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Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study ofteacher education practicesPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cste20

Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development:Researching the Dynamics of Teacher LearningGarry F. Hoban a , Sue Butler b & Loraine Lesslie ba University of Wollongong , Australiab Hill Top Public School , AustraliaPublished online: 31 May 2007.

To cite this article: Garry F. Hoban , Sue Butler & Loraine Lesslie (2007) Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development:Researching the Dynamics of Teacher Learning, Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study of teacher educationpractices, 3:1, 35-51, DOI: 10.1080/17425960701279818

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Facilitating Self-Study of Professional

Development: Researching the

Dynamics of Teacher Learning

Garry F. Hobana*, Sue Butlerb and Loraine Lesslieb

aUniversity of Wollongong, Australia; bHill Top Public School, Australia

In this study a teacher educator worked with two elementary teachers to facilitate a self-study of their

learning during a professional development programme. The programme extended for 6 months

and was underpinned by four learning processes—reflection, sharing, action and feedback. The two

teachers documented their learning experiences and were interviewed several times during and after

the study. At the end of the 6-month period, the teachers sketched and shared models of their

learning and then collaborated to produce a joint model. Sue learned that she needed to start with a

small change in her teaching and that her learning involved multiple factors that interacted to create

change. Loraine learned that focusing on the teaching of science reminded her of childhood

experiences and that it was important for her to analyse why she taught the way she did. Self-study

helped the teachers to develop insights about how they learned and enabled them to better

understand and manage their own professional development.

Self-study has mainly been used as a research methodology for teacher educators

studying their own practice (Loughran, 2005; Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, &

Russell, 2004). Clarke and Erickson (2004) described self-study as a means to study

teaching and related it to Schwab’s four commonplaces of teaching by calling it the

fifth commonplace: “a some how, a way for an educator to know, recognise, explore,

and act upon his or her practice” (emphasis in original, p. 59). Self-study is also a

valuable learning experience for classroom teachers, who are a relatively new audience

for this type of research. According to Loughran (2005, p. 2):

Although self-study reports come primarily from those involved in teacher education,

self-study does not and should not exclude practitioners in other fields. Self-studies of

*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia.

Email: garry_hoban@uow.edu.au

Studying Teacher Education

Vol. 3, No. 1, May 2007, pp. 35–51

ISSN 1742-5964 (print)/ISSN 1742-5972 (online)/07/010035–17

q 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17425960701279818

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teaching display important parallels to self-studies of teacher education and can offer

important insights for teacher education.

Senese (2005) studied his own high school students’ self-reflections over 5 years and

concluded that everyone in a classroom should be both a teacher and a learner. Austin

and Senese (2004) argued that self-study for practising teachers is valuable for their

personal and professional growth, suggesting that this can occur in three ways: “The

reasons for teachers conducting self-study range from the practical (self-study imparts

an endorsement and authority for practice) to the personal (self-study informs

teachers about who they are) to the professional (self-study invites teachers to join a

community of learners)” (p. 1256).

Self-study as a research methodology is not common amongst teacher

educators, let alone teachers in schools. The onus is on teacher educators who

engage in self-study research to mentor teachers in the methodologies and discourse

of self-study practices. One possible focus for self-study by teachers is to study

their own learning in a professional development programme. Yet researchers who

study teachers’ professional development claim that changing teaching practice is a

complex process (Day, 1999; Hoban, 2002, Richardson, 1994). There have been few

studies that have systematically documented how teachers change their practice in

response to their learning in a professional development programme. Encouraging

teachers to conduct a self-study as they participate in a professional learning

experience may help them to understand their own practice more deeply and

help them to reflect upon their own pedagogy which is a hallmark of professional

practice (Sachs, 2003).

In this study a group of six primary teachers in Australia participated in

a professional development programme over a period of 6 months to learn more about

the teaching of science. This focus is appropriate for teacher learning because science

has persistently been a challenging subject for teachers in primary schools. Simply

presenting teachers with a new curriculum or resource can never be enough to change

their teaching, particularly for a subject in which they lack confidence. What is needed

is a professional development framework to help teachers learn about new ways to

work with the subject.

