Learning affordances and participation enablers within a primary mathematics in-service community of practice

This article investigates the participation enablers and learning affordances identified by teachers through participation within an in-service community of practice (CoP) of primary teachers called the Numeracy Inquiry Community of Leader Educators (NICLE) in the Eastern Cape. The article draws on...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mellony Graven, Peter Pausigere
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: AOSIS 2017-12-01
Series:South African Journal of Childhood Education
Subjects:
Online Access:https://sajce.co.za/index.php/sajce/article/view/551
Description
Summary:This article investigates the participation enablers and learning affordances identified by teachers through participation within an in-service community of practice (CoP) of primary teachers called the Numeracy Inquiry Community of Leader Educators (NICLE) in the Eastern Cape. The article draws on three qualitative sources of data: the annual teacher questionnaires of 42 participating teachers, interview data from 8 of the 42 sampled teachers and reflective journal entries of these 8 teachers over the first 2 years of NICLE. All three data sets point to teachers foregrounding the affordances and enablers of NICLE participation across the fundamental elements of a CoP, namely domain, community and practice. We illuminate the way in which teachers’ identification of learning affordances relates to these three structural features of a CoP. In concluding, we argue that explicit consideration of these structural elements, and their interrelationship in the design of in-service programmes, could enable clearer articulation of programme aspects and support reflection on the coherence between teacher feedback on these as programmes evolve.
ISSN:2223-7674
2223-7682