Teacher Talk in Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

Professional learning communities can be important sites for teacher learning depending on the quality of the conversations in these communities. This paper shows how different activities in teacher communities support different kinds of conversation at different levels of depth, through examining the conversations of four professional learning communities of mathematics teachers over two years. Our analysis suggests three key findings. First, there were strong relationships between different activities and the content of the conversations in the communities. Second, the depth of the conversation in the communities was constant across activities and over time. Third, conversations about learner thinking, a key goal of the project, did not increase over time, but there were increases in talk about mathematics and practice. We explore the implications of these findings for teacher learning.