One such framework is action learning, commonly used in business contexts.

Action learning involves a small group of colleagues reflecting, sharing experiences

and developing action plans to address personal issues or problems in their workplace

(Cusins, 1995; McGill & Beaty, 1995; Pedler, 1991; Revans, 1981, 1982; Zuber-

Skerritt, 1993). This collaborative workplace learning has been explored by groups in

various contexts: executives in a textile company (Lewis, 1991); managers in a private

hospital (Miller, 2003); supervisors in an electronic firm (Boddy, 1991); doctors in a

hospital (Winkless, 1991); university students in a Diploma of Religious Education

(Robinson, 2001); insurance agents attempting to improve the quality of their service

(Schlesinger, 1991); and university students in health care education (Wade &

Hammick, 1999). Action learning is increasingly being used in educational contexts

such as schools to support the process of teacher learning (Yuen & Cheng, 2000).

36 G. F. Hoban et al.

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Cusins (1995) views the process of action learning as the interaction of four sources for

learning: (1) experiential learning; (2) creative problem solving; (3) acquisition of

relevant knowledge; and (4) co-learner group support. These four sources are

represented by Cusins (1995) as a linear cycle involving an event or activity, reflective

observation, planning and application. In educational terms, action learning is

underpinned by four learning processes—reflection, sharing, action and feedback—that

interrelate and enhance each other as a system (Hoban, 1999). Independently, these

processes are not new, but structuring a programme that integrates all four processes

provides a framework to support ongoing professional development (Hoban, 2002).

The first process, reflection, involves participants thinking about something

problematic in order to make meaning of their experiences, and this helps them to

cope with similar situations in the future (Schon, 1983, 1987). The second process,

sharing, relates to a group of six members sharing personal anecdotes as a community

to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of their personal experiences. The

third process, action, requires participants to experiment with ideas that have been

generated by personal reflection and refined in group discussions. Learning by doing

or experimenting with ideas is one of the main tenets in Dewey’s (1933; 1938) theory

of learning through experience and Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle. The

implication is that putting ideas into action gives the ideas more meaning because of

the understanding gained from knowing the consequences of the action. Finally, the

fourth process, feedback, is the response from children or other observers to the action

being implemented. The result of this action becomes the topic for subsequent

reflection and discussion at the next action learning meeting. Whilst teachers can

learn from each of these four processes, it is their combination in action learning that

can sustain professional development over a long period of time.

At the beginning of the programme, self-study was not discussed by the group,

because the focus was on planning for the professional development. The self-study

began when two of the teachers decided of their own accord to keep a personal journal

to document the experiences of their learning throughout the programme, and at that

point the teacher educator, who was facilitator for the group, introduced them to

some of the key issues and methodologies of self-study research.

Context for Self-Study of Teacher Learning

Set in a small rural primary school 120 kilometres from Sydney, the professional

development programme involved six female teachers from the school who formed an

action learning team. The school had received funding for the project to provide

teacher release time and to pay a teacher educator (Garry) to act as a facilitator

experienced in the process of action learning. The project started with each of the six

teachers having a full relief day from teaching in October, 2003. The programme

continued over two school terms to April 2004 and involved monthly team meetings of

the six teachers. As a teacher educator working at a rural university 80 km from the

school, Garry’s role as facilitator was to support the teachers as an action learning team

and to encourage the teachers to explore any aspect of science teaching that they wanted

Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development 37

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to improve. This included guiding teachers in the process of action learning, helping

them to share ideas, encouraging them to make a personal action plan, and acting as a

critical friend to suggest ideas. Within the team of six, the teachers also decided to work

in pairs so that they could swap ideas about their teaching more regularly.

Unique among the pairs, Loraine and Sue kept personal journals to document the

process of their teacher learning during the 6-month programme. Once Garry learned

that they were voluntarily keeping journals to document their learning process, he

invited them to use the journal entries as the basis for a self-study of their learning.

