Novice Teachers Learning through Participation in a Teacher Study Group

This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 26, Issue 8, Author(s): Dawn Lambson, " Novice Teachers Learning through Participation in a Teacher Study Group", Pages 1660-1668, Copyright Elsevier (November 2010).

The present case study investigates the experiences of three novice teachers engaged with more experienced teachers in a teacher study group during their first year of teaching.

The article uses Lave and Wenger’s framework of legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice to explore the novice teachers' experiences.

The study illustrates how, over time, the novices moved from more peripheral to more central participation as revealed through changes in their talk and feelings about participating.

The study emphasizes the importance of legitimacy and peripherality provided by the more experienced teachers.
Furthermore, the study also identifies the ways in which the facilitator scaffolded and mediated the novices’ participation and learning.

Reference
Lave, Jean and Wenger, Etienne (1991). " Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)". Cambridge University Press.