Perceptions of support for early career teachers engaged in generative dialogue

Early career teachers (ECTs) face a number of challenges, and in this study, generative dialogue was introduced as a framework to provide support for ECTs. A review of the literature on ECTs indicates that support plays a critical role in addressing the challenges they face, and that factors such as isolation and connection, professional learning, and teacher dialogue all relate to this issue of support. This study applies a generative dialogue framework to a series of dialogue sessions where ECTs engaged in conversations with one another about teaching and learning. The ECTs in the study were asked about their perceptions of support before and after the sessions, and then were interviewed after the final generative dialogue session. These teachers spoke about the challenges they face as ECTs, and they explained the importance of dialogue, collegial relationships, professional learning, and personal growth as it related to the implementation of generative dialogue. Finally, a series of next steps were identified in continuing this work with generative dialogue.