Browsing by Subject "Narrative Inquiry"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Mathematics Experiences of Preservice Elementary Teachers and the Impact on Mathematics Identity and Mathematics Teacher Identity
    (2021-12) Norman, Fawnda
    Many elementary teachers, who teach foundational mathematics topics, have a complicated and dynamic relationship with mathematics (Bekdemir, 2010; Brown et al., 2011; Novak & Tassell, 2017). The understanding of these mathematical experiences and the connection to mathematics identity is critical for the transformation of teacher preparation programs. Identity is dynamic in nature and is expressed and shaped by different factors. Social structures, emotions, narratives, and mathematics dispositions are four major factors in both expressing and shaping mathematics teacher identity. A qualitative study was conducted on the experiences preservice elementary teachers had with mathematics before entering their teacher preparation programs. A continuum of stories was collected of their mathematics experiences throughout their K-12 schooling. These narratives were examined to explore themes connecting their experiences to their current mathematics identity and their emerging mathematics teacher identity. Narrative Inquiry was used to analyze the data of the preservice elementary teachers’ experiences finding themes that connect to social structures, emotions, narratives, and mathematics dispositions, and the impact on their mathematics identity and mathematics teacher identity. Narratives and visual sequential narratives are used to present findings in a unique way to connect this research to a broader audience of scholars. The findings of this study present themes and implications that contribute to the body of literature on mathematics identity and mathematics teacher identity.
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    Questioning the tensions: action research within a teacher collaboration.
    (2009-09) Lloyd, Rachel Anne Malchow
    Professions are defined in part by the presence of communities of practice which share knowledge and monitor standards (Shulman, 1998). However, beginning with Lortie's (1975) seminal description of the American teacher, teachers have been found to be autonomous and isolated. Despite sustained critique of these norms of isolation, subsequent research has suggested that little has changed in actual school structure or practices over the last thirty years (Little, 1990; Darling-Hammond, 2005). The purpose of this study was to understand and improve a collaboration of six English teachers which defied these traditional norms of isolation in the teaching profession. Set in the large suburban high school where I taught for ten years, this collaborative team was comprised of three veteran and three early career English 12 teachers including myself. As such, this project was most closely aligned with the epistemology of action research, but employed multiple interpretivist tools such as narrative inquiry, discourse analysis, and activity theory to examine the product and processes through which our team accomplished its work. The research explored multiple aspects of our collaborative practices: the curriculum created, the language of team meetings, the norms of time and labor, and the evidence of teacher learning apparent in our work. It also attends to the importance of affective relationships within collaboration. This research found that like many teacher collaborations, multiple tensions existed and complicated our work. The most salient tensions included: the relationships between the veteran and early career teachers; the relationships between dual purposes of curriculum development and mentoring; and the relationships between individual autonomy and community practices. However, despite such challenges, the study evidences the benefits of collaboration for teacher learning, particularly when in concert with inquiry into our own practices. As such, this research offers an alternative view of teachers' professional development as embedded, enduring, and empowering; and of teachers' professional practice as striving for the ideals of a democratic learning community.
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    (Re) Constructing Identities: South African Domestic Workers, English Language Learning, and Power
    (2018-05) Kaiper, Anna
    Domestic workers have played an essential role in the history of South Africa; and yet, current research neither explores the educational experiences of these women nor examines the ways in which national discourses surrounding English language learning influence their educational motivations. This dissertation aims to ameliorate this dearth of research while simultaneously broadening global conceptions of adult language learners by focusing on the English language learning of older, Black, female, South African domestic workers. Utilizing Critical Ethnographic Narrative Analysis (CENA), in which I draw from the histories, narratives, and HERstories of 28 female domestic workers over three-year span, I explore the complex reasons and motivations for South African domestic workers to learn English in a multilingual linguascape. Framed in poststructural theories of language, identity, and power in connection with postcolonial theories of English language learning, I make three main arguments. First, I contend that the terms “education” and “literacy” have become metonyms for “English language education” and “English literacy” that undeniably affect these women’s educational and linguistic motivations. Second, I find that these women are living in a three-fold state of domination in which they incur symbolic violence from the neo-colonial importance placed on English leading to their linguistic vulnerability. Third, I find that despite metonymic discourses purporting the essential nature of English in post-apartheid South Africa, and notwithstanding the numerous forms of violence enacted upon these women in their past and present lives, South African domestic workers live within interstices in which they are showcasing aspects of agency and autonomy in their work, home, and educational spaces while concurrently remaining within the boundaries of metonymic discourse that binds them to these spaces.
