Making Sense of Collaborative Learning in a Mentor Teacher Study Group: Examining the Joint Construction and Collective Warranting of Ideas.

This study examined how an urban, elementary teacher study group helped five classroom teachers learn the practice of mentoring teacher candidates. A university liaison for one elementary school hosting interns led the group and conducted a longitudinal study of it as a context for collaborative learning. Teachers focused on making their teaching practice more accessible to interns and playing a more active role as teacher educators. Analysis of observations and transcripts from the study groups indicated that teachers took part in the collective negotiation of the meaning of their mentoring experience by participating in study group talk. Engaged participation in interactive or inquiry-oriented talk created learning opportunities for the joint construction of ideas about mentoring practice. A key feature of these learning opportunities was the way in which talk evolved to feature norms and processes for inquiry and analysis of artifacts of practice. As participants engaged in the collective study of mentoring practice, processes of inquiry began to take hold. Interactive talk in the study group led gradually to the joint construction and collective warranting of ideas about mentoring practice, which in turn were recorded in a curriculum for learning to teach at the school. (Contains 21 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Making Sense of Collaborative Learning in a Mentor Teacher Study Group: Examining the Joint Construction and Collective Warranting of Ideas PERMISSION TO REPRODUCEAND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY