Triad journaling: A tool for creating professional learning communities

Teacher Education Quarterly, Fall 2003 by Silva, Diane Yendol

I always wondered what my student teachers wrote about in the journals. I was so curious and actually really interested. What did they think about the kids, our classroom, the materials we used? For some reason we didn't talk deeply about these things in our daily conversations. But I have questions about them myself that I would love to share with someone else but there really isn't space to do that in schools. The journals seemed sacred to the university and whenever the topic of journals came up I know everyone at the university would say, 'This is just our way of keeping in touch with what the student teacher is learning and wondering about. "But I wondered too... I wanted to be a part of that dialogue. I missed the opportunity to talk about and name these things that haunted me as I taught each day.... I wanted to share in the journaling. But I never mentioned it to anyone...

The teacher journaling described above, an interpretive self-observation technique (Bolin, 1988; Zeichner & Liston, 1987), is typically used by prospective teachers as a method of recording and sharing their own observations and thoughts about their own teaching practice, and their observations of other teachers' professional practice. Holland (1998) suggests that this type of journaling forms a stable text that represents a prospective teacher's thinking about his or her own work. Within this text, contextualized descriptions of actual teaching experiences as well as the writer's underlying beliefs and values surface painting a picture of the teacher's practice.

Since teacher journals often call attention to reflections on events, beliefs, emotions, concerns, questions, problems, and future plans, journals serve as effective communication tools for supervisors who are not present on a daily basis. On the other hand, Holly and Mcloyghlin (1989) believe that journaling is a powerful method for documenting and learning from one's own experience. They argue that journaling becomes a powerful tool for self-study. Journaling also offers a way of making private inner thoughts about teaching and learning public for others to see, question, and understand. As a result, student teacher supervisors often use journal entries to understand prospective teachers' professional selves, and to gain insight into their needs and wonderings. These journals serve as a communication link between the supervisor and the student teacher. In addition to learning about self and communicating with a supervisor, Killian (1991) suggests that collegial dialogue journals between teachers can also act as a collaborative learning tool. As teachers share their journals with each other, they collaboratively pose and solve problems as well as provide reciprocal support that results in professional growth.

Given that journaling can lead to self-study, communication, and collaborative learning, the time seems ripe to investigate ways all members of the student teaching triad can benefit from these three goals. For example, missing from the literature are the ways that journaling can be utilized to enhance the professional growth of the prospective teacher, mentor, and supervisor. As school-university partnerships continue to grow and year-long field experiences become more prevalent, opportunities exist for building strong collaborative relationships among the three members of the student teaching triad that may lead to self-study, enhanced communication, and co-reflection by all three members.

In professional development schools, university-based teacher educators are joining forces with school-based partners to enhance teacher education programs. This collaboration should encourage teacher educators to rethink the way they do business in field experiences by providing heightened voice to school-based colleagues, and by recognizing the importance of developing strong relationships between the members of the student teaching triad. To do this, new roles and instructional tools should be explored to heighten each member of the triad's professional learning. Evidence of efforts toward developing these new roles include the change in terminology from student teacher to intern, cooperating teacher to mentor, and supervisor to professional development school associate (Silva & Dana, 2000). In some cases, the traditional supervisor/student teacher journals are also being retooled to heighten interaction, and to build community among the triad members. This shift includes the voices and thinking around shared professional issues of all members of the triad learning community including intern, mentor, and professional development associate (PDA), formerly named University Supervisor.

Until now, triad journaling has been relatively unexplored in the research literature as a tool for enhancing the teaching and learning of prospective teachers, practicing teachers, and university teacher educators. In reviewing the literature, most of the work has been limited to descriptions of this journaling technique used in England where a school-based teacher education movement has been underfoot for over a decade (Wallace, 1999). The purpose of this study is to explore the use of triad journaling as a collaborative tool for enhancing teaching and learning in a professional development school context.