Classroom narrative inquiry: stories about practice for teacher learning and professional development

Abstract

While the existing literature tends to favor the inclusion of narrative perspectives for teaching and researching teaching, there are few reports on the impact of these perspectives in teachers´ professional learning. We report upon an exploration about the professional learning of a group of four teachers who developed a classroom narrative inquiry into their classrooms. By means of a multiple case study, we analyzed in-depth interviews for meanings attributed to professional learning. Results point first to these teachers´ professional learning around developing reflexive processes, both from their individual relationship in producing stories of their practice and from sharing and co-editing their stories in community, widening their view about education and lowering their sense of isolation. Secondly, they learned to collaboratively inquire into their practice, impacting other aspects of their teaching professionalism, such as situated relationship to other teachers and their classroom practice. We discuss these results in relation to the classroom narrative inquiry framework and teacher education and professional development.