Learning of Teachers in Community

Focusing on Lee S. Shulman’s Theoretical Framework

Abstract

This paper aims to understand and evaluate the structure of teachers’ learning in the community, as discussed by Shulman. The first section examines why Shulman focused on the community. It clarifies that he drew from Vygotsky’s concept, the “zone of proximal development,” and considered Schwab’s community theory of teacher development. The second section examines how Shulman regarded community as based on schools, while creating his “Fostering a Community of Teachers as Learners” project. In this project, he used four elements from the learning principles: activity or agency, reflection or metacognition, collaboration, and formation of a supportive community or a sustaining culture, thus creating a foundational principle for the development of the well-known teachers’ learning community framework. In the third section, Shulman’s case method is analyzed, focusing on creating a community of teachers. Cases enable teachers to communicate with their colleagues in an “invisible college.” Therefore, it becomes evident that the case is a tool creating a community beyond time and space. 　　 When both school-based and case-based communities work well, the learning process for teachers in that community can successfully adapt to the existing teacher culture. This has the following implications for theory and practice in Japan: first, the concept of community is extended through distinction between the substantive community, such as a school, and the functional community that emerges through ongoing communication. Second, the Japanese culture of “teacher narrative description” can be reevaluated as a discussion of teacher learning in the community. Third, reading and writing teacher narrative descriptions can create a functional professional community, which would contribute to establishing professionalism as well as standards of professionalism.