Thus Garry’s role was a dual one—to facilitate the team of six in the processes of

action learning and to facilitate Sue and Loraine in their self-study. Sue and Loraine

responded enthusiastically to the invitation and participated in several interviews to

assist them in their self-study during and after the professional development

programme.

As facilitator of their self-study, Garry not only encouraged Sue and Loraine to

conduct their self-study using journals to document events and their thinking, but

also asked them to reflect upon their journal entries and to sketch a model of their

learning. He asked them to do this individually and then to collaborate with each

other to see if they could devise a joint model of teacher learning. He did this in an

effort to extend their personal reflection by making representations and sharing them

publicly. “Reflection is a personal process of thinking, refining, reframing and

developing actions. Self-study takes these processes and makes them public, thus

leading to another series of processes that need to reside outside the individual”

(Loughran & Northfield, 1998, p. 15).

Several data gathering methods were used over the 6-month period to monitor the

self-study of Sue and Loraine. These included:

. a personal journal completed by each of the teachers;

. documentation from classroom observations as Sue and Loraine observed each

other and Garry observed both of them;

. several interviews conducted by Garry with Sue and Loraine during the

programme and for several months after;

. models of individual teacher learning and paired learning devised by Sue and

Loraine.

The next two sections document Sue and Loraine’s self-study of their learning during

the professional development programme. As a key aspect of action learning the

teachers selected an area of practice of teaching science to change as a way of

developing ownership of the investigation and then shared personal reflections about

efforts attempted with their buddy and the team of six.

Sue’s Self-Study of Her Learning in Professional Development

At the beginning of the study in October 2003, Sue had been teaching for over 30

years and had been a casual (temporary teacher) at the school for 5 years. She decided

38 G. F. Hoban et al.

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to keep a journal during the study because she often gets to the end of a professional

development course and thinks, “What did I learn?” Keeping the journal would help

her to reflect on her learning. In the journal she recorded questions for herself, items

that she needed to work on, issues discussed at meetings, comments on her thoughts

at meetings and personal insights.

From the initial action learning meeting in early October 2003, Sue decided that

she wanted her children to engage more deeply in their science lessons. Consequently,

she decided that her focus for action learning would be to improve her children’s

investigating skills in science lessons. Sue described how the process began, with

a discussion at the initial meeting in which Garry explained the process of action

learning:

The thing that started it all off was the diagram that you gave us of the action learning

process which was quite simple. We had to think about something in our teaching that we

wanted to change or improve. Then it was plan, reflect, evaluate and work on the

changes. Then reflect and try it out again until we were happy with it. So we had to keep

looking back and reflecting upon what we have done and this is where the personal

journal was useful. (Interview, October 2003)

As a result of the initial action learning meeting, Sue wanted her children to use

a process of investigation and a shared language to describe their inquiries. In addition

to her own reflection, Sue also discussed this aspect with Loraine and with Garry:

I was looking to improve student engagement and the students’ use of scientific language.

So I asked Loraine and the children and you about the best way to get the children

involved in the investigation skills and at the same time using the appropriate scientific

language. (Interview, October, 2003)

Sue used some guidelines for promoting children’s investigating skills in science from

a document that she had collected from a previous in-service course. The guidelines

for her first attempt at changing her teaching showed seven steps to promote students’

investigating skills (Figure 1). She put this chart up in her room for the students to

follow in their science lessons after she had discussed them with the children.

