Creating a learning community through a PE teacher's exploration of inquiry: A collaborative autoethnographic study

This study was an autoethnography about inquiry learning and teaching through extraction and construction of meaning from experience. Using a collaborative autoethnography methodology I explored experiences in my past with others in the field through a “critical friend” Blog, to unpack what may have...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Rose, Miranda
Other Authors: Hopper, Tim
Language:English
en
Published: 2008
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1828/1034
Description
Summary:This study was an autoethnography about inquiry learning and teaching through extraction and construction of meaning from experience. Using a collaborative autoethnography methodology I explored experiences in my past with others in the field through a “critical friend” Blog, to unpack what may have enabled me to value inquiry-based teaching as a physical education teacher. I created narratives from my autoethographic data and again shared them with my Blog members, inviting critical responses. Over an eight month period I created a community of learners with purposefully selected colleagues working in an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme curriculum school in the Middle East. I shared my narratives with my colleagues in order to support, question, connect or contrast my personal findings. Through our dialogues we came together to unpack our understandings of learning, who we were as learners, teaching, who we were as teachers and inquiry. As a community of learners exploring our experiences and perceptions, our understanding of constructivism evolved. This study revealed the tensions that exist between what teachers know about learning for meaningful understanding and the disabling learning and teaching environments they are and have been a part of.