From the Ground Up: Building a Situated Knowledge Base for Asset-Oriented Teacher Educators

• In Event: 61.035 - What's "Core" to Teacher Educator Pedagogy? (Re)Considering the Meaning of Practice in Teacher Educator Development

Abstract

The paper offers findings from a qualitative study of the development of prospective, equity-minded teacher educators in the U.S. who, over three years, engaged monthly in an informal learning space inspired by Freirean Culture Circles (Freire, 1989) and Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 1979). Specifically, we outline the knowledges, perspectives, and tools that emerged as central to participants’ capacities to facilitate asset-oriented learning among prospective and practicing teachers in school and university settings. Findings suggest that teacher educators centrally focused on educational equity require specialized knowledge that is best developed by drawing on teacher educators’ and communities’ situated knowledges, rather than through more traditional educational approaches, wherein knowledge is predetermined and passed down through a banking model of education.

Authors

• Kathryn Struthers Ahmed, Hunter College

• Jamy Stillman, University of Colorado - Boulder

• John Luciano Beltramo, Santa Clara University

• Erika Castañeda-Flores, Green Dot Public Schools

• Veronica Garcia, San Francisco Human Rights Commission

• Michelle Pyo