Abstract
This case study explores how a group of teacher leaders (TLCs) used network exchange to reflect upon their involvement with peer leadership and teacher-teacher support. By communicating with each other via a telecommunications network, the teachers discussed how they promoted science projects in the classroom and provided encouragement to other teachers. The network dialogue was specifically designed to facillitate the TLCs' exploration of their experiences as teacher leaders. The network messages were analyzed for content and network patterns, frequency of the TLC conversations and reflections on professional practice, and the types and topics of messages. Findings from the case study suggest that reflective messages about professional practice rarely happen on networks and do not naturally occur in the practice of teaching. However, with specific sociotechnical conditions in place, they can occur more readily. Such conditions include: protected workspace for reflection, retrieved text base, collaborative research, access and response to messages, structure dialogue, linking action with reflection, forming reflective practice inquiry, and participatory motivation. Three important questions stem from this analysis of the discourse on teacher-teacher leadership: (1) Can network-mediated reflective discourse about professional practice in fact take place? (2) What types of network exchanges promote reflective discourse? (3) What sociotechnical factors help sustain or inhibit network-mediated teacher-teacher professional discourse?
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DiMauro, V., Gal, S. Use of telecommunications for reflective discourse of science teacher leaders. J Sci Educ Technol 3, 123–135 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01575192
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01575192