Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Pedagogy - The
Teacher, Educational Leadership, grade: 3.5, Aga Khan University,
language: English, abstract: This study explored the factors that were
required for creating an environment based on a professional learning
community (PLC) that not only provides support to teachers on a regular
basis for their development, but also builds a collaborative learning
environment for the teachers in the school particularly in the early
childhood development (ECD) context. Further, this study also identified
the processes that helped to build PLC using the appreciative inquiry
approach. In addition, the support of appreciative inquiry as an
approach for building PLC was also measured. Eight research participants
were selected who were involved in four stages of appreciative inquiry,
namely discovery, dream, design and destiny. The data revealed that
trust, collaborative learning and reflective dialogue were some of the
factors that are required for creating a PLC environment. However, three
processes for initiating PLC culture were included which are classroom
teaching and observation, constructive feedbacks and reflective dialogue
sessions. At the end, this research found that the appreciative inquiry
approach was significant as a value-added tool that helped to build the
collaborative environment in the school and provided participants an
opportunity to share their skills and expertise as well as their dreams
and imaginations with each other.
