Learning to Teach Through Carnival in a Student Teaching Seminar

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Using a Critical Inquiry Approach to Enhance Student Teachers’ Capacity for Reflection

Abstract

Many programs use a student teaching seminar in order to help pre-service teachers synthesize university coursework with field experiences. In this paper, the author turns to Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of carnival to describe how an ethos of collaboration and a commitment to inquiry in a student teaching seminar facilitated learning to teach. As a course that runs concurrent with the student teaching experience, framing this seminar as carnival provides an opportunity to explore how experiences nuance inquiry and inquiry enriches experiences.

Author

• Alexander Cuenca, Saint Louis University