Teacher Educators’ Professional Learning Described through the Lens of Complexity Theory

Abstract

In this study we review our own experience of coordinating learning in a professional community of student supervisors in the context of curricular change that took place in the elementary school program of our teacher education college. We present an analysis of four excerpts of conversations about change selected from a larger corpus of data, consisting of transcripts of the weekly department meetings that took place during an entire academic year in which the curricular change was implemented, representing four critical events that brought about the emergence of the interactive dynamic of this self-organizing community. We explain the catalytic power of these events through the theoretical framework of complexity theory. We show how complexity theory can be used for focusing on the dynamics of professional learning at work, as a process of influencing each other's learning and development, possibly leading to the reciprocal transformation of the members of the community.

Unpacking Language Teacher Educators’ Expertise: A Complexity Theory Perspective

“…To answer the first research question, the findings presented above show that the two participants possessed a complex and adaptive expertise system (Zellermayer & Margolin, 2005), which entailed various critical components. First, they both developed and employed a dialogic teaching approach informed by research‐based and contextualized knowledge to educate pre‐ and in‐service language teachers.…”

“…To answer the second research question about the influencing factors, a similar analytic approach (as described above) was also applied to interpret the research data based on the perspective of CT (Morrison., 2008; Zellermayer & Margolin, 2005). This analysis resulted in various personal and contextual factors, such as “ongoing engagement in teaching, research and community service”, and “opportunities for boundary crossing across the complex systems of teacher education and higher education”.…”

“…As opposed to a traditional static view of expertise as a fixed product to be obtained through long‐term practices and efforts, CT sees expertise as “a personalized, practice‐oriented, meta‐cognitive and context‐specific network of knowledge, beliefs and values” (Smith, 2005), which constitutes an adaptive and emergent system (Zellermayer & Margolin, 2005). Within such a system, multiple elements and patterns co‐exist and interact with each other, producing collective effects on the function and evolution of the system (Cameron & Larsen‐Freeman, 2007).…”

Examining coaches’ feedback to preservice teacher candidates on a core practice

“…The political push for mentor preparation over the past two decades generated some research on what effective mentor preparation looks like, though the bulk of this research has remained small-scale and qualitative in nature (Aspfors and Fransson, 2015). In many cases, mentor preparation took the form of professional learning communities where participants had opportunities to reflect on problems of practice (Jacobs and Yendol-Hoppey, 2010;Harrison et al, 2005;Zellermayer and Margolin, 2005) and develop a shared vision for practice (Tunney and van Es, 2016). Several themes of professional learning needs for supporting coaching emerged, including needs for (1) support in inquiry, noticing and analyzing data (Amador et al, 2020;Aspfors and Fransson, 2015;Gardiner and Weisling, 2018;Yılmaz and Bıkmaz, 2021), (2) preparation for enhancing teacher reflection (Aspfors and Fransson, 2015;Gardiner and Weisling, 2018;Yılmaz and Bıkmaz, 2021) and (3) opportunities for networking among coaches to facilitate systemic change Levine, 2011;Mangin and Dunsmore, 2015).…”

“…In many cases, mentor preparation took the form of professional learning communities where participants had opportunities to reflect on problems of practice (Jacobs and Yendol-Hoppey, 2010; Harrison et al. , 2005; Zellermayer and Margolin, 2005) and develop a shared vision for practice (Tunney and van Es, 2016). Several themes of professional learning needs for supporting coaching emerged, including needs for (1) support in inquiry, noticing and analyzing data (Amador et al.…”