Using Story to Understand Teacher Knowledge

Abstract

The knowledge preservice teachers bring is experiential, grounded in stories they’ve lived and told. Because of the way story captures experience, it’s valuable in the learning-to-teach process. In this commentary, we return to narrative research we completed to consider the stories preservice teachers tell in learning to teach. We explore what we know about teaching from stories we’ve told and consider how story positions teacher educators. These explorations provide narrative insights that guide us in developing stronger teachers. These stories allow us to build on teacher knowledge as well as disrupt preconceptions and beliefs within their teacher education.

Stories That Teachers Tell: Exploring Culturally Responsive Science Teaching

“…Teachers often tell or exchange stories that recount a situation that already took place, or verbally rehearse something that has yet to transpire [56,57]. The act of telling a story causes the storyteller to relive the experience, teetering between the past and the present, and the retelling "shifts our knowing of experience, ourselves, and the meanings we hold of things like teaching and learning" [58] (p. 56). In the context of teacher learning, storytelling can be viewed as a pedagogical strategy [52].…”