Veronica Morcom

The Australian government funded the West Australian project ‘Reporting Values to Parents’ as part of ‘The Values in Action Schools Project’ (2009). The two aims of the qualitative study were to develop a common values language supported by observable behaviours and an appreciation that values education is fundamental to schooling. Teachers used an action research process to create authentic values activities and involve parents in the assessment process. Parents shifted their perspectives to ratify teachers’ role to teach values explicitly. Students experienced a deeper sense of connection and belonging at school. Educators can adapt the activities in this paper to infuse values into their teaching. Future research is warranted to support and retain preservice teachers by examining the ‘hidden curriculum’ and personal biases to create inclusive classrooms. All students have a right to access an education that reflects their interests and values and teachers need urgent support for this quest.

A sociocultural view of learning positions teachers as mediators, to teach a curriculum that reflects what is valued by society. But in addition it is proposed that a specific focus on mediating relational agency to support collaboration further builds teacher and students capacities for learning. Peer interaction supports the development of communication, social and emotional competencies required for effective collaborative learning. But a deeper understanding of social and cultural challenges for schools accustomed to a traditional approach is required before change can occur. Relational agency is a two-way process, to become responsive so you can both receive and give support to peers. The data are drawn from three year-long projects conducted by the teacher/researcher with her students and other teachers who were mentored to develop new practices that challenged the status quo at their school. Rogoff's analytical planes are used as a framework to analyse the data and the findings are presented as four case studies related to bullying, conflict resolution, student leadership and teacher mentoring. The evidence-based social practices in this research can be adapted by other teachers interested in mediating relational agency to develop social and emotional skills to support a collaborative classroom (Morcom, 2014, 2015, 2016).

This longitudinal qualitative research is framed within a sociocultural perspective and examines experienced teachers and their mentor as they changed their practice. The data, sourced from three teacher focus groups, email correspondence and the mentor's reflections are analysed using Rogoff's personal, interpersonal and institutional/community planes. This small-scale study gives insights into the complex nature of professional learning, particularly when teachers are challenging the status quo which creates tensions that need to be addressed. Teachers had real concerns about time to teach the curriculum and complete the research activities. They worried about ‘fitting in’ with colleagues and parent perceptions. A collaborative self-development framework is advocated as a culturally appropriate way of for teachers to continue to learn during their careers, encourage risk taking and innovation.

A sociocultural view of learning positions teachers as mediators who teach a curriculum that reflects what is valued by society. In this paper it is proposed that a specific focus on mediating relational agency to support collaboration further builds teacher and student capacity for learning. Relational agency is a two-way process, to become responsive so you can both receive and give support to peers. Peer interaction supports the development of communication, social and emotional competencies required for effective collaborative learning. The aim of this paper is to reflect how evidenced based social practices promoted relational agency in a collaborative classroom. These social practices can be adapted by other teachers interested in this approach with their students. The data are drawn from three linked, consecutive year-long projects conducted by the teacher/researcher with her students and teacher/colleagues whom she mentored. Rogoff's analytical planes provide a framework to analyse the qualitative data. The findings are presented as four case studies related to bullying, conflict resolution, student leadership and teacher mentoring that illustrate relational agency in action. Further research is necessary to understand how to support teachers for 21st century learning, within the context of traditional schools where the status quo is well established.

Teacher retention in the classroom is a pervasive and complex global issue with large numbers of graduate teachers leaving the profession after 3-5 years and experienced teachers feeling frustrated with constant change (Darling-Hammond, 2003; Fullan, 2001). Mentoring is one means to support new teachers’ transition into the classroom and retain experienced teachers through renewal of practice. However, mentoring remains ‘a contested concept’ without conceptual cohesion and often used for multiple purposes that can be in conflict with each other (Kemmis, Heikkinen, Fransson & Aspfors, 2014). Different purposes create different mentoring practices resulting in different mentee dispositions that orient them differently to themselves, to others and their professional work (Kemmis et al., 2014). Vygotsky’s cultural historical theory (1978) and Hedegaard’s (2014) concepts of demands and motives are used as theoretical frameworks to underpin conceptualisation and interpretation in the current research. The aim was to examine the dispositions, motives and practices of three teachers, mentored by a teacher-leader to navigate the demands made on them by students, parents and the school administration. ETC. Two teachers were experienced year 1 and 4 teachers and the third was a year 4 teacher in her second year. The teacher-leader taught a year 2 class that included students previously taught by the year 1 teacher who was being mentored. All teachers had worked on various school projects together but not in a formal mentoring program with each other. Qualitative methods were chosen as suitable for data collected from the naturalistic setting of the classroom and to highlight teachers’ perspectives from the formal teacher focus group meetings (Patton, 2002). The main sources of data for this paper are based on the transcripts of the teacher focus groups, pre and post teacher surveys, teacher reflective logs in emails, and the teacher mentor’s reflective log that provide insights into the issues that underpinned different teachers’ motives and orientations to engage in new practices in the classroom. The data are examined using Hedegaard’s (2014) institutional, activity and person perspectives. New demands in transitions created the possibility for teachers to renew their classroom practice. Although teachers expressed interest and value in the research project and commitment to innovate in the classroom, institutional demands restricted the practice teachers perceived was possible. Examining teachers’ participation in the mentoring activity shows the dynamic of teachers’ motives and orientation to the demands made on them by the principal and parents despite the support they experienced from each other and the teacher-leader. Teachers develop motives through participation in institutional practices which are embedded in the “the dynamic relation between person and practice” (Hedegaard and Chaiklin, 2005, p. 64). The findings lend support to Weldon’s (2018) analysis that environmental factors are important in understanding teacher attrition. The current research has implications for how mentoring is conceptualized and implemented in schools where the purpose is pedagogical renewal and retention. Developing robust professional cultures that support renewal require school policies that articulate an understanding of mentoring as an integral part of everyday practice for all teachers (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2000).

