Freirean Culture Circles in Online Teacher Preparation: Storytelling as Collective Sensemaking

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Online Learning, Accountability, and Considerations for Student Achievement in Teacher Education (Table 31)

Abstract

This study explores collective sensemaking in an online teacher preparation course for alternatively-certified bilingual special educators. Using a discourse analytic approach, we examine video and audio recordings from class sessions to consider how beginning teachers engage dialogically in Freirean culture circles (Freire 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010) to critically analyze classroom-based dilemmas of practice. Findings suggest that storytelling serves as a rehearsal site in which teachers theorize and evaluate emerging stances. Through storytelling, teachers deliberate underlying reasons for why such problems exist in education and broader society, all while trying out ideas for taking action. This study contributes to ongoing conversations about critical, online teacher preparation, particularly for the online preparation of teachers of bilingual students and students with disabilities.

Authors

• Devon Hedrick-Shaw, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Lydia Sollenberger, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Nelia Peña, University of Colorado - Boulder