Teachers Changing Practice in Their Schools: Implications for

School LibrariesRosemary Abbott

Loreto Mandeville Hall

SLAV Conference

March 20 2015

Laying out the Paper

The research described in brief

Teachers at the heart of the study

The use of narrative to bring the teachers’ experiences to life

Laying out the Paper

What the literature says

What the data revealed

Key findings and their implications

The Research

Telling the story of the research

Introducing the teachers

Research design

2 Phase Qualitative Research

Phase 1 – 18 teachers, 10 weeks

Phase 2 – PLT of 6 teachers over 12 months,

then 3 of those teachers for further 6 months

Teachers trying new learning technologies in their classrooms

Regular MeetingsSupportCollegialityAbsence of Judgment

Autoethnography

A narrative methodology connecting the personal and the cultural

An open declaration of my place in the research

Looking at the teachers’ realities of practice

Activity Theory

Theoretical framework and means of data analysis

You are what you do

Activity Theory “has been relied on to study contexts of implementation of innovation in education, such as when new technology is introduced and conflicts occur between teachers’ beliefs and their actual practice” Murphy and Rodriguez-Manzares (2008)

Generation 2 Activity Theory

My Activity Theory Model

Themes from the Literature and the Data

Teacher Self

Identity and Beliefs

Emotions

Self efficacy

Trust

The best way you can find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them (Hemingway)

What trust is

Why trust matters in schools

How trust can be built

Relationships

Why they matter

How they developed in the study

Change

The nature of change “Things do not change, we change” Thoreau

Responses to change

Modelling of change

Time

Ways to look at time

Time as an impediment to change

The impact of timing

IMPLICATIONS

For Leaders

The teacher viewed as individual

Encouraging passion and risk taking

Acknowledging success

Demonstrating trust

For Teachers

Recognising change is ever present, a process not an event

Rethinking responses to the pressures of time

Open sharing of success and failure, recognising the importance of relationships with students and colleagues

For School Libraries

Understanding the realities for teachers

The value of building relationships

Modelling change

Providing collaborative support