• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.1502-1523
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• 2012

Recently, there have been growing interest in teachers' professional development since teachers were regarded as a critical factor in the context of the reform efforts. Along with these efforts, educational researchers have continued to implement various programs to improve teachers' subject matter knowledge, beliefs, and their practices. Although considerable researches have been done regarding the efficiency of these programs, most of them have focused on individual teacher's change. However, a "teacher's mind is socially formed" (Edwards, 2001). This perspective indicates that teacher change is necessarily viewed in terms of social mediational process between individual and the social context. This study examines the interactions between teachers and researchers in order to explore the mediational processes and the aspects of collective understanding, which has emerged from the collaborative workshop. The data were collected from small group activities in a workshop and then analyzed using interactional sociolinguistic approach. Futhermore, activity system was employed to describe the social mediational process. The findings show that participating teachers constructed knowledge through conflict regarding collective understanding. This process of collective understanding was mediated by object, rules, and roles within each activity system. Findings from the study suggest that the sociocultural perspectives to teacher education are essential in understanding how teachers learn to teach and that teachers' professional discourse can play a significant role in teachers' professional development.