Abstract
Setting the probationary school as base of the community of practice, this paper intended to explore the relations of motives, social identities, reflections and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of a probationary teacher. This is a case study. Our interpretations are based on the data collected from classroom observing and regularly interviewing this probationary teacher, interviewing his mentor teacher, analyzing his probationary reports, teaching journal and his students’ feed-back questionnaire. We observed that the probationary teacher has very strong motives in learning to teach. However, his intention of teaching diagnostically was defeated by his relatively weak PCK and easily impacted by the traditional instruction approach at the beginning stage of his probation. His social identity within the community of practice is heteronomous. He was not able to practice intentionally at this early stage. Gradually, he suffered in his classroom by the ignorance of his students to his instruction and awared that his teaching must have crucial problems. His strong intrinsic motives lead him to search for learning opportunities within the community. He was able to observed many lively mathematics classrooms which are identified by his survey and asked for permissions. He also created a weekly regular tutoring lesson for his students. His PCK was growing under those actively learning activities. A diagnostic teaching approach has been observed during his tutoring lesson. Based on our data, we reviewed the model of learning to teach of this probationary teacher. Within the context of practice, the autonomous identity and the heteronymous identity of a teacher will be pressing each other, the intrinsic and extrinsic motives of a teacher are compatible, and the quality of a teacher’ reflections is extending. The growth of this teachers’ PCK was resulted by the interactions of his motives of learning, his social identities and the quality improving of his reflections.
| Keywords: | reflections; social identities; professional development; learning to teach; motives |
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