In his role as facilitator, Garry observed and videotaped Sue’s science lesson on

November 12th in which she was teaching her students to make model rockets from

balloons. After the lesson he suggested to her that the children’s investigating skills

would be more focused if they understood the meaning of the word “variable.” He

suggested that at the beginning of the next lesson she write the word “variable” on the

board and model to students the meaning of the word. Her second attempt at

improving students’ investigating skills was to encourage the students to make

parachutes and to identify variables that affected the flight. Garry suggested that

students use a “proforma” to support their writing about “What did you do?,” “What

happened?” and “ Why do you think it happened?” In the discussion after the lesson,

Sue described how having her lessons observed by Garry and Loraine helped her to

reflect on her teaching and to think about what she would try next:

Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development 39

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Loraine came into my classroom and observed a lesson. After this I reflected on the

lesson and this helped to change the way I approached the next lesson. Also I changed

how I approached the investigation by taking into account the outcomes from the

syllabus and the children’s needs. (Interview, November 2003)

After Sue led several lessons to promote her students’ use of investigative skills, they

experienced success in using the word “variable.” She then made a third change to her

teaching, as she wanted students to become familiar with use of the word

“hypothesis.” After trying several times, she concluded that it only confused the

students and so she stopped using the word. Sue then conducted a web search using

the phrase “scientific investigation” and found an article that explained a five-step

process for student investigation called the Five Es (Bybee, 1997) that is intended to

promote a constructivist view of student learning. It involved a simple 5-step process

for developing students’ investigating skills: (1) engage, (2) explore, (3) explain, (4)

elaborate, and (5) evaluate.

In Sue’s fourth attempt at changing her teaching she decided to use the 5 Es

because “the students would understand single words better than sentences”

(Interview, February, 2004). In a recorded conversation, she described how changes

in her teaching to promote her students’ investigation skills involved several attempts,

starting with getting the children to identify variables, then using the word

“hypothesis”, and finally using an approach involving the 5 Es:

The original investigation process I tried was to encourage the children to identify

variables as a part of developing investigation skills. I then moved on to explain a

hypothesis and the steps of an inquiry process but these were too complicated. So I

changed it to the 5 Es because I found having a single word was better than having a

Figure 1. Sue’s initial inquiry process for science (adapted from K-6 Science and Technology

Resource, New South Wales Department of Education and Training)

40 G. F. Hoban et al.

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whole statement. After watching Loraine’s lesson I could see that having single words for

the students was a much better way to go. Just having one word focused the children

better. If you put up one word like “engage” and then “explore,” they immediately know

what you mean, but using “hypothesis” and the word “variables” turned them off.

(Interview, February, 2004)

Having made four changes in her teaching over several months to promote her

students’ investigative skills, she was confident that they had improved, based on the

students’ feedback in class and what the students were writing in their science books.

They were documenting a process of learning, as shown in this sample from a child’s

book on the topic of how air slows things down:

What did you do?

We tied the string onto the material and we tied the strings together. We all tested it and

Mrs Butler timed it for us.

What happened?

After we tested it out we put plasticine on the big knot and weighted it but mine was too

heavy. I then took off more plasticine but it was still too heavy. I then cut the piece of

canvas into a circle and it worked better. My parachute took 6 s to hit the ground.

Why do you think it happened?

The parachute is suppose to trap air under it so the air pushes it up and it floats slowly

down.

Sue’s Model of Her Own Learning

In May 2004, Garry asked Sue to analyse her personal journal that recorded the

changes in her teaching and to sketch and describe a model that represented the

process of her own learning. Figure 2 shows her sketch and is followed by part of an

interview in which she describes her model.

Sue explained the model in a telephone interview recorded at the end of the study:

It seemed logical to first think about the lesson planning, then to think about the

presentation of the lesson. Once I taught the lesson, I evaluated it in three possible ways

but not necessarily using all three. One way is to have a partner observe the lesson and

then in discussion use the language of the action learning model to give suggestions about

improvements, changes and good points. Another way is to self-reflect by thinking about

the results of the lessons and asking myself, “Did the students achieve the indicators

leading to the outcomes?”, “Was the strategy suitable for all children?” and “Was I

flexible enough to poor behaviour, interruptions, loss of equipment etc?”. If I encourage

the students to reflect, I ask them to write about “Today I learned . . . ,” “I enjoyed . . . ..,”

and “I would like to change . . . ” From what the students said, I was able to work out

which bits they enjoyed, which bits they didn’t understand, and which bits they could see

a purpose to—in other words, which bits they had connectedness to and understood.

