Abstract:

The present study examined seven preschool teachers’ weekly co-planning meeting. It was conducted at a NAEYC-accredited university-lab school located in the midwest State University in the United States.

Method:
Over one semester, data was collected by using video-recording of weekly co-planning meeting, interviews of individual teachers, documents (lesson plans), field notes, and researcher journal, over one semester.

Findings & Discussion:
Through the planning meetings, teachers’ collaborative inquiry-based learning, dynamic knowledge co-construction, and a culture of teacher research was fostered and sustained. The findings also indicate that co-teacher relationship, teacher autonomy/independence, and student teachers played a pivotal role in teachers’ professional development.

1) Teacher’s sustaining culture of research and observation-based inquiry
The present study found that the teachers continuously engaged in the following iterative cycle : Individual Reflection => Collective Reflection & Sharing Observation + knowledge => Critical + Constructive Feedback => Co-Construction of New Knowledge and Practice => Actual Practice + Implementation => Individual Reflection) . Such collaborative observation-based inquiry can help transform teachers’ attitudes to embrace “breathing in inquiry” (Pelo, 2006, p.51), where teachers become orientated to observing, questioning, hypothesizing, and experimenting with knowledge and practice. The findings suggest that co-planning meetings on a regular basis can be a potential context for cultivating teachers’ collaborative inquiry-based learning and fostering a sustaining culture of teacher research.

2) Dynamic knowledge co-construction through collaboration
The teachers stated that their isolated reflection tended to repeat the patterns of their practice and thinking. However, their collaborative discussions enabled them to be more self-critical and pushed their thinking beyond their present repertoire of practice. In the meeting, as one teacher “bounced” a new idea in the air, the other teachers take it to reciprocate, expand on it, or toss back a challenging feedback idea. As this dynamic process was repeated in collaboration, the ideas became more refined and the teachers gradually moved toward an untouched area, inventing new strategies and approaches in their practice. Such dynamic nature of collective discussion allowed the teachers to freely explore and deliberately experiment with multiple ideas, to become creative and somewhat innovative in their thinking, thereby continuously building new knowledge and practice.

3) Teacher autonomy and empowerment in professional development
In this study, the teachers, as the main decision-makers without any outside direction, freely focused on the topics and the immediate concerns that mattered the most to them, and thus they were able to tap into deeper, more complex, and nuanced understandings within their work. Furthermore, the teachers were able to directly experience and reflect on the outcomes in a relatively short time from the practices that they planned and implemented. Such first-hand experiences of their ‘research’ and their sense of ownership seemed to empower the teachers in professional learning.This study suggests that teacher autonomy and independence should be provided to empower teachers in their own professional learning.

4) In this study, the teachers’ personal relationships influenced their professional work.

Keywords:

Teacher Professional Development, Early Childhood Teacher Education, Mentor Teachers, Co-Teaching, Co-Planning.