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    Storying Multilingual Family School Involvement and Resistance To White-Centering and Monolingual Policies
    (2023-05) Perez, Gabriella
    This study uses storying and fiction-based research to uplift the voices and experiences of multilingual students and families marginalized and silenced in public schools. How do the experiences of multilingual parents and students in public schools affect their school involvement, and how do parental engagement challenge White-centering and monolingual policies and dominant discourses? To address these questions, I analyze data from the Youth Participatory Evaluation Program at Minneapolis Public Schools and the parent survey led by the Latino Youth Development Collaborative Minneapolis Public Schools parents. Next, I expand on school policies' implications on the experiences of multilingual families by creating a story using the data gathered from the surveys. Finally, I advocate for policy changes grounded in cultural equity and social justice.
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    Teacher Life: A Narrative Inquiry into the Storied Knowledge of Teachers
    (2020-08) Knaus, Jake
    Teacher development has traditionally focused upon the technical side of teaching—lesson planning, educational technology, and classroom management. The true work of teachers, however, is best understood using the conceptual framework of practical reasoning—how teachers decide what actions to take. Aristotle claimed that practical reasoning comes from action, but also guides that action. Shulman called this the “wisdom of the practice,” which is an apt description of teacher knowledge—both teacher knowledge itself as well as the ways in which it is produced. In this narrative inquiry dissertation study, I gathered a group of six teachers in an inquiry group to discuss a common text and to share stories of our teaching practices. Additionally, I conducted a semi-structured interview with each teacher. The narratives that I collected, analyzed, and (re)told give insight into the storied nature of the knowledge of teachers, as well as the ways in which teacher knowledge is developed and can be used in the education of teachers. In this dissertation, I develop a new conception of teacher development, which I call “teacher life.” Teacher life describes the complex and nuanced process of becoming in the lives of teachers. It also speaks to the ways in which our professional and personal lives combine to move us into new places as teachers and as people. By connecting the storied nature of teacher knowledge with the theoretical framework of practical reasoning, I describe teacher life as a concept defined by moments in a teacher’s life and the commitments that they make. I explore the key components of constructing a teacher life, and suggest a pedagogy for teacher development, case-based teaching, that uses the stories that we teachers tell and the knowledge those stories contain. Teacher life, as a concept, offers teacher educators a new way to consider the development of teachers. With the careful and intentional curation of the lived experiences of teachers, communicated through the medium of story, the knowledge that is intrinsic to, as well as a product of, teacher’s practical reasoning could be brought to bear in the development of teachers at all stages of their careers.
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    Telling our stories: What my urban, multiply-challenged deaf and hard of hearing students taught me about ability, schooling, and learning to teach.
    (2010-10) Dembouski, Lisa
    This study is a critical narrative inquiry. The participants are my former pupils: graduates of an urban secondary program for multiply-challenged deaf and hard of hearing students. The researcher is me, their hard of hearing teacher who, as a result of her time in the classroom with these individuals, started to ask a lot of questions and then set out to answer them. All of us, our lives, and our stories, are the heart and soul of this study. Through the theoretical, epistemological, and methodological lenses of narrative researcher, theorist on social justice issues, and special educator I inquire into the lived experiences and resultant stories of my former students. I place particular emphasis on using participants' voices that, in most other arenas, are seldom heard. This study also explores ways my participants taught me to better understand ability, schooling, and learning to teach and how we might re-imagine these constructs and institutions in the years to come. Finally, this study considers ways our stories may contribute to education for similar individuals and ways our voices might expand what is understood in our field.