Critical Collaborative Intervention Research in Teacher Education to Literacy Development

Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo – BRAZIL

Cecília Magalhãescicamaga@gmail.com.br

Angela Lessacavenagh@uol.com.br

Research Groups:

Language in activities in school contexts – LACE

Linguistic inclusion in educational activity scenarios - ILCAE

Problematic Issue: literacy learning and development

Literacy learning and development the biggest educational problem in Brazilian public schools:

Students´ deprived contexts;

Teachers´difficult economical situation;lack of educational support;

Traditional ways to work with literacy learning and development.

This Presentation Objectives

Development of citizenship and empowerment of all participants;

Educating professionals to critically understand and transform their actions

and the ones with whom they interact (Marx; Vygotsky); to work with the school as a collaborative-

critical community (Newman and Holzman, Hargreaves and Fullan);

Aims: to discuss

a teacher education project as a community building between a research group and the school participants (principal, deputy principal, coordinator and teachers).

the production of a critical collaborative context among all participants so that: the school practitioners could systematically: visualize and understand their classroom literacy teaching-

learning; analyze them through video watching, theoretical texts

reading, performances preparation, presentation and analysis; critical discussions to relate practice to theory to analyze and

understand their classroom action, language organization and teacher´s and students´roles in classroom interaction.

the researchers could systematically: analyze language organization, the relationship established to

comprehend and transform their actions to critical-collaborative meaning production

Creating Performatory ZPD (Holzman 2010)

Creating teachers and coordinators new ways:

to understand and act in ways they do not know how to do yet;

to listen to each other and to use their narratives to create a new kind of conversation;

Speaking as Performance, Speaking as Narration (Holzman 2010)

Speaking as performance – speaking as performed conversation that may precede and make possible:

Speaking as narrative: talking about important situation, theories, concepts related to theory and practice

Transforming narrative into performed narration and vice versa

Theoretical-Methodological BasesBased on CHAT and formative intervention research in the school context (Engeström, 2011);

Method as “ simultaneously pre-requisite and product, the tool and the result of the study” (Vygotsky, 1978);

Method of Double Stimulation (Vygotsky,

1934);

Critical Collaborative Research

Collaborating critically is creating socially-situated contradictions so that each participant can intentionally act to: mutually and inter-dependently listen,

understand and respond to the other and to share reasoning;

be open to expand their own understandings;

raise doubts and ask problematic questions;

Critical Collaboration

posing challenges and making suggestions;

asking for clarification; disagreeing, reviewing or complementing ideas

previously explained, describing experiences as a means

to relate to others.

CriticalCollaborative Research

A process that involves all participants in: critical - collaborative relationship and argumentative organization of language ;

collaboration is responsible for the negotiation with the other – which presupposes an attitude of involvement from the part of participants, and the development of mutual trust, and meaning production sharing and expansion (Magalhães,

2011,2003/2007; Magalhães and Fidalgo, 2007; Ninin, 2006; Liberali, 2011, 2014); argumentative organization of language allows for

creating dialectical relationship among interagents;

The Project: Reading and Writing in Different Areas (LEDA)

School Needs – students´ maintenance of reading and writing scores in the evaluations of SARESP (System of School Assessment of the State of São Paulo) Obs: loss of wages for teachers

The Elementary School -1rst (6 years old) to 5th grades (10 years old)

Students come from low literacy homes. School - no internet lab, little space between

students desks and between students and the blackboard, a small teachers´ room with a computer and a printer.

Located in a city in the outskirts of the Greater São Paulo.

All walls were covered with students` /teachers´ posters with the alphabet, texts of different genres ( poems, rhymes, rules, and lists of word and of students´ names).

Project Meetings during Teachers` and Coordinator´s Collective Work Time

Teachers` continuing education context at school:

Teachers´ salary include time for collective work – conquest of Teachers´ Union.

Usually very little effective work is developed in these contexts - organized by the school coordinator.

However

It is an important space for teacher education projects !

