| This dissertation describes a qualitative study of teachers' learning within peer-initiated professional development. It documents a study group called a Teachers' Learning Community (TLC). The TLC was formed by a small group of elementary teachers working in the town of Coopville (pseudonym). These teachers were responsible for the education of two children from a Chinese immigrant family. Prompted by the specific challenge of teaching English Language Learners (ELL's) anticipating increased diversity in their school and community in the future, and charged by the Federal "No Child Left Behind Act," to teach all learners to high standards, the teachers' participation in TLC was the subject of participant observation research. The research reported in this dissertation found that teachers learned about and reflected on how best to teach English Language Learners and support their learning of English language and literacy as a function of their participation in TLC activities as well as in unanticipated extensions of these activities into their classrooms, wider school community, and town.;This study created opportunities to investigate the group's ongoing interactions as well as to trace individual teacher's experiences. As a qualitative study of teacher learning, the research applied methods of ethnographic research including the framing and testing of working hypotheses or inferences about local meaning; and testing these by means of triangulation of evidence from diverse data sources. Additionally, in an iterative process called grounded theory development, the research proceeded both inductively and deductively. Reporting the research using both narrative vignettes as the major documentation method and the writer's interpretations of meaning, the study provides an opportunity to learn about participating teachers' awareness, understanding, attitudes, and practical modification and how these are expressed and potentially transformed by means of TLC's peer-led professional development activities. Therefore, the dissertation explores the research questions: What and how did the Coopville teachers learn to engage the Chinese immigrant children to their classroom activities in the TLC contexts?... |
