Teacher Learning in a Professional Learning Team: Of Contradictions and Action Possibilities

Abstract

In order for schools to nurture learners who are able to engage in knowledge creation, teachers need to design learning experiences that reflect the educational philosophies advanced by school reformers. To do so, they first need to experience for themselves the very kinds of learning experiences that they have been called to design for their students. This responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of teachers with the advent of school-based professional development approaches such as professional learning communities. In this chapter, Engestrom’s Cultural-Historical Activity Theory is used as a framework for studying the contradictions experienced by the teachers in a professional learning team within an elementary school as they embarked on book discussion sessions as part of the school’s efforts in becoming a professional learning community. The expansion of action possibilities within the book discussion activity system is considered as a means for considering how book discussions may be redesigned to help teachers make the shift from being consumers of pedagogical knowledge to being creators of pedagogical knowledge.