Teacher Educators’ Professional Learning Described through the Lens of Complexity Theory

Abstract

In this study we review our own experience of coordinating learning in a professional community of student supervisors in the context of curricular change that took place in the elementary school program of our teacher education college. We present an analysis of four excerpts of conversations about change selected from a larger corpus of data, consisting of transcripts of the weekly department meetings that took place during an entire academic year in which the curricular change was implemented, representing four critical events that brought about the emergence of the interactive dynamic of this self-organizing community. We explain the catalytic power of these events through the theoretical framework of complexity theory. We show how complexity theory can be used for focusing on the dynamics of professional learning at work, as a process of influencing each other's learning and development, possibly leading to the reciprocal transformation of the members of the community.

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