161Framing Post-lesson Conversations Using Relational Agency
Relational agency as theorised by Edwards ( 2010 ) is the ‘capacity to align one’s
thoughts and actions with those of others in order to interpret problems of practice
and to respond to those interpretations’ (p. 169). The theory, as initially developed,
was a way to describe how strong forms of agency might arise for and in collabora-
tions that involve working across boundaries between practices. However, in our
research we are using it as a conceptual framework to inform our understandings of
the relationships between people who are positioned differently in the same prac-
tices, i.e. the preservice teachers, their mentors and other teacher educators.
Relational agency involves the ability to work with others to achieve common
outcomes and is a two-stage process which consists of:
- Working with others to expand the ‘object of activity’ or task being worked on
[for instance, a lesson or pedagogical problem] by recognising the motives and
the resources that others bring to bear as they, too, interpret it - Aligning one’s own responses to the newly enhanced interpretations with the
responses being made by the other professionals while acting on the expanded
object (Edwards, 2010 , p. 14)
In this research project, a descriptive observation tool (named the Teaching
Tracker Tool, or T3, and outlined in the following section) functions as a tangible
object that enables mentor teachers, preservice teachers and university supervisors
to participate jointly in the discussion of a pedagogic episode, in order to expand
their interpretation of that episode. This is achieved as participants bring their own
conceptual tools and subjectivities to the post-lesson discussion that is based on the
evidence presented in the Teaching Tracker Tool. We investigate how relational
agency was afforded by the utilisation of a descriptive observation tool that pro-
vided clinical evidence of the object of activity (i.e. teaching practice) and the basis
with which to offer feedback and opportunities for reflection.
An Overview of the Teaching Tracker Tool Innovation
The Teaching Tracker Tool (T3) is a descriptive observation tool that has been
developed by the research team to enable the collection of evidence during class-
room observations. It has its antecedent in the instructional rounds approach advo-
cated by City, Elmore, Fiarman and Teitel ( 2009 ).
This classroom observation tool is used to make records during a period of class-
room observation and is designed to deepen the talk between preservice teachers
and observers after a lesson. This tool comprises five elements from which the
observer selects their focus in consultation with the preservice teacher being
observed. The observer can write accounts of what the teacher is saying, doing,
making and writing and what the students are saying, doing, making and writing
10 Fostering Professional Learning Through Evidence-Informed Mentoring Dialogues...