Learning Together: Constructing Knowledge in a Teacher Research Group.

As O'Donnell-Allen (2001) notes, teachers, like all learners, extend and expand their understanding of teaching through a variety of socially-mediated contexts. Teacher Research Groups (TRGs) provide one means of creating learning communities among teachers with the express purpose of systematically examining practice and enriching teachers' knowledge about learning and teaching (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; McLean & Mohr, 1999; O'Donnell-Allen, 2001; Wells, 2001b). These groups meet regularly, may be facilitated by a more experienced peer or university researcher, assist teachers with the development of research questions and methods, and support individual members as they work through the research process (Allen, Cary, & Delagado, 1995; O'Donnell-Allen, 2001). Their purpose is to engage teachers in ongoing reflection and inquiry with respect to practices grounded in teachers' immediate contexts. There has been little study, however, of the processes by which teachers learn in such groups or the ways teachers' participation contributes to their sense of agency (O'Donnell-Allen, 2004). This study examines the discourse of a teacher research group with a focus on the ways in which the teachers constructed knowledge through talk about theory and practice during three day-long meetings organized to support their research efforts. Through this investigation, we explore the role that TRGs can play in transforming teachers' knowledge and in developing teachers' agency. Theoretical Framework Teacher research comprises a broad range of systematic examinations of classroom practice conducted by teachers (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993). Not simply a means by which teachers might improve their teaching practice (although this might be an outcome of such research), teacher research "can lead to clarifications and enrichments of visions [that guide teaching], and analyses of data can lead to development and/or modifications of the theory, as well as vice versa" (Wells, 2001b, p. 19). From this perspective, teacher research and the groups that support it are means of fostering teacher learning that encompass classroom practice, the theories from which these practices are derived, and the language-mediated learning that attends exploratory talk within a teacher research community. At the same time, teacher research offers teachers opportunities to examine classroom practices within the local contexts in which the teachers themselves carry out their professional lives and with a focus on their specific concerns or questions (Wells, 1994). As Wells (1994) argues, conducting teacher research extends the kinds of reflective practice that characterizes effective teaching by "creating a new dialectical relationship between [theory and practice], as increased understanding is derived from the interpretation of observations of the effect of a deliberately introduced change, and the new understanding is used to plan further change to improve practice, in a never ending spiral" (p. 26). Wells goes on to argue that this reflective spiral engages teachers in several processes related to learning. First, as teachers conduct studies in their classrooms, they observe, analyze, and interpret the practices that make up the focus of their inquiry. Moreover, they use these research tools to plan and act on their findings (even as they continue to conduct their inquiries). Perhaps more importantly, though, teacher research engages teachers in reading and writing about their practice, enlarging their professional knowledge through text-based study, and it generally engages them in collaboration with their colleagues, garnering feedback and support for their work as well as access to additional perspectives about observations or interpretations. It is within this realm--through collaborative and exploratory talk--that the present study focuses its attention. Socio-Cultural Concepts of Teacher Learning Specifically, this study draws on both socio-cultural learning theories and recent studies of discourse analysis for its frame of reference. …