Learning (about learning) from four teachers

For two years university-based researchers observed, interviewed, and had conversations with four elementary school teachers to understand how their beliefs and classroom practices about reading changed or remained the same over those two years and to develop a theory about how teachers construct new beliefs and change their practices. Over the two years of the study, all four teachers introduced into their classroom new language, beliefs, and/or practices. Time of the teachers did so experimentally, trying out new ideas and juxtaposing them with current beliefs and practices. At the end of the two years, two of these three teachers had altered their beliefs about reading and teaching reading and had transformed their practices. We believe that substantive change occurred for these two teachers because they experimented with new ideas and practices and because they focused on the skills and strategies of individual students. The paper explores the implications of these findings for being a teacher educator.