No time to ‘put that in’: can we silence the ticking clock that controls teachers’ professional learning?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Studies conducted on teacher professional development over the last few decades have proposed reflective learning as a means to add depth and quality to teachers’ professional learning process. This requires moving away from pragmatic sensemaking. In this study, we elaborate on teachers’ conversations through two lenses: whether they address ‘quick fixes’ (pragmatic sensemaking) or specify and generalise problems and solutions (reflective learning). The context of the study is a professional learning course that aims to increase teachers’ knowledge and agency to support students’ interest towards mathematics. Exploring a group of teachers’ conversational routines, we elaborate on the degree of reflective learning and introduce a key critical theme, lack of time. Based on our analysis, we propose the concerns of time deficiency, connected to pragmatic sensemaking, as a function of not having clarity and not feeling in control. Following that, we envision two realities of teachers’ professional learning in mathematics teaching: a Reflective Reality and a Toolbox Reality, and conclude that increased agency through reflective learning might be a sustainable solution to account for the time limitations.