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Journal ArticleDOI

Purposeful Tensions: Lessons Learned from Metaphors in Teacher Candidates' Digital Stories

TL;DR: In this article, a collective case study examines how two teacher candidates' digital story projects created in literacy methods courses made visible their negotiated and evolving visions of teaching and learning, and how these relate to prominent models of education including Industrial and Inquiry models.
Abstract: This collective case study examines how two teacher candidates' digital story projects created in literacy methods courses made visible their negotiated and evolving visions of teaching and learning. The digital stories were created to show and describe their future literacy classrooms. Using metaphoric analysis, the researchers uncovered the implicit metaphors of teachers and students present in each of the teacher candidates' digital stories. Looking across these metaphors, tensions and alignments between how the teacher candidates envisioned the role of teacher and the role of student and how these relate to prominent models of education including Industrial and Inquiry models are apparent. Implications for practice include modifications made to literacy methods courses to support teacher candidates to begin the negotiation of their professional identities as they explore multiple experiences of teaching and learning. These modifications include: (a) prompting teacher candidates to see themselv...

Summary (3 min read)

Constructing Teaching Identities

  • Bullough & Baughman (1997) emphasize, "teacher identity, the beginning teacher's beliefs about teaching, learning and self-as-a-teacher, is a vital concern to teacher education as it is the basis for meaning making and decision making" (p.21).
  • This key process of professional identity development is often overlooked in teacher education, however.
  • Recent research (Ticknor, 2014; Authors, 2015) indicates the importance of intentionally providing teacher candidates opportunities to begin to negotiate complex discourses inherent in learning to teach while still in supportive teacher education environments.

Affordances of Digital Storytelling

  • Research on the use of digital video composition (Authors, 2015; Pandya, 2014; Rish, 2013) shows that most teacher candidates' videos in which they are asked to reflect upon and represent their beliefs and/or visions of teaching multimodally are more complex and cognitively demanding than writing written reflections about one's teaching beliefs and understandings.
  • According to Leander and Boldt (2012) , texts like the digital stories their teacher candidates create are "not about the world; rather they are participants in the world" (p. 25).
  • As such, their teacher candidates do not simply produce these texts but rather use them to interact with and negotiate discourses present in learning to teach.

Methodology

  • This study describes work developed by a research group who came together as teacher educators with a common digital story project, across three universities.
  • Fueled by their combined experience of over 60 years in elementary classrooms, the authors share a passion for finding ways to allow the digital storytelling project to inform their own teaching practices.

Context

  • This study focuses on the digital stories of two teacher candidates, Ellie and Charlotte (pseudonyms used).
  • They were both enrolled in a literacy course during their elementary teacher education program.
  • Charlotte's university was located in a mid-size Midwestern city and Ellie's was in an urban metropolitan university in the South.

Data Collection

  • Ellie and Charlotte's digital stories were selected using critical case sampling because they were likely to "yield the most information and have the greatest impact on the development of knowledge" (Patton, 2002, p. 236) .
  • The authors use of two cases, collective case study (Creswell, 2007, p. 74 ) across multiple sites, allowed us "to show different perspectives on the same issue.".
  • Data was collected under an approved exempt protocol from IRB at each university.
  • Their stories were not analyzed until after the course ended.
  • These were segmented by sentences, unless in some cases, they were broken into two segments when needed to correspond with images.

Data Analysis

  • Finding the metaphors in the digital stories allowed us, like Musoff (2012) , to "make experience coherent" (p. 302).
  • The researchers individually coded data from the digital story transcripts and visuals related to teaching and learning to identify themes.
  • Next, for increased validity, the researchers came together to identify prominent metaphors of teaching and learning.

Findings

  • Through the use of metaphoric analysis, several key findings emerged.
  • In the section that follows, the authors explain the metaphors that emerged and provide examples of their manifestation in each teacher candidates' digital story.

Charlotte's Metaphors

  • I want all of the students in my classroom to love reading and develop a passion for it, that continues on into their adult lives.
  • She had not actually planned or taught any lessons herself.
  • Additionally, she was considering traffic patterns around the room as she mentions the floor plan will "allow for the students to comfortably move around the room during silent reading.".
  • She trusted that her students would be monitoring their own learning as they had choices in activities as well as assessment and would record much of this on their own.

Discussion

  • Refer to Table 3 for teacher candidates' metaphors across cases.
  • In this section the authors will discuss the tensions and alignments of Ellie and Charlotte's metaphors.
  • Then, the authors consider how these metaphors relate to the Inquiry and Industrial Models of education and how this informs their own practice.

