Shanghai Teachers’ Experiences of Reciprocal Learning on a Shifting Shanghai-Toronto Interschool Landscape

While the term “reciprocal learning” intuitively suggests two or more parties learning from each other with a sense of mutuality, understanding and respect; the concept, when promoted in a multi-year, multi-stakeholders collaborative studies of Chinese and Canadian school education, became less straightforward, leading to various research puzzles, intricacies and consequences. My research aims to understand how selected elementary teachers in Toronto and Shanghai experience reciprocal learning in the midst of their partnership and collaboration on a complex, shifting Shanghai-Toronto sister-school landscape. For this particular research project supported by Mitacs, I will focus on inquiring into the Shanghai teachers’ experiences of reciprocal learning by interacting with them during school-based fieldwork, classroom observations and interviews. The field notes, interview transcripts and artifacts gathered from my interactions with the Shanghai teachers will be used to shed lights on the reciprocal learning experiences of the Toronto teachers with whom the Shanghai teacher interact with. They will also help inform local negotiation of the idea of reciprocal learning and the curriculum actions generated in the process.,

Faculty Supervisor:

Michael Connelly

Student:

Yishin Khoo

Partner:

Discipline:

Education

Sector:

University:

University of Toronto

Program:

Globalink Research Award