Investigating co-learning: A life history of a classroom, focusing on meaning-making, relationship and knowledge production

This qualitative study revolves around practice that is informed by theory, and theory that is tested out in practice. The principal belief behind this study is that a learning group is a dynamic, sociocultural entity. When examined through this author's lens, this dynamic energy and social-cultural mix of people necessitates a vision of learning that accommodates the learners. The focus of the study concerns a concept named "a practice of co-learning". This practice has been developing throughout the author's teaching/learning career.;The purpose of this study is to probe what happens when a "teacher" consciously declares herself to be a "learner" amongst learners and determines to co-establish a learning environment based on relationships that have traditionally held families and communities together: trust, respect, hope, love, caring, acceptance, self-responsibility, humour, compassion, critical awareness and the sharing of decision-making, power, control and authority. The study involves an investigation into the researcher's practice, where adults, who live in a rural community, are returning to school (a division of a college of applied arts and technology) in order to achieve the necessary academic requirements for either work or further academic studies.;Both the practice and the methodology of co-learning have become templates for one another: they collide, interweave and challenge each other. The collection of insights uses three streams of qualitative methodology: action research (Carr & Kemmis, 1986), life-history (Plummer, 1983) and participatory research (Brown & Tandon, 1983). The insights are presented in lengthy transcripts in order to allow the potential for the reader to become involved in the daily life of a classroom, to appreciate the moment to moment challenges that a practitioner moves through in her daily decision-making processes, and to keep research into learning within an on-going social framework.;The final chapter both investigates how research can inform practice and vice versa and further probes the practice of co-learning from within the interactions of co-participants.