Firsts: performing ways first year teachers experience identity transformation

This thesis reports on research showing the survival discourse of beginning teaching has shifted from sink or swim metaphors to describe surviving transition shock and classroom management concerns to surviving contract employment. Beginning teachers are neither sinking nor swimming in this liminal state. Rather, it is as though they are on a lifeboat where they cannot feel like a ‘real’ teacher until they can operate with certainty.Interrogating the experiences of beginning teachers, and the transformation of their identity in their first year (1yr) of teaching, the thesis explores research participants’ firsts as epiphanic or revelatory moments of identity transformation. Participants were followed for three years from upon completion of their teacher education, through their first year of teaching, up to the beginning of their third year in the profession. The major finding was that while contemporary understandings of professional identity highlight the transformative nature of the phenomenon,  contract employment had the most impact on these teachers’ identity transformation.Teachers’ perceptions of their own professional identity affect their efficacy and professional development as well as their ability and willingness to cope with educational change (Beijaard, Verloop & Vermunt 2000). It has been reported by the Australian Education Union (AEU) and in the Victorian media in recent years that up to 50% of beginning teachers are leaving the profession within their first five years. The reasons given for this level ofattrition include workload, pay, and behaviour management, among the top concerns of beginning teachers. These categories have positioned beginning teachers in a survival discourse for many years, yet there is more to beginning teachers’ intentions to leave than their struggles to survive in the classroom. More recently in Victoria what it means to ‘survive’ has shifted to surviving the pervasive contractual nature of beginning teachers’employment conditions.This qualitative study seeks to question what remains concealed with regard to beginning teachers’ experiences through an investigation of the differences between and within individuals, allowing categories of description to emerge from the data rather than pre-determining categories of investigation. Data was collected from twelve participants through individual semi-structured interviews and written communication. A theatre-based research approach to representing the participants’ experiences was employed, culminating in a performance titled ‘The First Time’. The processes of scripting, rehearsing, and performing, were utilised to analyse and represent the data to expert audiences. In an aim to uncover questions that have been buried by answers, the research is oriented as aphenomenographic inquiry. This mode of inquiry seeks to describe, analyse, and understand (Marton 1981) the qualitatively different experiences 1yr teachers undergo in their identity formation and transformation.The results of this research reveal the destabilising effect of short-term contracts so prevalent in the current context; that status and belonging are central to 1yr teachers’ identity work. Status and belonging are positioned within survival, liminal, and hegemonic discourses; and expressed through artefacts as symbols of belonging. The low status ascribed to contractual work has a clear impact on beginning teachers’ commitment to the profession

Lessons learnt from dancing the data : performed research of beginning teachers\u27 experiences

This paper discusses the power of performed research. Such power lies in assisting to research the whole human – thought, action, and emotion. The paper discusses the potential for research through the arts in the development of creativity and imagination, to facilitate social change, and to explore performance as a research process as well as an end result that presents findings. The experiences of Bagley and Cancienne (2001); (2002) guided the creation of the work, and assist to frame this paper. The dance work discussed in this paper is a recent addition to the performed research work ‘The First Time’. The dance work was crafted to bring together the comparable experiences of first year teacher participants, and similarities among the findings of research into their identity. The creation of ‘The First Time’ was employed as a tool to understand and analyse the data. The dance work was employed to highlight findings regarding beginning teachers’ transition to teaching. This paper explores the process of creating and presenting arts-based research to expand the avenues through which the results of research are made available to a relevant audience; of how this method might broaden and complement traditional ways of thinking about and doing educational research

Performing beginning teachers’ ‘firsts’: exploring a theatre-based research method

Theatre-based research methods have been employed in a variety of ways to transcend more traditional research methods, and bring research findings to a broader and relevant audience. Performing research to an \u27expert\u27 audience is transformative in nature. The audience share a collective understanding of the material presented, where their understandings can be challenged or confirmed. The ethical responsibilities of the theatre-based researcher are therefore paramount in presenting the research in a manner that respects the research participants, and allows the audience to make informed judgements.This paper outlines my experience in devising and performing \u27The First Time\u27 - a performance about twelve beginning teachers\u27 firsts. The performance was constructed from their interview data and performed by teachers - most of who are drama teachers – in order to sensitively represent the real stories of the research participants. The research was framed within a practice theory approach (Schatzki 2001) with a focus on the transformation of practices situated within a particular time and place. The method of performing the research to an \u27expert\u27 audience of performing arts practitioners, teachers, and teacher educators created an opportunity for both the transformation of teaching practice and the transformation of theatre.The research findings focus on the importance of creativity and flexibility in an approach to both research and teaching. The outcomes of my research have implications for theatre-based researchers, as well as teacher educators, in-service teachers, and beginning teachers. All these practitioners are continually negotiating the waters of their ever-changing professions

The first time

Based on interview data from twelve beginning teachers describing their experiences in their first year of teaching; for PhD titled ’Firsts: Performing Ways First Year Teachers Experience Identity Transformation’

Re-presenting and representing with seven features:guiding an arts-based educational journey

This paper outlines a journey of arts-based inquiry into teacher education and identity transformation in the transition to teaching, guided by Barone and Eisner’s Seven Features of Arts-Based Educational Inquiry. Employing a theatre-based research approach the researcher investigated teachers’ epiphanic or revelatory first moments of identity transformation, culminating in the creation of the play script and performance: ‘The First Time’. The article discusses what Barone and Eisner’s works offered this arts-based researcher on their journey. Outcomes of the research include the value of working backwards from this frame for further data elucidation and analysis and presenting research to relevant ‘expert’ audiences