This ultimately leads to further lesson planning incorporating the ideas that I had

developed and then presenting the lesson again, taking on board the changes. And so it

goes on again in a type of cycle. (Interview, May, 2004)

Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development 41

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At the beginning of 2004, Sue started a Science Club at the school and has been

holding weekly lunchtime meetings with the children. Rather than making these

meetings very structured, she has kept them open-ended so that students could

explore their own ideas and be creative in their thinking.

What Sue Learned about Herself

In a final interview several months after the programme finished, Sue was asked to

summarise what she had learned about herself as a result of the self-study. Sue learned

that she needed to take her professional learning one small step at a time and try not to

change too much. She also believed that she needed to be independent and do

research using the internet and that she developed confidence to “do it.” She also

found that, in order to maintain her professional learning, it was important to set her

own challenge at the beginning so that she controls what she is trying to learn.

If someone tells her what she is supposed to learn, then she will not do it. Through

the reflection over 18 months, she realised that she loves teaching and that she

Figure 2. Sue’s model of the process of her learning

42 G. F. Hoban et al.

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wants to stay in the classroom as a teacher. She found out that her professional

learning is not continuous but is somewhat “stop–start” because of all the

interruptions at school. Hence she had to set herself “mini-challenges” to sustain

her learning and change her teaching in small but ongoing ways. Another

important aspect of her learning was the collaboration, especially with Loraine.

When Sue “hit a brick wall” she would talk to Loraine about it and Loraine would

throw ideas at her and help her to move on. When asked if she would change the

model of her own learning if she had to draw it again, she stated that it would be

more dynamic with interacting arrows because it is not like a “cycle” as she

originally portrayed in Figure 1:

If I had to draw it again I would put more arrows on it because it just doesn’t flow in a

cycle. There are a whole lot of other things coming in at different points, like if I use a new

resource or I have a discussion with Loraine then I might try a whole new way of doing

things and so new things are coming in constantly. So I would change the diagram so that

the arrows were two-way and more of them. And you are getting constant feedback from

the children and having constant reflection, it is not just something that you do at the end

of the lesson. And you might talk to someone about something that you are trying and

they give you an idea so it goes both ways so that you are constantly being challenged and

the class you have this year will be different from the class that you will have next year so

you have to adjust what you do, how you speak, how you present to meet their needs.

(Interview, May, 2004)

One result of her self-study is that Sue now approaches professional development

programmes in a different way. She is not overwhelmed by things that she cannot do

and is not worried about things that she does not understand. Instead, when

something is presented that she understands, she can “focus in” and start with a small

change and then develop it by asking other people or trying things in her classroom.

Thus finding a small “chunk” that she wanted to work on herself was important for

sustaining her learning in professional development, and she realised this because of

what she learned about herself from her self-study.

Loraine’s Self-Study of her Learning in Professional Development

At the beginning of the study, Loraine had been teaching for 20 years but was not a

confident teacher in some areas of science. She was teaching a Year 1 and 2 class in

2003 and her chosen area for improvement was developing the children’s design-and-

make skills. At our initial team meeting in early October 2003, we discussed the

notion that many design-and-make activities tended to fall back into “craft” and that

it was important to bring out the science concepts that underpinned an activity,

including why things work (or do not work) the way they do.

Loraine’s first attempt at changing her science teaching focused on asking children

to design and make a toy that moved. To support children’s thinking during the

activity, she prepared a worksheet that required children to sketch their designs and

she gave them a list of particular words they could use during their efforts. She

Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development 43

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encouraged her children to work in pairs and to share their designs; occasionally, she

brought them together as a class to share what they were learning. She was surprised

by the children’s level of engagement in the first activity, which spread across different

lessons in the week and extended over 7 hours of class time. Her second design-and-

make activity involved the children making paper airplanes. She thought that they

really enjoyed this, especially the testing outside when they competed for how far they

could throw their planes. However, she believed that the activity was too narrow:

“I didn’t like it as much because I wanted it to be more open-ended.” Her third

attempt at teaching a design-and-make activity involved children making a form of

transport that could move by itself. Here the children made model helicopters, trucks

and cars. Her fourth attempt encouraged the children to design and make something

that could be stored in a cupboard and go out and clean the playground. The children

were also encouraged to bring in and examine different tools from home to help them

in their design-and-make activities.

