| In this study, I explore the experiences of two beginning teachers: Tim, a Grade 5 teacher who participated in the study for two years (1990-1992) and Benita, a substitute teacher who participated in the study for one year (1991-1992). Adopting Clandinin's conceptualization of personal practical knowledge (1986) and Connelly and Clandinin's notion of a professional knowledge context (1990), the work centres on how professional context knowledge becomes a part of beginning teachers' personal practical knowledge. It examines the connections beginning teachers make between their personal knowledge and the professional knowledge contexts of schools.;Drawing from the narrative whole of the telling stories collections, I present two research stories, "the healthy school" and "the good teacher," which illustrate the experiences of the beginning teachers in their professional knowledge contexts and describe how their knowledge shapes and is shaped in context. By weaving through these stories, I offer the conceptualization of knowledge communities as a way of making sense of how beginning teachers come to know professional knowledge in their professional knowledge contexts. Knowledge communities are conceptualized as groups of two or more people who meaningfully associate with one another, people with whom the beginning teachers' story and restory their narratives of experience. The people in each of the beginning teachers' knowledge communities are presented and attributes of knowledge communities are discussed. The conceptualization of knowledge communities lodged within professional knowledge contexts is presented as a way to crystallize how professional knowledge becomes a part of beginning teachers' personal practical knowledge.;"Telling stories," a form of narrative inquiry which I use, builds on Clandinin's work (1986). Telling stories is a methodology where data is represented as a series of stories which the participants and the researcher have constructed separately and then exchanged with each other. The stories are crafted from data collected in shared conversations, participant observation sessions, letters, and journal entries. These fine-grained accounts of beginning teaching experience, along with my and the beginning teachers' responses to them, form a large part of the study. |
