From Collegial Support to Critical Dialogue: Including New Teachers' Voices in Collaborative Work

Abstract

New teachers enter the field with a passion for making a difference with students, their newly gained knowledge from their preparation experiences, and a sense that there is still to learn. Faced with the same responsibilities as their experienced colleagues, new teachers also enter the field looking for ways to cope with, adjust to, and survive the challenges they encounter on a daily basis (Feiman-Nemser, 2003). As such, most new teachers desire continued support, guidance, and learning opportunities in their first few years of teaching. They hope that of this support will come from their colleagues (Costigan, Crocco, & Zumwalk, 2004; Feiman-Nemser, 2012; Public Education Network, 2003).A growing research base suggests that many new teachers find the support they need through collegial interaction. Support from peers and mentors is a key influence on new teacher effectiveness (Behrstock-Sherratt, Bassett, Olson & Jacques, 2014; Public Education Network, 2003), and teachers who experience collegial interaction and support tend to exhibit higher rates of retention in the profession (Ingersoll, 2003; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Odell & Ferraro, 1992; Weiss, 1999). Additionally, meaningful and supportive collegial interactions have been associated with positive outcomes for students and teachers, including higher teacher satisfaction (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Johnson, Kraft & Papay, 2012), greater adaptability to change (Nias, 1989), improved teacher development (Borko, 2004; Drury & Baer, 2011; Elmore, 2004; Hopkins, Beresford, & West, 1998) and learning (Goddard, 2000; Horn 2005; Horn & Little, 2010; Runhaar, Sanders, & Yang, 2010; Thoonen, Sleegers, Oort, Peetsma, & Geijsel, 2011), and increases in student achievement (Goddard, 2000; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Johnson, Kraft, & Papay, 2012).While there is good reason to believe that opportunities for workplace interaction will benefit teachers, it is important to note that there is no guarantee that it will (Levine, 2011; Slavit, Kennedy, Lean, Nelson, & Deuel, 2011). Whether teachers learn what they need to know in the early years of teaching through collegial interaction depends largely on the culture of teaching that new teachers encounter. In her early study of teacher collaboration, Eddy (1969) argued that as new teachers try to make sense of what is going on in their classrooms, the explanation and advice they encounter from more experienced colleagues affects their professional stance, practice, and attitude. Described as painful to read, Eddy's study illustrated how veteran teachers' advice led new teachers to create classroom routines that subordinated urban students and to ascribe difficulties they encountered in the classroom to traits they associated with students and families (Feiman-Nemser, 2003, p. 3). Rather than creating opportunities for positive growth and development, workplace interaction between new and experienced teachers produced detrimental effects that perpetuated systemic inequities that still plague education today (Feiman-Nemser, 2003, p. 3).Guided by research that extols the promise of teacher collaboration while also warning that of what passes for collaboration does not add up to much (Little, 1990, p. 508), this study explores 17 novice teachers' experiences of collegial interactions in their first year of teaching. Using ideas presented in Little's (1990) analysis of collegial interactions as a framework, we identified the types of collegial interactions that these new teachers experienced. Two of these types, aid and assistance and sharing, were most frequently described by the new teachers in our study and were consistent with Little's framework. The third, which we term critical dialogue, was described by only a handful of the new teachers and did not fully map onto any component of Little's framework. Thus, we present this new category in addition to the other two. …