Narratives in teacher professional development and metaphors facilitators live by

Abstract

Narrative Inquiry immerses participants and researchers in relational examination of shared lived experiences. Using narrative as both the phenomena and method of study (Connelly & Clandinin, 2000), I sought to uncover metaphors as embodied and enacted in the storied experiences of four professional developers facilitating teacher learning in the Cultural Relevance in Science Pedagogy (CRISP) action research network. The overarching question for the inquiry was: What metaphors are lived (embodied and enacted) in the practice of professional developers when working toward cultural relevance in science pedagogy? Additional questions were: How do metaphors lived in predominant academic discourses, shape facilitators’ thoughts and actions? What other kinds of metaphors influence educational researchers’ academic discourses and facilitators’ conceptions of teacher professional development? How does collaborative work with facilitators to identify metaphor in their practice contribute to a) facilitator professional learning and b) teacher professional development research? Field texts negotiated with each facilitator entailed: participant observation at local meetings, audio recording of facilitator-led meetings, observation notes, facilitator interviews, transcribed facilitator teleconferences, pre/post surveys, and teacher exit interviews. Using a holistic analytic approach provided by Connelly and Clandinin’s (2006) commonplaces of temporality, sociality, and place, I analyzed the storied experiences of four facilitators; negotiated lived metaphors to highlight elements of each participant’s practice, and re-storied the field texts for presentation in the form of narrative. Participants were engaged relationally throughout the narrative inquiry to assure the metaphors identified represented their lived experiences in CRISP.