Emotion as a Resource for Mediated Praxis in a Teacher Preparation Literacy Methods Course

• In Event: Layers of Learning: Working Toward Mediated Praxis by Positioning Researchers, Practitioners, and Students as Learners

Abstract

Objectives
The objective of this paper is to explore the role of emotion in mediating pre-service teacher learning in a literacy methods course. The design of the course was guided by the concept of mediated praxis (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010) centering the experiences of the learners as a resource for reflection and learning. Preliminary data suggest that structured reflections on the emotional dimensions of teaching and learning became a powerful mediating artifact that enabled teacher candidates to view their personal learning experiences as resources for their future pedagogy.

Theoretical framework
Teacher candidates engaged in a semester-long series of writing inquiry using a writing workshop model (Calkins, 1994). As a pedagogical practice, the writing workshop model is structured as a community of learners (Rogoff, 1994) oriented toward the goal of the creating and sustenance of a writing community with teachers writing alongside novices.

As a defining characteristic, the fluidity of roles was also marked by the context of teacher education where the students are simultaneously learners and teachers. By centering one’s own learning as a major activity, pre-service teachers and the instructor drew from their experiences through the writing process occupying multiple roles, including that of learner and future teachers. The intentional layering of learning contexts provided an opportunity for pre-service teachers to connect their current learning to their future pedagogy (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010).

Methods and data sources
Conceived of as a social design experiment (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010), I conducted a self-study of two sections of a literacy methods course. The findings emerged from qualitative analysis and triangulation of data collected in the form of field notes taken by the instructor over 15 weeks, student work, ongoing written student reflections, and other pedagogical documents, such as anchor charts documenting class discussions.

Results
Preliminary findings suggest that the routine evocation of participants’ emotional experiences mediated understandings of writing pedagogy. Routine and mediated reflections of participants’ emotional engagement with writing helped the pre-service teachers reframe “bad” behavior as opportunities for expanding learning, facilitating the embodiment of potential third spaces for learning (Gutierrez, 2008). I argue that the focus on emotion made the layering of activity systems “visible,” to the participants by providing a way to reconcile seeming contradictions between learner and goals of the activity system. Discussions of pedagogy shifted over time as teacher candidates drew from their own experiences as learners to discuss how activity could be re-mediated (Gutierrez, Hunter, & Arzubiaga, 2009).

Scholarly significance
In the case of pre-service methods courses, intentional reflection of the emotional dimensions of learning made the layering of activity visible to the participants in order to help reframe perceptions of student behavior as learning opportunities. This preliminary research suggests that further work on the utility of considering the social and emotional dimensions of learning as an artifact to mediate conscientious layering of learning activities.

Author

• Jolynn Akemi Asato, San José State University