In this paper we examine an intervention, ‘cooperative marbles in a jar’, as illustrative of Vygotsky’s (1999) method of double stimulation. The intervention was part of a larger longitudinal study conducted with primary aged students which aimed to examine how to develop a collaborative classroom where agency of the teacher and students was valued and supported. The first author was the classroom teacher and the second author the co-researcher/university professor who visited the classroom weekly. The teacher/researcher’s role, as a facilitator and ‘guide on the side’, was to allow students to take responsibility for their learning and develop shared understandings about collaborative values. The classroom social practices, such as the weekly classroom meeting and daily social circle, provided opportunities for students to practise these values and to participate in authentic activities to promote social knowledge and sharing of ideas. The focus was on student decision making about the direction of classroom activities and the creation of possible interventions in the development of a collaborative classroom. During weekly classroom meetings students raised issues about friendships, group work and the physical arrangement of the classroom as well as setting up incentive strategies to promote cooperation. The intervention emerged from the weekly classroom meeting discussions. The first stimulation was the problem students identified of their peers not cooperating in groups. The second stimulation was the tool of marbles in a jar which the students developed through discussions in the classroom meeting. Research data sources included regular reflections by students and researchers about the classroom social practices, which were videotaped by the second author, and interviews with the students and their parents. This paper explores how students and the teacher developed this formative intervention and sustained an effective new practice with positive outcomes for students. The significance for teachers of such research lies in developing authentic educational practices that prioritise students’ agency by giving voice to their concerns and having the confidence in students that they can resolve their issues for learning.

Students’ interaction with others significantly affects cognitive growth and the development of higher mental functions (Vygotsky, 1997, 1998). In the current research, students had opportunities to negotiate the conditions for their learning through the development of collective social practices that created a collaborative classroom. Students took responsibility for their participation in the Daily Social Circle and the Weekly Classroom Meetings. Students were or became the subjects of the collective activities, and the teacher’s role was to promote student cooperation and collaboration. The collective and personal sources of qualitative data are: the dialogue created during the Daily Social Circle and the Weekly Classroom Meetings; parent and student interviews; teacher/researcher observations and students’ reflection logs. The subject of the collective activity was social problem solving to develop student collaboration that ultimately supported learning and development. The collective activities were a source of social development for students but also the students themselves were the source of development for each other, through dialogue and the co-construction of new ideas during social practices. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory and the concepts of social situation of development, crisis and the zone of proximal development will be used as analytical tools for the data analysis (Vygotsky, 1994). The theoretical and practical relevance of this research for pre-service teachers is related to how Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory contributes to a richer interpretation of classroom practices and the practical strategies that can be implemented to facilitate how students interact with each other to support their development and optimise learning.

Peers create one of the most significant contexts for developing prosocial values. This paper reports on a yearlong study of thirty one year 4/5 students where antisocial values were deep-seated. The aim of this qualitative research was to examine how to reduce antisocial behaviour and promote peer collaboration. The notion of whole-class scaffolding was applied to use the collective knowledge of the peer group and develop mutual respect to reduce antisocial behaviour. Social and reflective practices included: the Daily Social Circle; Weekly Class Meetings; student reflection logs and interviews and parent surveys. Two themes generated from the findings examine how students changed from ‘antisocial behaviour’ to ‘developing mutual respect’ through explicit values education. The findings suggest that whole-class scaffolding of peer collaboration was effective when values education was linked to students’ collective needs, supported by targeted social and reflective practices. This research contributes to our understanding of operational values education.