As she progressed through the design-and-make activities, Loraine read the

syllabus more carefully and became aware of the potential of design-and-make

activities for developing children’s awareness beyond learning science knowledge. She

realised that these types of activities were also useful for developing children’s values

and attitudes as well as their problem solving skills in science. She explained how she

fostered the improvement of values and attitudes in the lesson because “we talked

about how things were useful in society and when people had a need they kept working

until they made their products better, and scientists are always doing that, so that

raised the notion that it is an ongoing investigation and they had ownership of the

activity.” Loraine later explained how she became aware of the usefulness for

developing children’s design-and-make skills and how her own attitudes and values

changed during the process:

L. While I was doing the design-and-make activities, I could see from the levels of

engagement that there was enormous potential for further learning, and I wanted to make

sure that it was not just a craft activity, that the children were learning real science but

over time. With more knowledge of the syllabus, I moved more into the big picture so that

I took into consideration that the children should also be learning about skills and about

values and attitudes. I wanted them to like it and not be afraid of making mistakes and I

didn’t want the science to be just a set body of knowledge . . . I wanted their work to be

valued, which is a holistic view of children’s learning, which is the science knowledge as

well as skills and values and attitudes.

G. Did you have this holistic view at the beginning?

L. No, at the beginning I just wanted the children to learn about science through

designing and making. Then I looked at the syllabus and realised that there was more to it

and I needed to tie it in with investigating and using technology. I kept looking at the

syllabus, and the more I looked, the more appealing it became and I became more aware

of the intent of the document. So it was not just the content as I was getting right back to

attitudes, values and skills . . . During the whole process of the project, my own attitudes

and values about science and science teaching have changed a lot. (Telephone interview,

May, 2004)

44 G. F. Hoban et al.

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Loraine’s Model of Her Own Learning

Towards the end of the programme in May 2004, Loraine was asked to sketch and

describe a model of her own learning about science teaching over the 6-month period.

She used her notes that she kept as the basis for her reflections. The model she

deduced from her notes is shown in Figure 3 followed by her own description of the

model as recorded in an interview. The right side shows her personal thinking and

changes in teaching and the left side of her diagram shows the external factors that

supported her change.

Loraine described the model of her own professional learning in Figure 3 in a

telephone interview:

On one side I have what is called “a frame of reference” that includes accountability and

processes and on the other side I have got “my thinking” and so there is interplay between

those two sides. Under the frame of reference side I have put the project concept [QTP

for Quality Teaching Programme] and I have an arrow that goes to you as a facilitator and

then below this I have the team with three intersecting circles, which represent the three

buddy pairs. All the arrows from project concept down and academic partner are

interactive and there are arrows between the buddies as well, both within the four buddy

circles and the buddies and then a dotted line down the middle to where I go across to my

thinking. There are also my own prior project experiences and another box that says my

own professional needs and from both of those boxes there are arrows to the project

concept because I made it link to the submission. Below that comes another circle with

prior knowledge of the science and technology area and another circle that states new

knowledge as well as attitudes, values and skills from the syllabus and then personal

beliefs. And I have the initiatives that I took that sits beside or below the knowledge, skills

and values. Each different lesson was an initiative that I tried. In a nutshell, my thinking

was developing while I was trying out different things. Across the dotted line there are

interactive arrows with the team and the academic partner because there was feedback at

meetings when I spoke to Sue about the design-and-make activities and also with the

academic partner because my thinking was different from the other people but I would

have to come and ground myself. (Telephone interview, May 2004)

What Loraine Learned About Herself

When summarising what she had learned about herself at the end of the study,

Loraine believed that she was an independent leaner and reported that she liked the

challenge of doing something different. She believed that she learned by trying

something out and then reflecting upon what happened and why. She believed that

she was a bit of a perfectionist and that she had a critical mind. She believed that “I do

a lot of mulling over and reflecting and I go back to my own values system.”

