The Role of Critical Narratives in Deepening Preservice Teachers' Understandings of Professional Practice

• In Event: 15.023 - But Before You Teach, Unlearn: Deconstructing Preservice Teacher Beliefs

Abstract

While field experiences and student teaching make up a cornerstone of teacher preparation, what counts as “practice” has typically focused on specific pedagogical approaches, rather than on more holistic frameworks. Thus, there has been a presumed split between learning about specific pedagogical practices and other relational and contextual elements of learning to teach. This paper explores the possibilities and challenges of engaging pre-service secondary English/Language Arts teachers in critical narratives of school-based learning experiences as part of their reflective practices during their teacher preparation program. The findings from this study point to the ways engaging in these practices provided candidates ways to consider the complex sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects of practice so often left out of discussion of practice.

Author

• Katrina Emily Bartow Jacobs, University of Pittsburgh