The facilitator’s role in supporting physical education teachers’ empowerment in a professional learning community

Abstract

The facilitator's role in supporting physical education teachers' empowerment in a professional learning communityPhysical education (PE) researchers demonstrate the benefits of collaborative continuing professional development (CPD) through the cultivation of professional learning communities (PLCs). Furthermore, this body of research reflects teachers' empowerment as a current concern in the literature about PLCs.Although the importance of teachers' empowerment in PLCs is recognised, there is much to learn about the facilitator's actions to create spaces for empowerment.The purpose of this paper is to explore the facilitator's actions in supporting PE teachers' empowerment in a PLC. Action research framed this project in Brazil.Participants included six PE teachers, a facilitator, and a critical friend. Data sources included daily observations and reflections from weekly meetings with the teachers and the critical friend. Data were analysed using inductive and thematic methods. By engaging a Freirean view as a theoretical framework, it was understood that the teachers needed to empower themselves to survive in their reality, learn in order to be recognised at school, and act to change their micro-context. Accordingly, three themes represented the facilitator's actions to support teachers' empowerment: (a) creating a horizontal relationship with teachers through dialogue; (b) understanding and respecting teachers' learning; and (c) struggling with teachers in their reality as an act of solidarity. These facilitator actions contributed primarily to building a democratic space where the teachers could name, critique, and negotiate the barriers they faced. Although creating spaces for teachers' empowerment provided the opportunity for improving teachers' PE knowledge, these spaces fundamentally supported teachers in seeking better professional conditions, organising themselves as a community, and pursuing social change.

A Creativity Education Model for Coastal Communities Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…Community empowerment certainly makes the community the subject, namely the actor, i.e., people who carry out these activities independently for their interests (Rahman & Anwar 2020). Because, by placing the community as the subject of empowerment, people can learn and know the problems they are facing (Gonçalves et al 2020). Social movements consist of individuals and interactions among members of society (Santos 2020).…”

Diving into Real-World Practicum in Physical Education: Deconstructing and Re-Signifying Pre-Service Teachers’ Reflections

“…Through meaningful dialogue and active listening, facilitators (i.e., supervisors) can empower PSTs to navigate the complexities of their practice [36] and foster critical decision making [33]. Therefore, facilitators can guide PSTs to deconstruct reflection [37] and explore experiences from diverse perspectives [38]. Furthermore, there is a lack of interventional research exploration that enables, stimulates, and explores the intentional influence of a facilitator on scaffolding the development of PSTs' reflection process through the interpretation of their practical problems.…”

Learning communities and physical education professional development: A scoping review

“…In physical education (PE), LCs have been vastly used as a CPD strategy (Parker and Patton, 2017). Both teachers and teacher educators in LCs have demonstrated changes in attitudes and beliefs (Deglau and O’Sullivan, 2006), as well as developed a sense of community and shared power during their CPD (Gonçalves et al, 2020; Patton and Parker, 2017; Tannehill and MacPhail, 2017). Moreover, LCs have been reinforced as a path to overcome the challenges of traditional CPD by promoting teacher agency and constant collaboration between teachers, pre-service teachers, and teacher educators (MacPhail and Lawson, 2020).…”

“…It is also argued, albeit less frequently, that these contrived communities, when imposed on teachers, have the potential to ‘function as a means to silence dissatisfaction through the hegemonic appeal to “community” and its normalising function as arbiter of ideological control’ (Watson, 2014: 27). Despite the tensions and challenges associated with cultivating and participating in LCs, they can initiate change in institutions by the conscious confrontation of competing values (Watson, 2014) and contribute to microchange in schools (Gonçalves et al, 2020).…”