, namely, learning motivation, research capacity and professional identities. Firstly, the teachers’ learning motivation varies and demonstrates changes on three different levels. While most teachers maintain a sustainable high level of motivation, some demonstrate the high level with a downward trend, and a few show the persistent low level. Variations in levels of motivation changes are confirmed as a result of the interaction between teachers’ individual motivation and the context of PART. There also emerge positive changes in teachers’ research awareness and interest, research knowledge and competence, and research praxis, among which the change in their research awareness and interest is most obvious. Besides, in terms of professional identity, the teachers experience deep changes in their understanding of "self" and their teaching profession. As the teachers’ professional identities are constructed through the interations between the teachers and the context of PART, four different trajectories(peripheral engagement, preliminary development, full-fledged development and temporary deviation) eventually mark the different levels of growth of individual teachers as teacher-researchers in the learning community. All these changes and development demonstrate the growth of the teacher-researchers as a whole person in the learning process.Lastly, four categories of factors influencing teachers’ learning and development in the community are identified, including personal factors(previous research experiences, professional stages, interest and needs, family contexts, and personalities and ambitions), interpersonal factors, administration-level factors(assessment criteria and promotion system) and the factor of social cultural values(collective culture and interpersonal circles), among which the personal factors have the biggest impact. All factors function together to shape the teachers’ learning and development in PART.This study contributes to the field in the following three ways:Firstly, a two-way learning regulation process for PART is constructed on the basis of data analysis. While previous studies on teacher learning mostly focus either on the psychological aspect of individual learning or on the social aspect of group interaction, this study adopts a holistic approach guided by socio-cognitive theory to examine the interconnectedness between the above two aspects, which provides important implications for deepening the study on teacher learning and learning communities.Secondly, this study makes two important explorations of the qualitative research methods. One is the development of new tools of data collection such as concept maps and storyline graphs. The other is the integrated use of narrative inquiry and case study to examine the development of teachers as teacher-researchers, the process and outcome of which have promoted the growth of both parties.Lastly, the mode of the teacher-community interaction exemplified by PART contributes to the current community practice of teacher learning. PART lays emphasis on three-dimensional dialogues during the teacher learning process rather than on curriculum development or action research reported in the current literature. Therefore, PART practice has important implications for building up a collaborative culture as well as improving the effectiveness of teacher learning communities.