In-service teacher education and scholar innovation: The semantics of action and reflection on action as a mediation device

Abstract

Abstract: This paper presents and discusses the results of a research project in Education Sciences, which aimed at identifying and understanding the effects of in-service teacher education carried out in schools, on the educational practices of a school of the 1st Cycle of Basic Education (CBE). The training was organized with small project groups consisting of six teachers and a trainer, and lasted three years. The present study analyzed the narratives of the educational practices of teachers and of reflection in small groups, from one of the Project groups. The analysis highlighted the importance of the semantics of action and reflection upon action as devices for mediating the training and the changes in individual and collective educational practices. Introduction Current Western civilizations are characterized by the presence of intense, uncertain and complex times, particularly with regards to today’s school education. This situation was identified in many studies as a social and educational crisis associated with socio-cultural conditions characteristic of the Late Modern Age (Giddens, 1992; Pereira, 2010a). It has led to successive calls, in political and educational discourses, for changes in teaching and in the identity of teachers and schools. In this context, continuous teacher education can be seen as an opportunity to contribute to the changes that can be made to adapt to the challenges of the school crisis for teachers and schools. Given this problematic, this paper presents a study that sought to identify the training rationalities that guided the development of an investigation-action (I-A) project that was proposed and developed over three years in the first cycle of basic school (CBE). In Portugal the first cycle of basic school corresponds with the first four classes of compulsory education. The I-A project on teacher education, organized through the creation of project groups of teachers and supervised by a trainer, sought to integrate a creative dimension into daily school work and to observe the effects on student development. The research approach focused on the training processes experienced by one of these project groups. The questions of the study emphasized the importance of developing new rationales in organizing and developing training for teachers, which can meet the