In the development of this chapter the authors paid particular attention to what is referred to in the literature as ‘teacher pedagogical well-being’ (TPWB) (Soini, Pyhältö, & Pietarinen, 2010). It is constructed ‘in the core processes of teachers’ work that is, carrying out and developing teaching–learning process, including, for example, planning classroom activities, interacting with pupils, making evaluations, and choosing and developing instructional tools’ (2010, p.737). The chapter authors, involving academics from the University of Limerick and two teachers from the site school involved in the research. The latter was a disadvantaged second-level school in an urban environment in the mid-west region of Ireland. The research was conducted in two phases. In phase one, a focus group was conducted with a convenience sample of teachers from the site school to explore their views and perceptions on TPWB. A principal finding which emerged was the unanimous conviction that opportunities for the teachers to engage in safe dialogic spaces about their pedagogic work as classroom practitioners was very beneficial toward both supporting and nurturing their experiences of teacher pedagogical well-being. This finding informed the second phase of the research. A focus group was conducted with two existing groups of teachers who met regularly at the school, one for literacy and one for numeracy. These are referred to in the chapter as referred to in this chapter as Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs). This phase of the research sought to explore the possible link between the presence of TLCs in a school and the constructed experience of TPWB. At the site school (Éire Community College), it was found that it was the opportunities for interactions with colleagues that the participating teachers placed greatest emphasis on when it came to their constructed experiences of TPWB. It was also discovered that teachers are not innately endowed with resources and capacities to naturalistically engage with these dialogic spaces. The authors would contend that it is vitally important to develop strategies that will nurture these communication capacities for both pre-service and practising teachers. In this way, teachers may be better able to engage more pro-actively with TLCs and thereby increase the likelihood of experiencing TPWB in their work as teachers.
Murphy, T. R. N., and Mannix McNamara, P