Teacher talk during CPD: An exploration of talk as a tool for reflective inquiry into practice

This qualitative case study examines the role of specialist reading teachers’ talk during CPD and how their talk develops as dialogue which enables them to inquire reflectively into practice. Despite a large body of research into teacher learning through CPD, how teachers talk within CPD has had less attention from the field compared to the interest in CPD designs and factors which contribute to CPD effectiveness. In addition, most interest from the field into the role of talk in learning, has concentrated on classroom talk and the exchanges between teachers and children. Consequently, the findings from this study add to current understanding of how individuals learn from CPD and the role played in their learning by their participation in dialogue about practice observation. The study was situated in the CPD context of an established group of Reading Recovery teachers. Data were generated from observation and audio-transcripts of the CPD event and through group and individual interviews with the teachers and the group leader. A grounded theory approach to data analysis was used to explore the nature of dialogue in this context and participants’ explanations of their roles and learning. The premise of this thesis is that teachers’ adaptive expertise is extended through reflective inquiry when their collaborative talk is used to assemble and interrogate data from observed lessons, theorise about decision-making and propose and test hypotheses about what they observe. Although there was individual variation, and factors other than length of experience were significant in teachers’ participation in reflective inquiry, the analysis indicates that by collaboratively problematising practice, teachers can develop deeper rationales for their decision-making and are able to synthesise theoretical and practical knowledge. I propose that developing and maintaining an inquiry stance through dialogue generates reflective inquiring leading to learning transformation.