“From Ninja Turtles to Tree Branches:” How Science Teacher Educators Engage with Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy through Objects and Stories

• In Event: Culturally & Linguistically Responsive Science Teaching

Abstract

In this paper, we employ object interviews as a pedagogical tool to engage preservice teachers (PSTs) in critical reflections on their experiences, worldviews, and stories of learning and teaching science. These conversations, centered around personal artifacts, offer a unique and effective means of unpacking PSTs’ narratives and experiences to tell their student or teacher stories. Using asset-based pedagogies (Paris, 2012), we employ object interviews to unpack PSTs’ perceptions about what science means and what it means to be a science teacher to create a larger story. Using art-based research to analyze PSTs' narratives, we create a composite narrative that reveals how PSTs view themselves as science teachers and how they see science as relevant to their lives and lived experiences.

Authors

• Wesam M. Salem, University of Memphis

• Rachel Diane Askew, Appalachian State University

• Susan N. Nordstrom, University of Alabama

• Maysa Safi, Southwest Tennessee Community College