The Project Organization

Participants - the administration team (principal, deputy principal, coordinator; 20 teachers and 3 researchers);

every fortnight, for one hour, from noon to 1pm, during teachers´ collective work, in 2012;

15 meetings at school, in a classroom;

April to June and August to November- all meetings were videotaped;

1 camera on a tripod in front of the classroom.

Creating zpd to school participants to speak as Performance and speaking as Narration (Holzman, 2010)

School participants – from performance to narration as a group watched videos of classroom performances; in pairs observed each other classes; In both tasks they were supposed to describe the work with reading

and writing, teacher´s and students´ roles and language organization in classroom interaction;

From narration to performance back to narration Discussion in small groups from different grades to prepare a

presentation of classes descriptions to the large group A rapporteur selected by the group read the description of each

group – it created a possibility for divergent meanings to be revealed, for questions to be asked, questions, expansions and requests for clarification to be placed

From narration to performance back to narration

In groups the school participantes prepared classroom performances/presentation with students` and teachers` roles – literacy practices in which participants staged based on Behaviorism or Piagetian Cognitivism or Socio-Historical approaches.

After performances – Critical discussion

ResultsConstructing performances and talking critical-

collaboratively about the performances created or watched supported teachers to experience things they did not know how to do yet (Holzman, 2009, 2010).

This process of transformation (constructing the teaching performance, in Vygotskian terms) creates in the group new ways to understand and relate to teaching, because they can simultaneously develop speaking as narration and speaking as performance (Liberali, 2013)

Creating a Performatory ZPD establishing the problem

PQ1: What ... how was the process of constructing this performance? How was it? What did you feel what difficulties did you have or didn’t have? How did each group do ...

C: [socio-historical approach] ... for us the characteristics of constructivism and socio-historical are very similar. So, we tried to make the socio-historical stand out, to see if it was emphasized, to distinguish.

P3: [Piagetian cognitivism approach] here we also thought like them, not to follow the line of the socio-historical, not to go deeper, to go to the socio-historical.

Discussing a Performatory ZPD -Talking as narration

P 4: when it was time to choose the activity we [cognitive approach] we thought exactly in this suggestion, which brings up the question of the Indigenous people in a decontextualized way, right? So, it’s how the school today works in the Indigenous day, but not quite, right? So, a reading about the Indigenous was done, talking about the food, about the tools that were produced by them, a word list of food and other things was made, illustration, crossword puzzle, everything, but where does the Indigenous come into the story?

P5: [inaudible], but it is best to work on behalf of the village, now there is an entire experience of the student, a historical context, so that is why we (socio-historical group) were trapped in relation to the socio-historical and didn’t try to escape.

P6: I remember an activity when I as a student, right? Still in school we went to the village, but that context was not explained by the teacher, then it made no sense ... none of this was spoken

Creating performatory ZPD as a collaborative way of working together helped teachers and the coordinator to:

understand the theoretical basis of teaching-learning in their classes and the reasons for the maintenaince of SARESP results;

build new literacy concepts and new teacher´s and students´ roles to transform teaching and learning in their classes;

Coordinator´s Work EvaluationCoord: As this would be our last meeting, I wanted to say something quickly

to you. When you came to do this training with us, I confess I was a little skeptic, and thought: but, where do these people come from who are they to want to show us that we are doing something wrong and that we do not know what to do. Today I say to you with certainty that I'm a different coordinator in my way of thinking, my way of studying and researching, and you made such a difference in my education . And I believe that not just me, some teachers who have talked to me have changed posture, began to reflect more on their practice and we have only to thank you for that.

PQ1: What was that for you, what you said, I changed. How have you changed? Coord: It was deconstruction in order to build new knowledge. Because it is

difficult when you have something that you think you know and you know and that’s that. Then doubts began to emerge: I know, but am I'm doing everything right? How could I improve? So this reflection I thought it was very positive for my training and I believe for other teachers as well, because we talk backstage, and I've heard so much testimony from teachers saying that there really was a change in them. This is a thank you, I'm grateful and I’m thanking in the name of the group, because I think this is how most people feel.

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