Pre-service Curricula
A Collaborative Partnership of Teacher Educators, Pre-service Teachers, and a Primary School in Researching and Implementing Cross-disciplinary Approaches to Learning through the Arts to Promote Intercultural Capability
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nish Belford, Libby Tudball, Sarika Kewalramani
Knowledge ecologies extend thinking about research practices in applying university knowledge to more practical and effective responses (Soufoulis, Hugman, & Third, 2014). The dynamics involved in successful cross-sectoral knowledge production through research and collaborative knowledge partnerships in particular with schools is often challenging in academia. From a study investigating cross-disciplinary approaches to teaching and learning through the arts to promote intercultural capability in primary years, in this paper, teacher educators reflect on their lived experiences of researching on the collaborative partnership with a primary school and five pre-service teachers. Findings report on the modalities and different procedures involved in the planning and implementation phase of the project. Participant’s perspectives and contributions (teacher educators, pre-service teachers, school principal, mentor teachers and the Prep grade level students) are examined. Pre-service teachers describe the value and benefits of targeted mentored professional development and learning through this immersive experience in the school environment. The implications for collaborative knowledge production is discussed as initiated by stronger university-school partnerships with opportunities for teacher educators and pre-service teachers to engage in professional practice-led research. The integration of theory with practice is discussed from the workshop-based model with reflective inquiry involved in the planning, teaching, and evaluation of learning experiences.
Contemplative Agency: Place-Conscious Resistance of Rationalized Teacher Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Darron Kelly, Sharon Pelech
This paper examines the experiences of student teachers as they prepare for work in schools. As austerity measures have increased pressure to rationalize the process of teacher education, student teachers have responded by developing a narrow sense of their pedagogical agency, and intensifying their use of instrumental reasoning to satisfy programs of study and deliver the curriculum (Weber, 1958). From a critical/interpretive perspective, we explore what it means to promote a more contemplative sense of agency for preservice teachers amidst the rationalized experiences of formal education. Biesta & Tedder (2007) define agency as the “capacity for autonomous social action or the ability to operate independently of determining constraints of social structure” (p. 135). Agency operates on a pedagogical view that when people actively participate in understanding and shaping the world around them, they learn to recognize their own potential as drivers of change and as energetic contributors in determining the direction of their lives (Basu & Barton, 2010; Klemenčič, 2017). In this emancipatory sense, agency requires contemplative opportunities for critical reflection and authentic self-appraisal. To create such opportunities, we took student teachers into the local environment and invited them to engage with something of genuine interest (Gruenewald, 2003; Sobel, 2005). Through this initial engagement and subsequent self-directed study, students were able to reclaim enthusiasm for learning and resist pressure to instrumentalize their teaching. Contemplation of place raised students’ consciousness of meaningful subject matter and teaching – rekindling their sense of pedagogical agency as active creators of educative experiences.
Pre-service Teachers Taking a Critical Stance When Examining Children’s Literature: Taking a Critical Stance
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francine Falk-Ross, Roberta Linder
As part of a literacy methods class, a media literacy framework, Five Key Questions (http://www.medialit.org), was adapted to guide pre-service teachers (PSTs) in a critical analysis of children’s literature texts. Results from the study indicated that the framework enabled PSTs to examine children’s literature in ways they had not previously considered and identified areas of difficulty in the PSTs’ critical examinations. We describe the action research project and outcomes related to the implementation of a media analysis framework with their early and middle childhood PSTs.
