The Trouble With Inquiry: Fostering a Critical Stance in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 52
  In Roundtable Session: Shifting Landscapes in Early Childhood Teacher Education: (Re)connecting, (Re)defining, (Re)designing, and Troubling

Abstract

This article reports on a research conducted by a team of early childhood teacher educators examining how and to what extent our pre-service teachers (PSTs) develop a critical inquiry stance towards their teaching practice in early childhood classrooms. PSTs’ final teacher inquiry projects were analyzed to examine their independent inquiry stance at the program culmination stage. The findings identified PSTs’ understanding of inquiry cycle, selection of inquiry topics, and varying roles inquiry played for PSTs’ learning. We anticipate to open a dialogue among early childhood teacher educators to revisit the uniqueness of early childhood teacher education, and discuss how we can maintain our integrity while staying relevant within the broader field of teacher education.

Authors

• H. Sophia Han, University of South Florida

• Jolyn Blank, University of South Florida

• Ilene R. Berson, University of South Florida