2025 Theses Doctoral

"It was a really amazing sandbox": The Collaborative Creation of An Intergenerational Teacher Education Community

Pratt, Suzanne

This longitudinal, qualitative case study explores the creation and evolution of an intergenerational teacher education community over the course of five years. The group at the center of this study is the Citizen Scientist Curriculum Team, a collective made up of mostly teachers who came to the work offering a range of expertise in a variety of areas and varying degrees of teaching experience. Other members of the team included a teacher educator (myself) and a high school (eventually undergraduate) student. The community was not intentionally created and did not appear one day fully formed. Rather, it emerged out of a series of smaller experiences and once established, continued to evolve over the course of time.

This study explores the development of the community as a teacher learning space that grew and changed over time. In investigating this community, this study aims to better understand the intersection of terms—intergenerational teacher education community—as they are used to provide a framework for identifying and understanding the implications of what happens in teacher learning spaces that intentionally attend opportunities for teacher learning through collaboration and intergenerational exchange. When membership in a teacher learning community is deliberately positioned across a continuum, it encourages the development of mindsets that honor the contributions and perspectives of individuals at varying stages of experience. Rather than dictating answers, teachers need spaces to explore these ideas as they are supported in asking questions, seeking insights, experimenting with instruction, and engaging in critical reflection.

Intergenerational teacher education communities specifically address the intentionality of voice, representation, and experience in collaborative professional spaces while also incorporating opportunities to expand membership in ways that enhance perspectives, purposes, or priorities in relation to teaching and learning.