| This study reveals how experienced teachers clarify knowledge about their work and understandings behind their practice. In a professional development school, six mentor teachers met in a weekly seminar to: (1) design an evolving site-based novice teacher preparation program, (2) plan experiences for the novices, and (3) talk about their practice. Data were collected by the participant observer researcher over eighteen months through taped records of seminars, casual conversations, informal and structures interviews with the mentor teachers, and participant observations. Heuristic inquiry provided the conceptual framework for narrative descriptions portraying the meaning, essence, quality, and depth of the experienced teachers' work.;Through engaging in conversations and telling stories about their teaching, teachers analyzed their philosophies, explored rationale for practice, clarified the contextual influences on their teaching, and raised dilemmas in their teaching. Seminar conversations centered on three themes that were important in the ongoing process of learning to teach: context, dilemmas, and finding one's self in teaching.;Narratives of teaching constructed both by the researcher and the six teachers contribute to knowing how teachers' understanding and growth may develop. Narratives are used by teachers to build a shared language for "finding one's self in teaching and being true to it." Narratives provide a situated context for continued learning, illustrate the values behind practice, uncover knowledge bases, define conceptual tools that support a lifetime of teaching, and clarify personal and professional knowledge.;In addition the study describes how continued professional development support encourages the shaping of a school culture where mutual teaching and learning becomes the norm. Findings suggest that schools and colleges of education should rethink how to provide the expectations, time, and space necessary for a joint study of teaching in order to support all educators in continuing teacher development within the context of a professional development school. |
