Ajay (Ajayagosh) Narayanan
M Phil in EDUCATION and CULTURE. Specialization in Educational Leadership (2011). From St.Augustine College, South Africa. MSc. BOTANY (1982). (University of Kerala, India). MSc. MALAYALAM Language and Literature (1988) (University of Kerala, India)
Provisional title of research:
Professional Identity of Beginner Mathematics Teachers
Provisional project outline:
The focus of this study is to explore how novice mathematics teachers shape their professional identity during the first two years of teaching in Lesotho. From the first day at school, a teacher becomes part of the everyday activities of the school. He engages with, participates in and prepares to understand the culture, norms and ethics of the school. He builds a personal meaning of his career and begins to shape his own professional identity.
Through an ethnographic and narrative inquiry, I will explore how beginner teacher’s (BT’s) professional identity evolves through participation and how this influences his teaching practices. I will be a participant observer and reflect on their classroom activities to determine how BTs shape their personal identity, teacher identity, mathematics identity and community of practice identity within the context of BTs’ classroom actions. The study will also draw on elements of professional identity as a theoretical framework. My study will consequently unfold the experiences and stories that novice teachers recount when seeking answers to questions such as where and how they fit into their workplace as novices. The study is also designed within the framework of social and cultural theory of learning and practice.
Thus, the overall aim of this project is to provide an in-depth analysis of BT’s professional identity through interpretive research paradigm that employs qualitative methods of data collection and analysis.
Email: agnarayanan@gmail.com
Supervisor: Prof Marc Schafer m.schafer@ru.ac.za
Article pulished in AJARMSTE Journal:
African Journal of Research in MST Education, Special Issue, Volume 15 (3), 2011, pp. 56-67
