Navigating Pedagogical Orientations: A Case Study of a Twice Trained Teacher

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 7:45 am - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Tracing Trajectories: Teachers Reframing Transational Identities and Practice

Abstract

A concerted push to professionalize teacher education faces several hurdles, including educator agency, differences in programmatic design, and a multiplicity of educational traditions. Furthermore, teacher educators are often pressured to prepare teachers for schools as they exist, which can limit preparation’s transformative potential. Part of the problem may be the either-or proposition of a uniform professional narrative of good teaching, which can drive out committed educators. To illustrate, I employ a conception of orienting narratives to analyze the case of Cristiano (pseudonym), a beginning teacher trained within two teacher residencies with radically different philosophies. Navigating different orienting narratives was enabling him to see and address common problems of practice, like promoting on-task behavior, in ways more aligned to his values.

Author

• Ian Parker Renga, University of Southern Maine