Exploring the Tacit: A Narrative Inquiry Into Two Beginning Teachers’ Meaning Making From Classroom Events

• In Event: Roundtable Session 95
  In Roundtable Session: Narrative Inquiry, Self-Efficacy, and Learning From Experienced Teachers

Abstract

This narrative inquiry investigated the stories two beginning English teachers lived and told during their university coursework, full-time internship, and first two years of teaching (January of 2008 to May of 2011) in order to 1) understand how these two teachers made meaning from classroom events, and 2) to explore the intersection of two widely documented assumptions stemming from the tacit dimension (Polanyi, 2009) of our knowledge base. Findings demonstrate 1) how these two teachers’ meaning-making was guided by their reservoir of knowledge, language, and experiences; 2) was shaped by their stance toward their classrooms; and 3) involved a process of simultaneously “reading” the classroom and composing an ongoing understanding of their students as learners and themselves as teachers.

Author

• Christi Edge, Northern Michigan University