Facilitating Critical Dialogue: The Lived Experience of Teacher Educators

• In Event: 66.087 - MTCC Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 66.087-13 - It Is What It Is: On Defining the Teacher Situation

Abstract

The facilitation of critical dialogue is one strategy employed by teacher educators to support teacher candidates in unearthing their histories, experiences, and assumptions about race, equity, and social justice. To effectively engage teacher candidates in dialogue about what Glazier (2003) calls “hot lava” topics, it is critical that teacher educators willingly challenge traditional hierarchical roles of power in the classroom and confront their personal experiences and assumptions about these issues in tandem with their students (p.76). However, there is currently a paucity of research that addresses the lived experience of teacher educators as facilitators of critical dialogue. This study sheds light on the ways three teacher educators make sense of dialogue intended to develop teacher candidates’ critical social justice literacy.

Author

• Natalie Hagler, University of Florida