She described herself as a “visual learner and very systematic”, so sketching the model

of her own learning came quite easily as she had thought it through beforehand.

One particular feature that Loraine learned about herself was that the experience of

getting her own Year 2 children to design and make simple machines in science

reminded her of her own childhood. Her father was a motor mechanic and she

Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development 45

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remembered sitting in the family garage and watching her father make different

devices. She remembers when she was young that her father built a type of caravan

around her and she would sit there and watch her father work. She believes that she

“put it all behind me for a long time” until she got her children to start making things

in science. Getting her Year 2 children to make ramps, simple machines and bridges

made her think about her own childhood. She thought that as a “female and a mother

and a teacher I had put those experiences behind me,” but in the last 12 months she

had experienced a resurgence in some of the enjoyable experiences from her own

childhood. She could also think back to her own childhood and the symmetry of

Figure 3. Loraine’s model of her own learning

46 G. F. Hoban et al.

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blocks at pre-school: “I know I have always been a spatial thinker and I think I have

found it again in the last 12 months . . . it occurred during this action learning project,

coming down to think like a child again and wondering what I could put in front of

them to stimulate them.” Having to think about what mechanical experiences she

wanted her children to have made her recall her childhood and the happy experiences

she had with her father. She described the last 12 months as a real “trip . . . I see things

around the house and think about the simple machines that I used to play with as a

child.”

In summary, the change in Loraine’s teaching of science involved many different

changes in her teaching to improve her children’s design-and-make skills. This

involved giving her students various open-ended activities as well as encouraging her

children to share the ideas that they were testing out in their designs. These changes

were supported by many factors, including her personal reflection, her own

professional needs, the responses of the children, and support from the facilitator, her

teaching buddy and other members of the action learning team. In particular, having

to think what science her Year 2 children could do took her back to her own enjoyable

childhood experiences with her father.

Sue and Loraine’s Collaboration to Devise a Joint Model of Teacher Learning

After Loraine and Sue had sketched their own models of their learning process, as

shown in Figures 2 and 3, Garry suggested that they meet, share their individual

models and devise a joint model of their learning as a way to make their self-study

explicit to others. Figure 4 shows the result.

Interestingly, Figure 4 does not show the progress through the different initiatives in

Figures 2 and 3 as it is not a personal model, but it does show the complexity of the

process with the contribution from multiple elements involved in a change process

and the dynamics involved, as demonstrated by the range of two-way arrows.

Discussion and Conclusion

Although there have been many self-studies of teacher educators reflecting upon their

practice (Hamilton, 1998; Loughran et al., 2004), there are relatively few studies of

classroom teachers engaged in self-study. Previous self-studies involving teachers

(Austin & Senese, 2004; Senese, 2005) have tended to report how teachers develop

new insights about their classroom practices. In particular, the research has helped

teachers to better understand their identity as classroom practitioners concerning

“not just what we do; self-study is about who we are” (Austin & Senese, 2004,

p. 1256).

This study focuses on teachers studying themselves as learners in a 6-month

professional development programme. By conducting such a self-study, each teacher

was able to sketch and describe a model of personal learning, as shown in Figures 2

and 3. These diagrams show that change in teaching was not a simple, one-step

action, but a complicated process involving several initiatives for change supported by

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many factors. For example, in Figure 2, Sue described how focusing on the

improvement of children’s investigating skills took four initiatives over 6 months.

First, she tried to get children to follow an inquiry approach using sentences

describing each of the seven stages, but the children did not fully understand the

meaning of the sentences. She then focused on getting the children to identify

variables. Next, she encouraged the children to use the word “hypothesis” but this

confused them. Finally, she encouraged children to use the 5 Es process of

investigation which she found worked well because for each “E” there was a single

word that the children could understand and follow.

