Teachers'Collaborative Inquiry and Professional Growth:Should We Be Optimistic?

摘要

As professional learning communities(PLCs)are proliferating as a form ofteacher professional development,it is important to understand what "PLC work"is andhow it impacts teacher learning.This article reports on secondary science and mathematicsteachers'participation in PLCs and engagement in collaborative inquiry.The PLC provideda structure for coming together;their inquiry questions focused their attention on gapsbetween a shared vision for student learning and student achievement.Qualitative datafrom three in-depth cases are analyzed in three categories:(1)collective activities,(2)questions raised,and (3) knowledge generated.The cases show different trajectories ofteachers' PLC work and reveal the difficulties teachers had in asking critical questionsabout their practices