Sources of information used by teachers in professional development book club discussions

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Last Modified
  • March 22, 2019
Creator
  • Galloway, Nicole H.
    • School of Education
Abstract
  • The research questions were: What sources of information do teachers use in their book-club discussions; and is there variability among teachers in which sources of information they use in book club discussions? Sources of information were described in four categories: (a) the Book-Club Text that is read and discussed by the book club participants; (b) Other Experts, such as professors or workshop leaders that the teachers have encountered in the past; (c) Personal Experiences, typically experiences from the teachers' own classrooms; and (d) Hypothetical Examples, which are generalized, simplified statements created by the teachers in order to help them articulate beliefs that they hold about the topic being discussed. Participants were six first-grade teachers, who comprised the entire first-grade team at a large elementary school in an urban school district. Six book-club sessions were held approximately every other week. The data source was audiotapes of the book-club sessions. The main analysis involved examination of the rank order of the extent to which each of the four sources of information was referenced. Analysis of the variability among teachers involved examination of the rank order of the extent to which each of the four sources of information was referenced for each teacher and comparison of the rank orders across teachers. The potential impact of the Facilitator and one another on teachers' source use was also examined. Analysis was also conducted to determine if there were significant progressive increases or decreases in the use of any of the sources over time during the course of the six book-club sessions. Main conclusions were the following: (a) Teachers used Personal Experience more than any other source of information in their discussions. They used Hypothetical Example with the second most frequency, the Book-Club Text with the third most frequency, and Other Experts least frequently; (b) Teachers did not vary from one another in the rank order of their source use; (c) The Facilitator did not speak very often and therefore did not have much impact on the discussions. However, when he did speak, the teachers appeared to follow the Facilitator using the same source of information. Likewise, the teachers appeared to use the same source of information after one another; (d) There were no significant progressive increases or decreases in source use over time.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Fitzgerald, Jill
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • October 11, 2010

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