Loraine, on the other hand, focused her teaching on children developing their

design-and-make skills and took five initiatives over 6 months, as shown in Figure 3.

She first required her children to design and make something that moved by itself and

used a design-and-make sheet to give the children an understanding of different

terms. She then tried another activity (designing and making paper aeroplanes) which

was not as successful as the first because it was not as open-ended. As her teaching

evolved, she kept referring back to the syllabus. With further reading she broadened

her teaching to move beyond children’s understanding of science and skill

development. She also encouraged children to develop their values and attitudes

through the design-and-make activities by discussing the role of science in society and

encouraging the children to take responsibility for their ideas. Importantly, she noted

that “my thinking was developing while I was trying different things out.”

Both teachers’ models of their learning suggest that change in teaching involves

multiple attempts at trying something new and needs support from many factors. Sue

and Loraine’s individual (Figures 1 and 2) and collaborative models (Figure 3)

explain why one-off workshops rarely produce change in teaching because changing

practice rarely happens from one initiative. Instead, change in teaching is complex,

occurs in fits and starts, needs ongoing support and involves many attempts at trying

something different over a significant period of time. This self-study research

illustrates the claims of Day (1999) and Hoban (2002) that teacher learning is

a dynamic process involving the interaction of many different initiatives and processes

Figure 4. Sue and Loraine’s joint Model of their Own Learning

48 G. F. Hoban et al.

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to support change. Accordingly, a professional development framework

such as action learning is helpful to support teachers during the process of

changing teaching practice and needs to extend over a significant period of time

(Hoban, 2004).

Although the teachers initiated the idea of documenting their experiences of

professional learning in their own journals, it is doubtful that they would have studied

themselves to the extent they did without the advice about self-study provided by the

facilitator. Garry was conscious of the need to extend their individual ideas and make

their reflections public as a feature of self-study research (Loughran & Northfield,

1998). Asking teachers to sketch a model of own learning as an artefact representing

their experiences and to share it with each other was one way to do that. Comparing

and contrasting their individual models and then constructing a joint model was yet

another way to help teachers to make explicit and share their findings from self-study

research.

Teachers who are not aware of the methods and discourses of self-study may be

interested, but may not know where or how to start. One option for teacher educators

is to develop collaborations with teachers to help them research their own practice

with a self-study component. During the interviews, Sue and Loraine focused on what

and how they were learning, not necessarily thinking about change in themselves,

which is a feature of self-study research. One role of a facilitator of self-study is to help

teachers focus on thinking about themselves and their role as professional educators.

Austin and Senese (2004) argued that self-study for teachers helps in practical,

personal and professional ways. We contend that using self-study to research teacher

learning has these benefits. First, researching teacher learning is a statement about the

value and status of their professional development practice. Second, it helps teachers

to understand who they are as professional educators and why they do what they do.

Third, it encourages teachers to share their ideas about experiences of professional

learning with colleagues. Teachers may need input from teacher educators to facilitate

the methods of self-study, including how to reflect on their practice, how to represent

their ideas and how to share ideas for public scrutiny.

A key aspect highlighted in both self-studies was the importance of social support

for teacher change. In Figure 2, Sue highlighted the importance of sharing ideas with

her partner and the other staff. Loraine’s diagram in Figure 3 also showed the

importance of sharing ideas with her partner and others in the action learning team.

These complex combinations of factors were also highlighted in Figure 4, which was a

collaborative effort by the two teachers. Figure 4 reinforced the combination of factors

involved in teacher learning shown in Figures 2 and 3, including personal reflection

and student feedback and teaching buddies and a team of teachers and an academic

partner and district resources and an individual’s prior knowledge. Using a research

methodology such as self-study can help teachers to better understand themselves as

learners and thus help them to understand and manage the dynamic processes of

teacher learning to sustain professional development and improve the quality of

children’s learning.

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Acknowledgement

The authors thank the other teachers from Hill Top Public School who participated in

the action learning team, Val Burton, Robyn Griffiths, Annette Gard, Irene O’Brien

and John Morris (Principal)

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