A case study examining teachers’ collaborative practices within Reading Workshop
Creators: name: Axelrod, Tali
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2014

description: Studies have shown the benefits of teacher professional communities as a way of structuring reforms in order to develop instructional improvement (Curry, 2008).Yet despite this, within the broader literature there have been few studies to examine the content of teachers’ interactions through their collaborative efforts around artifacts and conversations within communities. As such, this study applies communities of practice theory to expand the existing literature on teacher collaboration through case study methodology that examines the collaborative efforts of one grade level team.    The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions between teachers on a grade level literacy team in one public school. Under investigation was how they made decisions, used artifacts of their practice, and planned their lessons together within a new reform: Reading Workshop. The focus was on the collaborative efforts and interactions among teachers.    Study participants included all five teachers on a grade level literacy team at the school site. To document teacher collaboration, teachers were observed during their team meetings as they interacted around Reading Workshop and the artifacts and materials they routinely used. These interactions were audio-recorded during observations of team meetings to capture all of the teachers’ interactions. Additionally, field notes were taken of anything significant. The teachers also participated in audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews to understand their views on the collaborative effort over time.   Three major themes emerged from the research: (1) the norms of the group did not support shared decision making. Questioning, conflict, and thoughtful dialogue around planning were not promoted and there was often a one-sided sharing of artifacts and ideas; (2) teacher practice was privatized where the experienced teachers held all of the artifacts and lesson plans from their past years and their thinking did not become public. Legitimate peripheral participation did not occur, and the learning was not transferred to the novices; (3) perceptions of competence by colleagues – the experienced teachers were often the only ones deemed competent enough to bring in artifacts or ideas, and they often didn’t value the artifacts brought in by the novice teachers.   Implications that arose from this study include: (1) conceptualizing and creating norms for interaction and helping teams of teachers at the school site navigate through essential differences and tensions. In this manner, teachers can learn to address conflicts directly with one another, and more experienced teachers can bring novice teachers into apprenticeship through joint work and shared repertoire, (2) the use of protocols can guide teachers in developing norms that encourage making teaching public and thinking out loud about their practice. Additionally, providing novice teachers with pedagogical support around best instructional practices can help them navigate the challenges of Reading Workshop. This study shows the importance in studying teacher interactions to understand the nature of teacher collaboration and raises the need to find ways of building stronger communities where teachers learn together.