Narrative Inquiry Of Teachers' Growth From The Perspective Of Expansive Learning

With the acceleration of globalization,the communication between different cultures is becoming more and more frequent,which also brings great challenges and opportunities to education.How to improve teachers' competence and growth to adapt to the new trend of inter-cultural cooperation has also become one of the focuses of academia.In China,inter-cultural cooperative projects intended for teachers' growth is also growing day by day.The increase of projects makes it easier for teachers to study abroad.However,problem has also emerged as the cost is too high and university teachers occupy most of the support.It is worth exploring a cost-effective and convenient way to achieve cooperation among teachers from different cultures at the stage of basic education.Therefore,Reciprocal Learning in Teacher Education and School Education between Canada and China came into being.Shanghai Minzhu Primary School and Toronto Senrui School(both are pseudonyms)have become sister schools for a seven-year reciprocal cooperation since 2013.The participating teachers of the two schools have become sister teachers and conducted reciprocal learning in daily life,which has brought magnificent benefits.With the reciprocal learning project as the background,under the guidance of narrative inquiry methodology,from the theoretical perspective of expansive learning,the research takes an international conference as the key event,and takes the teachers of the two schools participating in the reciprocal learning project as the research objects,to explore the influence of inter-cultural reciprocal learning on the teachers' growth.The core question of this research is: How do sister teachers achieve growth in intercultural reciprocal learning? The branch questions are: 1.How do sister teachers narrate their gains? 2.How do sister teachers reflect on their learning? 3.How do teachers respond to the challenges posed by various voices? 4.What is their understanding of education in China and Canada? 5.How to understand and analyse teachers' growth from individual and collective perspectives? The author is not only a researcher but also a project assistant,who has collected materials through participatory observation,literature analysis and interviews.This research consists of six chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which introduces the research background,research questions and significance,and the definition of core concepts.The literature review focuses on the influence of intercultural learning on teachers' growth.The second chapter consists of the research methodology of narrative inquiry,the theoretical perspective of expansive learning,research design with the picture showing the framework and research ethics.The third chapter includes the important background,namely Minzhu Primary School in China and Senrui School in Canada,the relationship between the research objects and the research objects.With narrative inquiry as methodology,the fourth chapter tells the "story" of the "last" international conference,which is a key event.By telling sister teachers' experience of participating in the conference in a narrative way,this chapter describes in detail the arrangement and schedule of the conference before,during and after it happens,shows sister teachers' self-reflection with conference reports,describes how they deal with the challenges posed by different voices,records the practice and discussion of cooperative teaching and further cooperation after the conference,in response to the first four branch questions raised in the first chapter.The fifth chapter is the analysis of teachers' growth in inter-cultural reciprocal learning,in response to the last branch question.The last chapter is the conclusion,sorting out the difficulties in the reciprocal learning project and putting forward relevant suggestions to promote the growth of teachers.The research findings cover two parts.1.From the individual perspective,the influence of inter-cultural reciprocal learning on teachers' growth includes the influence on teachers' professional development and personal growth.In terms of teachers' professional development,the collision of eastern and western educational thoughts has promoted the development of teachers' consciousness,the understanding of the similarities and differences of education between the two countries has promoted the accumulation of knowledge,and the integration of eastern and western teaching practice has reflected the improvement of teachers' practice.In terms of teachers' personal growth,inter-cultural reciprocal learning promotes the improvement of teachers' inter-cultural literacy and the establishment of inter-cultural friendship.2.The analysis of teachers' growth at the collective level relies on the theory of expansive learning.From the perspective of expansive learning,the process of teachers' growth is the process of teachers' expansive learning.Minzhu Primary School and Senrui School have respectively formed their own activity systems and formed an activity system network through inter-cultural reciprocal learning.The research discovers that the subjects of learning are the teachers in the inter-cultural learning activity system of Minzhu Primary School,the teachers in the inter-cultural learning activity system of Senrui School,and the two school activity systems themselves.The contradiction of "inter-culture" is the main driving force of learning.The content of learning is how the two schools construct their own inter-cultural learning activity systems and shared networks,and how to expand the shared objects in the two schools' activity system networks.The process of learning is from abstract to concrete.Sister teachers can continuously expand the connotation of the shared object of "teachers' growth through inter-cultural reciprocal learning" through one after another practice in the form of expansive learning cycle,which is accompanied by the interweaving of multiple voices and the crossing of cultural boundaries,and finally achieve the movement in the zone of proximal development.