CONAR

How collaborative reflection promotes the development of teacher resilience in novices through processes of narrative re-appraisal.

Project funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN), the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033), and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)

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This project focuses on:

Collaborative reflection processes among novice teachers

The social and narrative mechanisms that promote the development of teacher resilience

Forms of facilitation in collaborative reflection for the development of teacher resilience

Metacognitive tools to support collaborative reflection among teachers.

Project information:

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Abstract:

In an increasingly complex social and educational scenario, teacher burnout has become a central problem in current educational systems, with significant repercussions for students, teachers, and society in general. It is estimated that approximately one third of teachers suffer from high levels of burnout, with a singular impact on novice teachers, who in many countries have alarming rates of abandonment of the profession. In this scenario, the development of teacher resilience is essential. Teacher resilience is the functional adaptation of teachers to adverse situations in their practice, allowing them to maintain their emotional well-being, as well as improve their practice situations and grow as teachers from adversity.

Although the evidence indicates that teacher resilience is related to social interaction, the mechanisms and social dynamics that allow the development of teacher resilience are unknown. The CONAR project investigates these mechanisms and these social dynamics, starting from the hypothesis that teacher resilience is developed through the modification in the ways of seeing the situations of practice (re-appraisal), and that these modifications are generated through certain mechanisms and specific social dynamics that emerge in collaborative reflection among teachers.

The research has three general objectives: 1) to understand how the semiotic-narrative mechanisms promote the development of teacher resilience in collaborative reflection among novice teachers; 2) to understand how social dynamics, “vocal” dynamics and social mechanisms allow the development of teacher resilience in collaborative reflection among novice teachers; 3) to understand how the forms of facilitation promote the development of teacher resilience in collaborative reflection among novice teachers.

With these objectives, we will conduct a microgenetic study of four cases of collaborative reflection among novice teachers in the levels of primary and lower secondary education. In each case, three novice teachers and a facilitator will meet weekly for 9 weeks to talk about situations of their practice, based on their own stories and with the help of a software for the representation of situations that will be developed in the project. All the sessions will be recorded on video and the emotional experience of the participants will be collected daily through a mobile app that will also be developed in the project. In addition, at five points throughout the process, teachers’ resilience indicators will be collected through questionnaires, and at three moments of the process interviews will be conducted with the participants. The data will be analyzed through content analysis, interactivity analysis, narrative nuclei analysis, vocal responsive analysis, and social mechanism analysis.

The results, which will be disseminated to the scientific community, teachers, educational centers and management teams, mentors, and the educational administration, will make it possible to improve the social support systems for novice teachers, thus contributing to improving the problem of teacher burnout and its consequences.

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Members of the team:

Aina Franch (Universitat de Lleida)

Alba Vallés (Universitat de Lleida)

Carles València (Escola Parc de l’Aigua)

Carme Rodríguez (Departament d’Educació, Generalitat de Catalunya)

Carme Sanjuan (Departament d’Educació, Generalitat de Catalunya)

Elena Costa (Departament d’Educació, Generalitat de Catalunya)

Elena Fo (Escola Alba, Lleida)

Joan Pifarré (Col·legi Maristes Montserrat, Lleida)

Jordi Coiduras (Universitat de Lleida)

Lola Sánchez (Universitat de Lleida)

Maica Peguera (Universitat de Lleida)

Marc Clarà (Universitat de Lleida)

Patricia Silva (Universitat de Barcelona)

Sílvia Cavalcante (Universitat de Lleida)

Yuly Vanegas (Universitat de Lleida)