Negotiating understandings of teaching dispositions within an early childhood initial teacher education community of practice

Abstract

Teacher educators from an early childhood education initial teacher education provider in Aotearoa New Zealand conducted a longitudinal study within a community of practice methodology. The research explored how shared understandings of professional teaching dispositions might be negotiated within intense, nuanced and contextual teaching and learning processes and networks of relationships. Participants were the teacher educators/researchers and a cohort of Bachelor of Teaching (Early Childhood Education) student teachers. Discussions within each of these groups showed indistinct and multiple definitions of teaching dispositions. As core, expert members of the community of practice, teacher educators discussed complexities of defining, teaching and assessing dispositions. Student teachers were novices to the community and discussed instrumental understandings of dispositions as shaping teachers and showed awareness of networks of power relations within the community teaching, learning, and assessment processes.