Educing Education Majors' Reflections About After Tutoring: A Poetic Exploration

• In Event: 16.040 - Teachers Writing: Developing Norms That Support Reflexivity and Practice

Abstract

Contemplating one’s teaching is an essential part of teacher education. As instructors of a methods course with a tutoring component, we asked education majors in the class to author weekly e-mail reflections about their teaching experiences. However, they had difficulty considering their lessons. We knew poetry stimulated introspections. Hoping to evoke the education majors’ reflexivity, we requested they create two poems (middle and end of semester), portraying their perceptions and dilemmas related to their teaching. We explored the lyrical forms through constant comparative analysis. Writing in a poetic voice prompted the education majors’ contemplations. However, rather than focusing on their lessons, their initial poems portrayed their anxieties about teaching while their end of semester poems centered on concern for children.

Authors

• Janet C. Richards, University of South Florida

• Christiana Cobb Succar, University of South Florida