Cut, Fold, Inquire: The Troublesome Work of Drawing Out Refractive Possibilities for Teacher Education Research Through Visual-Verbal Journaling

• In Event: 29.059 - Dewey's Influence on Teaching and Learning and the Educative Experience

Abstract

Dewey (1933/1986) stated: “It requires troublesome work to undertake the alteration of old beliefs” (p. 136). As teacher educators we find ourselves inspired to create anew when faced with living, teaching, and inquiring with/in paradigmatic tensions. In this paper, we specifically seek new possibilities within the question: should preservice teachers reflect or defract? We draw out this binary by reopening students’ visual-verbal journals-- engaging within fields of cuts, folds, and inquiry, finding potential implications for infusing the longstanding paradigm of reflective practice (Dewey, 1933/1986) with the new materialist concept of diffraction (Barad, 2007). Seeing both reflection and diffraction as pedagogically meaningful practices, we articulate how bringing these seemingly incommensurate ideas together might benefit teacher education research.

Authors

• Brooke Anne Hofsess, Appalachian State University

• Jaye Johnson Thiel, University of Georgia - Athens