Dr. Chin-Wen Chien,
National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
Tangible artifacts or tools, such as student work, videos of lessons, lesson plans and teachers’ reflections can be used to bring ideas from classroom practice into professional dialogue, professional development and professional learning (Borko, Jacobs, Eiteljorg, & Pittman, 2008; Nikula, Goldsmith, Blasi, & Seago, 2006). Documents, interviews, and observation notes were used to analyze nineteen Taiwanese elementary school English teachers’ professional identity construction during professional dialogue through artifacts and tools. The conceptual framework was adopted from Wetzler’s (2010) Teacher Learning and Performance and Wertsch’s (1998) three conceptual terms of artifacts. The study concluded three findings. First, the affordance of artifacts and tools led English teachers to exercise their reflective practice during the workshops and professional dialogue. Second, the power and authority of the artifacts and tools referenced by participants also helped them to construct their professional identities. Third, school culture, shared norms in the teacher professional learning community, curriculum development, administrative support, and faculty turnover affected their professional identity construction.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.LLLD.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Iran-Ahwaz.