Tensions and Alignments in Metaphors

  • Further analysis of the how the metaphors relate to each other, allow us to examine how Ellie and Charlotte were developing their professional identities (Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011, p. 764 ).
  • This mismatch created a tension between the roles of teacher and student.
  • There is a clear alignment between Charlotte viewing herself as Facilitator of Learning and viewing her students as Responsible Participants in their learning.

Models of Education

  • The metaphors of the envisioned roles in the digital stories also provide illustrations of the presence both of the Inquiry and Industrial Models of education (Leland & Kasten, 2002) .
  • Both are present in the digital stories their teacher candidates created.
  • In each of these stories, the students were then positioned as Lovers of Literacy, Responsible Participants, and Independent Readers.
  • Her metaphor as Teacher As Organizer aligns with the Industrial Model because of the teacher -centered way she envisioned arranging her classroom and positioned her students in need of being organized.
  • While being shielded from any contradictions to the Industrial Model in schools allowed Charlotte to envision a more inquiry-based classroom -one more in line with their own visions of ideal classrooms -the authors are concerned that when she does experience the effects of an industrial model, she will be unprepared to negotiate these tensions.

Conclusions

  • When teacher candidates have only experienced an industrial model of education in both their own apprenticeships of observation (Lortie, 1975) and their field placements, it may become difficult for them to see the possibility of implementing any other approach.
  • The authors begin to think about how this would inform their teaching of literacy courses and engaged in conversations about how these findings could help us find concrete ways to improve their own teaching practice.

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1
Purposeful Tensions: Lessons Learned from Metaphors in Teacher Candidates’ Digital Stories
Abstract:
In this qualitative study we present a brief overview of a digital story project and discuss how
two teacher candidates’ implicit metaphors of teachers and students within this project made
visible their negotiated and evolving visions of their future classrooms. The tensions present in
the teacher candidates’ metaphors allowed us, as researchers and teacher educators, to view
these tensions in response to our own teaching practices. This study served as a launching pad
to modify our methods courses to support teacher candidates to begin the negotiation of their
professional identities as they explore multiple experiences about teaching and learning.
Implications include how the digital stories challenged us to find ways to enhance our courses by
providing more intentional class engagements providing our students with opportunities to
explore the tensions between the industrial and inquiry model in the classrooms we visit and
work in, as well as the ones we hope to create.
Each semester, we set out with lofty goals of inspiring the aspiring teachers with whom
we work to thoughtfully consider the kind of educators they want to become and supporting
them on this journey. One method we have found beneficial in moving us toward achieving this
goal is a project in which teacher candidates create digital stories envisioning their own future
classrooms. This project was designed to elicit the developing visions our teacher candidates
were constructing in elementary literacy methods courses across three different university
settings. They are asked to create digital stories in which they present their vision of what their
future classroom will be like. They present images, voiceover, text, effects, and sometimes music
in order to demonstrate what they believe about literacy teaching and learning. This project
replaced the traditional beliefs and understandings paper previously assigned in these courses
which had become a rote exercise. The digital story project is intended to provide an authentic

2
space for teacher candidates to begin to sort out the complexities related to their evolving beliefs
and understandings and negotiate their professional identities as they explore multiple voices of
experience about teaching and learning they have encountered in their time as K-12 students, in
teacher education coursework, and in field placements (Authors, 2015).
Review of the Literature
Constructing Teaching Identities
We encourage the construction of a teaching vision based on our understanding that the
development of a teacher identity is a critically important component of the learning-to-teach
process (Alsup, 2006; Atkinson, 2004; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009), as it is linked to teacher
growth and performance. Bullough & Baughman (1997) emphasize, “teacher identity, the
beginning teacher’s beliefs about teaching, learning and self-as-a-teacher, is a vital concern to
teacher education as it is the basis for meaning making and decision making” (p.21). This key
process of professional identity development is often overlooked in teacher education, however.
Fairbanks et al. (2010) point out that “…a sense of agency with the intent of purposefully
negotiating personal and professional contexts may be as important, if not more important, than
the more traditional conceptions of professional knowledge” (p. 162). Recent research (Ticknor,
2014; Authors, 2015) indicates the importance of intentionally providing teacher candidates
opportunities to begin to negotiate complex discourses inherent in learning to teach while still in
supportive teacher education environments. For this reason, envisioning the self as a professional
is a crucial stage in professional identity development and the construction of a vision of
teaching and one we choose to emphasize in our courses.
Affordances of Digital Storytelling

