Original Research
Learning affordances and participation enablers within a primary mathematics in-service community of practice
South African Journal of Childhood Education | Vol 7, No 1 | a551 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/sajce.v7i1.551
| © 2017 Mellony Graven, Peter Pausigere
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 01 June 2017 | Published: 08 December 2017
Submitted: 01 June 2017 | Published: 08 December 2017
About the author(s)
Mellony Graven, South African Numeracy Chair Project, Rhodes University, South AfricaPeter Pausigere, South African Numeracy Chair Project, Rhodes University, South Africa
Abstract
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.
Keywords
primary mathematics; communities of practice
Metrics
Total abstract views: 2244Total article views: 3242
Crossref Citations
1. Exploring grade 3 teachers’ resistance to ‘take up’ progressive mathematics teaching roles
Lise Westaway, Mellony Graven
Mathematics Education Research Journal vol: 31 issue: 1 first page: 27 year: 2019
doi: 10.1007/s13394-018-0237-7