§ 2: Literature Review – Aboriginal Inquiry: Lifting All Learners

2.5 Conclusion

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:40:31 +0000

This literature is an important backdrop to understanding the notion of the impact of the AESN because it highlights what are known as ‘promising practices’ in Aboriginal education, how to best effect change in teacher practice, and transforming or altering the conditions for Aboriginal student learning. These ideas will be re-visited and used in conducting an analysis of the data collected for...

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2.4.3 Constraints on teacher learning

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:40:06 +0000

Before ending discussion of the implications of the above literature, we want to draw attention to a potential gap in how these scholarly fields consider professional learning; that is attention to the pre-existing, dominant discourses that teachers bring to his/her practice. Discourses are powerful semiotic markers that allow us to ‘see into’ how teachers conceptualize and practice their craft...

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2.4.2 Moving beyond performance to student identity

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:39:18 +0000

We do believe a focus on student success and achievement is important. Yet we accept the caution highlighted by Hargreaves (2007) that a singular focus on achievement may result in a technical rather than personal approach. This is an important caveat: as the literature in Aboriginal approaches to education reminds us, student success involves more than test scores. It must embrace a wide...

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2.4.1 Shifting teacher beliefs

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:38:47 +0000

One area of commonality in the literature is the need to find ways of shifting teacher beliefs. Aboriginal scholars emphasized cultural immersion and deep questioning of assumptions and ‘othering’ of Aboriginal peoples. Similarly, professional learning community scholars suggest a focus on inquiry related to student success/ achievement is necessary for sustained teacher pedagogical change.

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2.4 Convergence between and implications of the above discussion

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:38:15 +0000

While teasing out the differences between the strands of knowledge and research about teacher learning and Aboriginal pedagogy and teaching is important, it is also imperative that we consider how they might inform one another. There are several common threads that these thematic areas touch upon. These include: the importance of teacher beliefs and values as a catalyst for effecting pedagogical...

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2.3.4 Deeper forms of networked learning for teachers

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:37:47 +0000

Some educators and scholar practitioners—particularly the principals of the AESN and NOII in BC (Halbert and Kaser), have sought to document the ways in which some networks enable deeper forms of learning for their participants. In a recent publication they have written about these differences from the ubiquitous references to ‘networks’ and ‘networked learning’ that dominate the scholarly...

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2.3.3 Networking for inquiry

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:35:41 +0000

How are such connections and collaborations realized? The idea of networking is closely aligned with the notion of community, the heart of the PLC concept (Stoll et al., 2006). Network theory is also helpful in understanding personal capacity, where both strong and weak ties in personal networks are necessary for professional learning and development (Mitchell & Sackney, 2011; Mitchell & Sackney...

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2.3.2 PLCs or inquiry?

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:34:51 +0000

Some authors, such as Timperley and her colleagues, distinguish between PLCs and teacher inquiry (Timperley, 2011, Timperley & Alton-Lee, 2008, Timperley et al., 2009). It may seem unnecessary to tease out the differences between these approaches, yet it is useful to do so. For example, Nelson (2008) completed a comparative case study of three PLCs and argued that where the inquiry was sustained...

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2.3.1 Knowledge in practice: Reflection through inquiry

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:33:24 +0000

An earlier but still influential conception of teacher learning stems from Cochran-Smith et al’s (1999) study that highlighted the difference between “knowledge of” practice versus “knowledge in” practice. This distinction provides an important entry into this discussion. The authors’ efforts to differentiate teacher knowledge from the “old” model of teacher professional development centered on...

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2.3 Teacher learning and professional development

sabrina — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:31:16 +0000

School change and improvement literature seems to have reached a common understanding that teachers play an important role in creating better schools (Borko, 2004; Lieberman & Mace, 2010). Therefore it is not surprising that professional development opportunities—spaces for teachers to learn—are systematically created within school jurisdictions with the intention of helping teachers to “enhance...

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