3
Research on the use of digital video composition (Authors, 2015; Pandya, 2014; Rish,
2013) shows that most teacher candidates’ videos in which they are asked to reflect upon and
represent their beliefs and/or visions of teaching multimodally are more complex and cognitively
demanding than writing written reflections about one’s teaching beliefs and understandings. As
each of us, the four researchers, viewed the digital story projects created by the teacher
candidates in our courses, it became apparent that they were using the digital composing process
to negotiate their evolving beliefs as they created and "substantiate[d] their stances" (Mallette,
Kile, Smith, McKinney & Readence, 2000) while visioning their future classrooms. According to
Leander and Boldt (2012), texts like the digital stories our teacher candidates create are “not
about the world; rather they are participants in the world” (p. 25). As such, our teacher
candidates do not simply produce these texts but rather use them to interact with and negotiate
discourses present in learning to teach.
Methodology
This study describes work developed by a research group who came together as teacher
educators with a common digital story project, across three universities. Fueled by our combined
experience of over 60 years in elementary classrooms, we share a passion for finding ways to
allow the digital storytelling project to inform our own teaching practices.
Given the literature on the affordances of digital composing/storytelling in supporting complex
negotiations of discourses of teaching and the creation of a teaching vision (Authors, 2015;
Beach, 2014; Pandya, 2014; Rish, 2013; McVee, Bailey, & Shanahan, 2012; Albers, 2011, 2008)
the questions guiding our study were:
How does digital storytelling make visible teacher candidates’ visions of teaching and
learning?

4
How can we, as teacher educators, learn from these digital stories?
Context
This study focuses on the digital stories of two teacher candidates, Ellie and Charlotte
(pseudonyms used). They were both enrolled in a literacy course during their elementary teacher
education program. Charlotte’s university was located in a mid-size Midwestern city and Ellie’s
was in an urban metropolitan university in the South. They were both White females in their
early twenties.
As the final project for their literacy methods course, Ellie and Charlotte, along with their
classmates, were asked to compose a digital story in which they envisioned their future literacy
classroom. Within this digital story, they were asked to “consider potential interpretations of
their design choices” (Pandya, 2014) including language, images, and music that would allow
their audience of this first-person narrative to realize the theoretical rationale for their
instructional, material, and assessment choices in their future classrooms.
Data Collection
Ellie and Charlotte’s digital stories were selected using critical case sampling because
they were likely to "yield the most information and have the greatest impact on the development
of knowledge" (Patton, 2002, p. 236). Our use of two cases, collective case study (Creswell,
2007, p. 74) across multiple sites, allowed us “to show different perspectives on the same
issue.”
Data was collected under an approved exempt protocol from IRB at each
university. Additionally, willing participants were not identified to the researchers until after the
semester was completed. Institutional Review Boards permission was granted for analysis of
Ellie and Charlotte’s course projects.  Their stories were not analyzed until after the course

5
ended. We organized the data involved by transcribing the digital story images and
corresponding voice-over in a table format (See Table 1). These were segmented by sentences,
unless in some cases, they were broken into two segments when needed to correspond with
images.
Data Analysis
The following questions guided our analysis of the visual representations chosen and
language used by each teacher candidate as she described visions of her future classroom:
What phrases or phrasing reveal themes related to teachers and students?
How do these phrases unveil implicit metaphors (paying particular attention to metaphors
of teaching, teachers, learning, and students)?
We were guided by Saldaña (2009) to analyze the themes of the digital stories in order to
glean meaning. Using this thematic analysis, we identified and brought together components to
construct themes or patterns that might otherwise be thought meaningless. Looking this closely
at the digital stories allowed us to derive a deeper meaning from each (Saldaña, 2009). Next, we
took note of “resonant metaphors” that Ellie and Charlotte used during their digital story because
these metaphors contained and gave shape to the experiences and perspectives of the
participants. According to Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997), “The metaphors—spare like
poetry—embrace and express a large area of human experience” (p. 198). Finding the metaphors
in the digital stories allowed us, like Musoff (2012), to “make experience coherent” (p. 302).
Metaphors were also useful in uncovering the ways people understood the world around them.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) maintain that metaphoric processes are fundamental forms of human
understanding, and they argue that the human mind grasps unfamiliar ideas only by comparison
with or in terms of things that are already known. Therefore, metaphoric language used in the

