Session Information
26 SES 11 A, Professional Learning Networks: Perspectives on achieving sustainability
Symposium
Contribution
Highly effective teachers must learn to work in a challenging, ever-changing environment. Ac-cording to the National Research Council (2000, p. 203), "[t]eachers are key to enhancing learn-ing in schools. In order to teach in a manner consistent with new theories of learning, extensive learning opportunities for teachers are required". Teachers need to be given the opportunity to learn and grow with their practice. Teachers who do not reach out for help typically teach the same way regardless of the new theories of learning or the new challenges in their classroom be-cause they do not have the support and knowledge to change. Thus, successful teachers endure the vulnerability of being a learner (cf. Mian 2018). Only the teachers who work to improve their practice, skills, and instructional strategies as continual learners get to know something about their own learning process and can successfully help others learn (cf. Agostini et al. 2018). One way to model this process of knowledge acquisition is to continually learn through collabo-ration, professional development, and studying pedagogical techniques and best practices. In our school development project in 2016-2018 we extended teachers learning by developing profes-sional learning networks or PLNs (cf. Cook et al. 2017) through phenomenologically oriented vignettes (cf. Schratz et al. 2012). The vignettes stem from the researchers experiencing the lived experience of the students in the midst of the pedagogic situation at two High Schools in Bozen-Bolzano (Italy). Once vignettes have been crafted, they became the primary data for qual-itative feedback for school development. Vignettes illustrate learning and teaching practices in different lessons, in order to enhance teachers learning and innovation at schools. Thus, based on vignettes researchers can offer support, advice, feedback, and collaboration opportunities. Based on the experience gained in the project, the paper critically discusses contextual framework and different ways to use vignettes as feedback instruments in PLNs for learning and school im-provement - giving teachers the opportunity to become aware of their own learning as well as transforming schools in a space to share learning ideas and strategies.
References
Agostini, E., Schratz, M. & Risse, E. (2018). Lernseits denken - erfolgreich unterrichten. Hamburg: AOL. Cook, R. J., Jones-Bromenshenkel, Huisinga, S. & Mullins, F. (2017). Online Professional Learning Networks. A Viable Solution to the Professional Development Dilemma. Jour-nal of Special Education Technology, 32(2), 109-118. Mian, S. (2018). Sich-Einlassen - ein facettenreiches Moment im Unterrichtsgeschehen. Eine phänomenologisch orientierte Studie über Lernvollzüge zwischen Gewohnheit und Lei-denschaft. Paderborn: Schöningh. National Research Council. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Schratz, M., Schwarz, J. F. & Westfall-Greiter, T. (2012). Lernen als (bildende) Erfahrung. Innsbruck, Wien, Bozen: Studienverlag.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.