32 already-achieved state and if they are capable of recognizing and willing to explore the
pathways that lead beyond their past understanding. Further, in order to generate change in their practice, teachers need to get
through conflicts or tensions, known as “dramatical collisions” that was firstly highlighted in Vygotsky’s work by the Russian scholar, Nikolai Veresov. Veresov
2004 calls these dramatical collisions, the “hidden dimension” of the ZPD. Dramatical collisions are defined as the tensions that are inherent to activity that functions as the
moving force of development since it pushes the ZPD to its outer limits Veresov, 2004,
p. 4. It means that dramatical collisions experienced by the individuals bring about
development as Veresov 2004 claims:
Collision brings radical changes to the individual’s mind, and therefore it is a sort of act of development of mental functions – the individual becomes
different, he becomes higher and above his own behaviour. Without internal drama, an internal category, such kind of mental changes are hardly impossible
p. 7.
Accordingly, teacher self-evaluation as a mediational activity in this study might produce dramatical collisions in Indonesian teachers as a meaningful source of
reflection to develop their professional identity and their instructional practice. In this study, Veresov’s term “dramatical collisions” is described as “productive disruptions”
making clear to the tensions that challenge teachers’ thinking in order to help them develop as teachers. The next subsection of this chapter describes some studies on
sociocultural theory in teacher professional development.
2.3.5 Research on sociocultural theory in teacher professional development
Various studies on sociocultural theory in teacher professional development have been conducted. Some researchers Belz, 2007; Golombek Johnson, 2004;
Harvey, 2011; Haugan, Moen, Karlsdottir, 2013; Johnson Dellagnelo, 2013 particularly focus on the concept of mediation in sociocultural theory to help teachers
grow as professionals. Harvey 2011, for example, conducted a case study to examine the impact of verbal mediation on language teacher learning, in particular whether and
how changes come about in the teachers‘ learning. That verbal mediation was the mediational discourse of a series of post-observation conferences POC, which is the
discussions that occur after the mentor has observed the teacher in the classroom.
33 Harvey involved two practicing English teachers as the participants and he himself as a
mentor teacher. Semi-structured interview, classroom observation, and video recording were used as the data sources during the process of post-observation conferences, and
post-interviews. The findings of the study indicated that POC offered an ideal occasion for fostering the interaction between the teacher‘s already lived experience, and the
scientific concepts of language teaching, and thus promoting conceptual thinking about language teaching. However, the POCs as conducted for the purpose of this study
lacked one important element in this teacher learning equation – the discussion of scientific concepts. To conclude his study, Harvey emphasized that it was beneficial for
the mediator to actively seek opportunities for encouraging and modeling conceptual thinking.
In addition, Johnson and Golombek 2004 examined how narrative inquiry functioned as a culturally developed tool that mediated teachers’ professional
development. They analysed narrative written by three ESLEFL teachers set in three different instructional contexts: university-level freshman composition, elementary-
level science, and secondary-level language arts. The findings indicated that teacher- authored narratives could be a semiotic tool that facilitated teacher development by
documenting how teachers participated in and constituted their social reality. In addition, teacher-authored narratives provided rich evidence of the cognitive and
emotional dissonance with which teachers struggle and the resources they exploit to mediate their learning. Johnson and Golombek 2004 concluded that narrative inquiry
provided teachers with a way to recognize and promote the unique path of professional development that each teacher pursues.
Some studies Ash Levitt, 2003; Flores et al., 2007; McCullagh, 2012; Warford, 2011 highlight the concept of ZPD in relation to teacher professional
development. For example, McCullagh 2012 conducted a study as a response to Eva Lundqvist, Jonas Almqvist and Leif Ostman’s account of how the manner of teaching
can strongly influence pupil learning by recommending video supported reflection as a means by which teachers might transform the nature of their practice, by presenting an
example of case study of a mentor teacher. McCullagh described how video could empower teachers to take greater control of their progress. He claimed that video was a
key agent in initiating change in two ways: 1 it allowed teachers to see for themselves and empowered them to take control of their own development; and 2 it widened the
focus of reflection from ‘problems’ to ‘missed opportunities’. Using Vygotsky’s zone of
34 proximal development and the notion of scaffolding, McCullagh proposed that video
offered a Video Supported Zone of Proximal Development VSZPD. Within the VSZPD, video played a central role in initiating and enriching interaction and
communication between teachers. McCullagh further explained that a teacher might be drawn into the VSZPD by the dissonance between what they observed in the video
recording and their own memory-based perception of the same event. The realisation of this difference constituted the first step towards development.
Further, based on a view that teacher candidates as learners need assistance through their ZPD from knowledgeable others, Flores and Claeys 2011 conducted a
case study with the participation of 69 teacher candidates. The study examined the effectiveness of the Academy for Teacher Excellence’s ATE support provided by the
Teacher Academy Induction Learning Community TAILC to assist the transition of teacher candidates from their teacher preparation program into the teaching profession
as novice teachers. Surveys, individual and group interviews, and induction mentors’ classroom observations were used as the data sources. The preliminary analysis
indicated that through participating in a community of practice, teacher candidates’ movement in their zones of proximal development was supported to help assure their
success and retention. Flores and Claeys concluded that effective teacher induction support helped teacher candidates through their zone of proximal development and
become members of a community of practice. They suggested that constant professional contact, goal setting, and self-efficacy promotions were valuable tools anchoring teacher
candidates’ learning. Sociocultural theory has also been taken into consideration in online teacher
professional development Chen, Chen, Tsai, 2009; Ecclestone, 2004; Ernest et al., 2013; Gray, 2004; Schlager Fusco, 2003. For instance, following Vygotsky’s
sociocultural theory 1978 which argues that social interaction is fundamental to learning, Ernest et al. 2013 conducted a small-scale professional development
programme set up and piloted by two distance universities in the United Kingdom and Barcelona, Spain. The study, which used quantitative and qualitative data, involved a
group of 20 language teachers in examining some of the skills that are needed to successfully collaborate in virtual environments, and presented the skills that teachers
need to foster online collaborative learning in the virtual classroom. The competences identified include planning and managing the collaboration, designing appropriate
activities, giving clear instructions and getting students to negotiate ground rules for
35 participation, moderating at the right level, and choosing the right environment and the
appropriate tools. As showed in the studies reviewed above, sociocultural theory with its
interrelated concepts, mediation, internalization, and the ZPD, functioned as a useful lens studying teacher professional development. Therefore, I also use sociocultural
theory to examine self-evaluation practice as a form of a mediational activity in promoting the effectiveness of teachers’ instructional practice. A series of teacher self-
evaluation activities in this study will provide effective sources of scaffolding to support teacher development and
lead to possibilities for teachers to develop their professional identity
, which is discussed further in the next section of this chapter.
2.4 Teacher professional identity
