Educational curriculum reform: Exploring the liminal experience of in-service science teachers

In 2001, the province of Québec introduced the Québec Education Program (QEP) reform curriculum. The changes introduced in the curriculum were sweeping in scope. For the first time, provincial policy documents encouraged teachers to incorporate critical thinking strategies into their lessons. These critical thinking strategies placed inquiry-based learning and problem-based learning approaches into a competency-based educational framework. However, successful QEP implementation would have required extensive in-service teacher education that incorporated these pedagogies. Unfortunately, many Québec teachers had and still have limited access to high-quality professional development (PD). Existing scholarship suggests that many science teachers remain unprepared and uninformed to implement the reform curriculum fully. This dissertation is a critical ethnographic and autoethnographic exploration of how science teachers collaborate and develop their professional practices as they work in a professional learning community (PLC). The overarching goal of this doctoral study was to explore the potential of a yearlong PLC initiative to bridge the liminal space created by the implementation barriers to reform-based science teaching. The study focuses on nine participant teachers (including myself as a co-participant) who met for eight monthly PLC meetings over one school year to collaborate and support each other to enhance their pedagogical practice. The data corpus includes pre- and post-PLC interviews, video-recorded PLC meetings, participants’ reflexive journals, field notes, and reflexive researcher journals. This study draws on two theoretical perspectives, Bourdieu’s social field theory (1977) and Lave and Wenger’s theory of situated learning (1991). Together, these theoretical frameworks suggest that adult learning is a social endeavour where novice teachers learn through close collaboration with experienced teachers. The complex social relationships between novice and experienced teachers provide participants with an opportunity to develop an understanding of their practice, which can shift and give rise to new ways of knowing. As participants struggle to develop professionally within a PLC, there is a potential to transform social practice as participants mutually engage in critical reflection and collaboration, leading to pedagogical innovation as new teaching skills and strategies develop.The findings suggest that when teachers are provided with meaningful opportunities to participate in prolonged PD, they eagerly do so. Participation in a PLC furnished a supportive learning environment for novice and experienced teachers. Teachers benefited professionally from the opportunity to experiment with and develop inquiry-based learning and problem-based learning strategies. Findings also reveal that too little is being done to support novice teachers during the critical induction years. This dissertation outlines a collaborative partnership between university researchers and high school teachers that helped to translate research on science education into practice. The empirical work with science teachers contributes to the existing literature on PLCs through an in-depth analysis of how a PLC generates and sustains teacher professional growth. Currently, there is a dearth of literature studying the assumptions that guide PLCs, their potential to support pedagogical innovation and the learning processes that transpire in PLCs. This research outlines recommendations for educational stakeholders – school boards, governments and faculties of education on teacher PD. This investment in continued PD is crucial if the educational system is to achieve its goal of sustaining teachers who are knowledgeable, skilled, and effective

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