This poster seeks to promote reflection and dialogue about development in teaching practice as a complex, socio-cultural learning process. A sociocultural perspective views learning as holistic and situated in the context of activity or practice (Fenwick, 2001) – in this case, teaching practice.
The poster is based on a doctoral research study that adopted a sociocultural lens and a phenomenological research approach (Giorgi, 2009) to better understand how mid-career faculty experience development in teaching practice. The goals of the poster are to share both the theoretical lens that informed the study and the multi-phased, socio-cultural model of teacher professional learning that emerged from the study.
Billett’s (2002) theory of co-participation, which will be visually depicted, was the primary sociocultural learning lens that informed the study. This theory views workplace learning as resulting from an interaction between the workplace context and individual engagement.
Boelryk’s (2014) multi-phased, sociocultural model of teacher professional learning extends Billett’s theory in several ways. First, it examines the individual and contextual interactions as they apply to teacher professional learning. Second, it explicitly characterizes unique individual, social, and contextual elements for four phases of the learning process– a catalyst phase, an idea development phase, an implementation phase, and an outcomes phase. The poster will depict the distinct individual, social, and contextual elements for each phase as well as the interrelationships between the elements. This model has been formally recognized as making a unique contribution to the educational development literature.
This multi-phased, sociocultural model of mid-career teacher professional learning provides a useful tool for educational development. It can offer a holistic model for situating other research, it can offer insight into teacher learning processes, and it can inform the design and development of educational development practice. The poster is designed to engage viewers in these conversations.
