Exploring teacher learning in Business Studies through the professional learning communities.
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Date
2019
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Abstract
The objective of the study was to explore the teacher learning of Business Studies teachers through their subject cluster in the uMgungundlovu District.
This study explored what and how Business Studies teachers said they learnt in subject cluster and their views on the importance of the subject cluster and how it contributes to their professional development.
This is a qualitative study located within an interpretive paradigm, using the case study approach. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants, who were the Business Studies teachers in the FET phase all belonging to the same subject cluster and within the same geographical area. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and document analysis. A content analysis method was used to make sense of the data collected, whereby emerging themes were identified and categorised to address three critical questions.
This study used Grossman’s (1990) categories of teacher knowledge in order to understand what Business Studies teachers reported on what they learnt in the subject cluster, drawing also from the notion of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) of Stoll et al. (2006) to understand their reports of how they learnt.
The findings suggest that teachers engaged in professional development to enable them to deal with the changes in the school environment and in the school curriculum. Their participation in the subject cluster provided opportunities to increase their expertise and knowledge. They reported acquiring mostly general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). They also indicated that they acquired some subject matter knowledge and knowledge of the context. These Business Studies teachers acquired knowledge by critically interrogating their own practice on an ongoing basis and engaged in collaborative action in order to improve learner academic performance (Stoll et al., 2006). They met more than once a term to reflect on their practice, scrutinize the results of this practice, comparing it to the learners’ performance and formulated the best strategies to improve their teaching and learning for the learners’ benefit.
This study concludes that teacher learning does take place in this Business Studies subject cluster. As learning does not happen in isolation (Brodie, 2013), participation in this cluster
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Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.