Teacher and faculty socialization through learning communities: New members' perspectives.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In the next decade, a generation of pre-collegiate and postsecondary educators will consider retirement, reaffirming the need to successfully orient into the classroom those who replace them. The importance of this study rests on the basis of the difficulties associated with early-career teaching, rates of teacher and faculty attrition, and the lack of support mechanisms available to newcomers. Through a social-constructivist framework, this qualitative endeavor utilized phenomenological methods to delineate early-career teacher and faculty members' socialization experiences in learning communities.
Individual and focus group interviews were conducted with teachers and faculty members who participated in learning communities at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois and in the Alumni-Teaching-Scholars Faculty Learning Community at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, along with document reviews and field-study visits at each research site. The data collected provided detailed descriptions of the processes through which early-career teachers and faculty members were socialized into unfamiliar school and university cultures through social interactions with colleagues in learning communities.
The study determined that formal and informal support systems, collaborative and collegial cultures, principles of adult and student learning, and resources that sustained the continuous improvement of teaching practices were vital elements of participants' experiences. Study results indicated that social interactions with colleagues in learning communities were beneficial to newcomers. Further, the formal and informal structures of learning communities, including empathic support from experienced colleagues, administrators, and mentors; opportunities to meet with fellow newcomers; departmental configurations; and access to research on improved teaching and learning were essential in study participants' socialization experiences. Members of learning communities at the pre-collegiate and postsecondary levels also reported an energizing effect from collegial interactions, assistance in tenure and promotion processes, and an aggrandized understanding of their students' needs and backgrounds. Therefore, learning communities do provide a means of enhancing early-career teacher and faculty members' socialization experiences. The results of this evaluation may aid future and early-career teachers and faculty members by establishing best practices in teacher induction and faculty orientation. School administrators and university officials can use these results in designing generative learning communities.