Aligning Lessons

Bernard Williams

EDU-520-O500

April 28, 2021

In my interviews I aimed to look across different settings to focus on the teacher’s perceptions with respect to collaborative teacher learning within different settings. The move from one school to another involves increased demands for increased teacher-to-teacher initiatives and, as a result, increased levels of interdependency.

I interviewed a novice and a veteran teacher from a charter school and a public school. In my reflection of the virtual interview was the novice teachers felt overwhelmed by the amount and variety of duties that she was expected to perform coming from a public school to a private school. This, along with the lack of support and guidance, forced them into "learning while doing." Most teachers developed according to a narrow and individual perspective, which was accompanied by a shift from a more inductive and student-centered approach to a more traditional one. However, some teachers seem to have developed in positive ways over time.

The novice teacher in a charter school setting was described, at the beginning of the first year of teaching, as both a challenging and a rewarding experience. New teachers were instilled with idealism and eagerness to learn and increasing independence making their own decisions about teaching. However, the public school teacher experiences were to bring about the realization that teaching was more demanding than they were expecting, that they lacked the resources to undertake all the tasks and duties required of them as teachers and, overall, that they did not feel supported at school.

The public school teacher’s process of becoming a teacher was marked by a growing recognition of the challenging roles at school. She referred to a gradual and individual process owing, in most cases, to the lack of support and guidance at school. Being a teacher in a different school and in most cases in rural, poor, and very isolated catchment areas had a strong effect on the way that the she described her experiences as teachers in the public school. Both teachers expressed a since of being lost, and the shock of being in a new school far from home, facing the unknown, and having a sense of powerlessness in a certain extent.

This interview shows that despite the location, prospective teachers should be given meaningful opportunities to analyze and reflect upon their own beliefs and values, it will have an impact on the way they learn and become great teachers. Learning situations in which student teachers are given opportunities to talk about and reflect on their own conceptions of teaching, learning, and being a teacher must therefore be enhanced. This interview also supports the contention that induction is a key phase in a teacher’s career and must be given more attention by policy makers, school leaders, teacher educators, and other stakeholders.

References:

Doppenberg, J. J., Bakx, A. W. E. A., & Brok, den, P. J. (2012). Collaborative teacher learning in different primary school settings. Teachers and Teaching, 18(5), 547-566.

Alves, F. A. C. (2001). Encountering teaching reality: Being a novice teacher. Lisbon, Portugal: Instituto de Inovacao Educacional.

Arends, R. I. (1995). Learning to teach. Lisbon, Portugal: McGraw-Hill.