Abstract
In a rapidly changing world, teachers face many challenges that they have to adapt to. They can face them only when they have an opportunity to participate in meaningful professional development.
There are many ways to professionally develop teachers. In foreign literature the need to turn school into a professional learning community is often mentioned, which would allow mutual cooperation, emotional support and personal growth of teachers. (DuFour and Eaker, 1998) One of the tools to develop teachers while helping to build such a community is group reflection.
A method of learning by reflecting on one's actions is described by Korthagen (2001) by the ALACT model. The Wanda method uses a similar model, where the whole group goes through reflective cycle and collective learning takes place.
It appears that collective learning focused on reflection of practice has a positive impact on teacher development and school quality. (Hord, 2004) The reflective method of Wanda has its roots in the Balint Group,however, its form is adapted to the school environment and differs in the use of appreciative research, which plays a key role in the entire reflection process. Wanda enables teachers to see practical situations from different perspectives, thus opening up learning opportunities.
The aim of the research was to empirically verify the potential of the method of group reflection Wanda in the context of the Czech school. We consider the internal motivation of teachers to take part in group reflections as a fundamental condition for the systematic introduction of Wanda, therefore we have decided to focus primarily on their perspective.
We employed a qualitative research inquiry. The research had two parts: pre-research and research itself.
In the first phase the observation took place followed by a questionnaire survey used to identify the key areas of research. In the main part of the research we conducted semi-structured interviews with 9 participants of group reflection Wanda.
The audio recordings of the interviews were subsequently rewritten and then coded by three authors of the research. All interview data were transcribed and then coded through open and axial coding.
The analysis of the interviews showed that, according to the Wanda method, teachers most appreciated the strengthening of mutual confidence and a feeling of belonging in the professional group. They also find it positive that it creates space for sharing and problem-solving and that it allows seeing difficult situations from different perspectives.
The method also contributes to the development of self-knowledge and the ability to reflect. The teachers found the risks in the unwillingness of some participants to share their problem and ideas or lack of interest while resolving cases of other participants.
The difficulty to describe the core of the problem was also mentioned, as well as the risk of stereotyping, ie repetition of similar cases.