Anastasia P. Samaras

SCAFFOLDS IN THE FIELD: VYGOTSKIAN INTERPRETATION IN A TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM

Abstract Vygotskian theory has often been promoted for understanding children’s learning, yet few studies have examined this theory in relation to preservice teachers’ understanding of teaching. This paper seeks to address this gap by reporting on a study of four preservice teachers in a teacher education program designed from Vygotskian tenets of learning. Peer and cooperating teacher support systems in learning to teach are explored. The analysis suggests that socially shared cognition in field work and course work makes a significant difference in enhancing preservice teachers’ sense of what it means to teach in terms of using partnership for cognitive and collegial support, perspective-taking, social negotiation, and ownership. Control and feedback styles of cooperative teachers had an impact on preservice teachers’ perceived readiness for student teaching, opportunities for reflection, and spirit of social reconstructivism. Implications for teacher education programs are addressed in regard to relationships that best prepare preservice teachers for the real world and field experiences and sociocultural learning contexts that assist in that process.

Self-Study Through Personal History

The profession of teaching, historically, has struggled with the degree to which the personal experiences of the teacher can or should influence classroom practice. This chapter explores the benefits of including “the personal” both for the teacher and student. Personal history – the formative, contextualized experiences of our lives that influence how we think about and practice our teaching – provides a powerful mechanism for teachers wanting to discern how their lived lives impact their ability to teach or learn. In this chapter, the authors explore the historical evolution of personal history self-study and the multiple ways in which it can promote deeper learning. Specifically, this form of self-study can be used to: know and better understand one’s professional identity; model and test forms of reflection; and, finally, push the boundaries of what we know by creating alternative interpretations of reality. The benefits of this method are further illustrated through a case study of the lived experiences of a teacher educator surfacing her own struggle to “unpack” how her identity impacts her teaching and her quest for modeling self-study as she reshapes a preservice teacher education program.

Explorations in Using Arts-Based Self-Study Methods.

Research methods courses typically require students to conceptualize, describe, and present their research ideas in writing. In this article, the author describes her exploration in using arts‐based techniques for teaching research to support the development of students’ self‐study research projects. The pedagogical approach emerged from the author’s sociocultural theoretical perspective in using symbols and dialogue as mediating tools. Three arts‐based research projects were utilized to assist doctoral students in articulating research interests, framing research proposals, and reflecting on their development as researchers. Data included students’ implementation and assessment of projects; the instructor’s teaching logs; and students’ course evaluations. The projects served to illuminate the subtleties of research interests, self‐understanding and understanding of other’s research, and learning about self‐study by practicing it. Research methods instructors are prompted to consider what happens when students are asked to demonstrate their understanding of research using the arts and when they study the ‘so what’ of using them.

Polyvocal Professional Learning through Self-Study Research

Polyvocal Professional Learning through Self-Study Research illustrates the power of “we” for innovative and authentic professional learning. The 33 contributors to this book include experienced and emerging self-study researchers, writing in collaboration, across multiple professions, academic disciplines, contexts, and continents. These authors have noted and reviewed each other’s chapters and adapted their contributions to generate a polyvocal conversation that significantly advances scholarship on professional learning through self-study research. Building on, and extending, the existing body of work on self-study research, the book offers an extensive and in-depth scholarly exploration of the how, why, and impact of professional learning through context-specific, practitioner-led inquiry. The chapters illustrate polyvocal professional learning as both phenomenon and method, with the original research that is presented in every chapter adding to the forms of methodological inventiveness that have been developed and documented within the self-study research community.

Twelve shells: learning by leading cross-disciplinary faculty self-study of professional practice

I begin my self-study of facilitating a cross-disciplinary faculty self-study group in the same manner I introduced myself to this group by sharing reflections of an artifact that represented my self-study which I titled ‘Twelve Shells’. I wanted to model the very practice I was asking of participants − bring an artifact that represents your self-study research interest. I laid out 11 sea shells collected from my beach walks and reflected how shells, like individuals, are transformed by their interactions with the world. Then I placed my shell with the others not knowing what the change would be for us.

Building a plane while flying it: reflections of teaching and learning self‐study

The purpose of this study was to conduct a collective self‐study of a newly constructed self‐study research methodology course, purposely designed using Vygotsky’s ideas. Course projects were designed to offer students opportunities to gain a better understanding of the intersections of their personal histories of learning, their cultures, their professional practices, and the development of knowledge about these. The study documents a professor’s efforts to create an interactive and supportive class environment to promote students’ individual and collective professional development. Course impact was investigated by examining students’ perceptions of the pedagogical practices and their usefulness to their research and inquiring how class projects contributed to the students’ and the professor’s learning.

