Tímarit um menntarannsóknir - 01.01.2011, Page 57

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Samfélag jafningja: Uppbygging lærdómssamfélags í leikskóla
worked with the researcher throughout
the research period. This group, with ad-
ditional members both from inside and
outside the school, formed a validation
group to critique the findings.
Findings and conclusions
The findings indicated that the framework
of school intelligences was a useful tool to
build a learning community in line with
the Reggio Emilia approach. The teachers’
participation in reflection, discussion and
teamwork, along with the emphasis of the
school´s leaders on distributed leadership,
mutual responsibility, trust, attentiveness
and respect, supported their professional
growth and joined them as a community
of professional learners. The teachers
ended their first school year together, with
the common feeling that despite differ-
ent backgrounds, experience and educa-
tion the school community had enabled
them to grow together as a community of
equals.
However, this achievement did not
come about without effort. The school
encountered many obstacles, commonly
described in the school improvement lit-
erature, such as professional disagree-
ments blended with emotions, lack of ex-
perience, knowledge and understanding,
diverse values, and implementation dips.
It also needs to be acknowledged that the
span of the research was only one school
year and one action research cycle. More
intelligences are still to be introduced and
the school’s achievement so far has to be
sustained. Furthermore the findings of this
research relate to one school and cannot be
“transplanted“ to other schools without
adaptation.
Having struck these precautionary
notes, the main finding of the utility of the
framework remains, and the adaptation of
the framework that was the subject of the
research is a contribution to knowledge
about the building of professional learn-
ing communities in Icelandic pre-schools.