University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

An alternate view of staff development: Personal professional growth within a single school setting

Wiggins, Robert Andrew

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/20321

Description

Title
An alternate view of staff development: Personal professional growth within a single school setting
Author(s)
Wiggins, Robert Andrew
Issue Date
1993
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Rubin, Louis J.
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Education, Administration
  • Education, Elementary
  • Education, Teacher Training
Language
eng
Abstract
  • This study provided a staff development experience based on socio-constructivist principles of learning to a group of teachers and their principal within their own school. The purpose of this study was to examine the consequences of such a staff development activity in terms of changes in (a) the teachers' understanding of their own beliefs about teaching and learning, (b) the teachers' practices in their classrooms and (c) the role of the principal as instructional leader.
  • This staff development experience took into account Vygotsky's views on the intersubjective and intrasubjective nature of learning by having the teachers and the principal participate in ten weekly workshops during which they shared information and were exposed to one another's perspectives. In conjunction with these workshops, the teachers made videotapes of their own teaching which they used for personal reflective self-study. As part of each workshop session, the participants jointly viewed videotapes of various types of classroom lessons and shared their reactions to what they saw. This was intended to provide scaffolding within the zone of proximal development to support the teachers' attempts at reflective inquiry in the analysis of their own videotapes.
  • Data consisted of (a) transcripts of videotapes of the workshop sessions and interviews with the teachers, (b) pre- and post-workshop questionnaires (c) the teachers' written reactions to their videotapes and (d) this researcher's field notes and journal entries. Analysis of the data revealed a pragmatic stance on the part of the teachers with regard to what they learned from the workshops coupled with indicators of constraints on the teachers' ability to reflect on their own work. However, the analysis also indicated that sharing a learning experience with other staff members, including the principal, was valuable to the participants. Implications are drawn from this for both future research and the current practice of this principal/researcher in the areas of promoting the reflective inquiry of experienced teachers, and the impact that the role of the principal as an instructional leader has on the teacher's personal professional growth.
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20321
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 1993 Wiggins, Robert Andrew

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Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations and Theses - Education
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