The Shark in the Vitrine: Experiencing our Practice From the Inside Out With Transdisciplinary Lenses

The Scholars of Studying Teaching Collaborative engaged a dozen faculty members from 12 specializations and 4 colleges at a large public university in a 2-year teaching and research project with the goal of learning about and enacting a self-study of professional practice. Participants were selected from various disciplines to provoke alternative perspectives in whole group and critical friend teams. While we each conducted a self-study, we also designed and enacted a meta-study to assess our professional development within the context of the collaborative. We analyze the potential of engaging in collective self-study and report how the methodological challenges initiated transformational learning that bridged theory and praxis. Learning the self-study methodology was complex, but such concentration multiplied the impact of both personal and professional transformation. The study benefits faculty from a broad range of disciplines, at diverse stages in their academic careers, and working at every level of the academic hierarchy.

Collective Creativity: A Learning Community of Self-Study Scholars

Shaffer and Anundsen (1993) defined community as “a dynamic whole that emerges when a group of people participate in common practices, depend on each other, make decisions together, identify themselves as something larger than the sum of their individual relationships, and commit themselves for the long-term commitment to their own, one another’s, and the group’s well-being” (p. 10). In the past, involvement in community was determined by where you lived, your family, or religious connections. However, today our communities are formed through emerging choices with respect to identity and values; they are not necessarily placebased. This has been referred to as a conscious community in which each member’s need for personal growth is emphasized; a community which honors the views of all its members (Shaffer & Anundsen, 1993). The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University (1998) recommended extending community to undergraduate classrooms, with colleges building and cultivating conscious communities for learning and growth (Boyer, 1987, 1990). The Commission called for undergraduate college communities that are purposeful, open, just, disciplined, caring, and celebratory. Our goal in this chapter is to explore what a conscious community can look like in a university graduate classroom. In this story, we describe our experiences in a new course offered on self-study research in spring 2006. The course was designed and taught by Anastasia, a selfstudy teacher educator, with five Ph.D. candidates: Mary, Deanna, Kavita, Jennifer, and Dawn Renee. It took place at the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) at George Mason University, a large Mid-Atlantic university committed to both research and the scholarship of teaching. The CEHD holds the following core values listed in alphabetical order: (a) collaboration; (b) ethical leadership; (c) innovation; (d) research-based practice; and (e) social justice. Some of the questions we asked in our self-study were: “In what ways does our work together align with the values of our college?” “How would we describe our learning community?” “How did our learning community impact our learning, and what are the implications of our graduate learning community for other classrooms, programs,

Self-study of a Professional Organization in Pursuit of a Shared Enterprise

This study examines the work of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices special interest group of the American Educational Research Association from the perspectives of its members with a focus on its development, scholarship, mentorship, practice, and community, and with the major goal of informing its future work. The nested multi-layered research design, framed in sociocultural theory, was enacted in collaboration with an internationally and multidisciplinary diverse group of members over a two-year period. A five-phase research process entailed use of multiple data sources and methods, and researchers with multiple levels of analysis and interpretation. Findings indicate that a sense of community, a nexus of personal and professional development, and collective shaping and engagement are important components for growth despite challenges encountered. The study may be useful to other professional organizations interested in self-review and the sustainability of their organization.

Spheres of Learing in Teacher Collaboration

In this chapter, we report on two studies in a Master’s program for practicing teachers that maintains collaborative culture making at its core, for students and faculty alike. We conducted two studies related to this collaborative culture making and concluded that collaboration is essential to programs of study for teachers and teacher educators. In the first study, we investigated the perspectives of our alumni on their collaborative experiences. Findings indicated links between alumni’s multi-layered collaborative experiences in the program and their subsequent pursuit of National Board certification. In the second study, we conducted a collective self-study of a faculty teaching team’s collaborative experiences and factors that they believe enhanced their continued professional development. Both studies are placed within a description of the Initiatives in Educational Transformation (IET) program, which aligns with sociocultural practices of learning with and through others. To frame our work, we draw from Vygotskian (1978) theory and Samaras’ (2004) notion of learning zones, adapted from Vygotsky’s conception of the zone of proximal development and the social construction of knowledge. The work of Lave and Wenger (1991) in situated learning also informs this work.