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors discusses how the study of metaphoric and more generally figurative language use contributes to critical discourse analysis (CDA) and shows how cognitive linguists' recognition of metaphor as a fundamental means of concept and argument-building can add to CDA's account of meaning in the social context.
Abstract: This article discusses how the study of metaphoric and more generally, figurative language use contributes to critical discourse analysis (CDA). It shows how cognitive linguists’ recognition of metaphor as a fundamental means of concept- and argument-building can add to CDA's account of meaning constitution in the social context. It then discusses discrepancies between the early model of conceptual metaphor theory and empirical data and argues that discursive-pragmatic factors as well as sociolinguistic variation have to be taken into account in order to make cognitive analyses more empirically and socially relevant. In conclusion, we sketch a modified cognitive approach informed by Relevance Theory within CDA.

132 citations

Book
01 May 1996

113 citations


"Purposeful Tensions: Lessons Learne..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…Model where language is “an object to be analyzed into objective parts… separate from the responses of readers and the intentions of the author” (Myers, 1996, p. 89), rather than literacy as “a way to explore topics of personal interest while building and negotiating meaning with others”…...

    [...]

DOI
01 Feb 2008

104 citations


"Purposeful Tensions: Lessons Learne..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…of the majority of students enrolled in our various programs— White, middle-class females in their early twenties—which research tells us is the typical teacher candidate (Cochran-Smith, Davis, & Fries, 2004; Gay & Howard, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1999; Lowenstein, 2009; Zumwalt & Craig, 2008)....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: The role of gender and achievement in schooling, by Jane Bernard-Powers and Dilys Schoorman as mentioned in this paper, is discussed in detail in the article "The Role of Gender and Achievement in Schooling".
Abstract: Introduction. 1. Multicultural Education in the New Millennium, by Carlos F. Diaz. 2. Multicultural Education: Goals, Possibilities and Challenges, by James A. Banks. 3. Effective Teaching Practices for Multicultural Classrooms, by Geneva Gay. 4. Creating Effective Urban Schools: the Impact of School Climate, by Valerie Ooka Pang and Andre J. Branch. 5. Learning Styles: Implications for Teachers, by Karen Swisher. 6. The Role of Gender and Achievement in Schooling, by Jane Bernard-Powers. 7. Educating Immigrant Students Successfully, by Dilys Schoorman. 8. Connecting Multicultural and Special Education, by Christine E. Sleeter and Rodolfo Puente. 9. Culturally Sensitive Evaluation Practices, by Pat Ceros-Livingston. 10. Teaching Multicultural Education from a Foundations Perspective, by Angela Rhone. 11. We Speak in Many tongues: Language Diversity and Multicultural Education, by Sonia Nieto. 12. Becoming a Cross-Cultural Teacher, by Cherry A. McGee Banks. 13. The Role of School in Deterring Prejudice, by Ilene Allgood. 14. Educating for Human Rights: A Curricular Blueprint, by Ricardo L. Garcia. 15. Resistance to Multicultural Education: What Every teacher Should Know, by Carlos F. Diaz.

96 citations


"Purposeful Tensions: Lessons Learne..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…of the majority of students enrolled in our various programs— White, middle-class females in their early twenties—which research tells us is the typical teacher candidate (Cochran-Smith, Davis, & Fries, 2004; Gay & Howard, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1999; Lowenstein, 2009; Zumwalt & Craig, 2008)....

    [...]

Journal Article
TL;DR: The role of multimodal media in the teaching and learning of English concepts and literature is discussed in this paper, where a preservice teacher, Lindsey, discusses the importance of engaging all students actively in learning by offering them multiple ways in which to express and demonstrate meaning.
Abstract: the past several years, I've been working with preservice teachers (PST) earning initial certification, and inservice teachers (1ST), those already certified in English education, to support their efforts to design curriculum and focus attention on the role that multiple media play in the teaching and learning of English concepts and literature. In her statements above, Lindsey, one of my preservice teachers, understands the importance of engaging all students actively in learning by offering them multiple ways in which to express and demonstrate meaning. She has begun to learn how to integrate multimodality into her future teaching. As knowledge of digital technologies increases and many children, adolescents, and preservice teachers enter school with varied experience, especially working with multiple modes via computer, Leap Frog, Xbox, and so on, English education is primed for the role that multimodality can and should take in the teaching and learning of English language arts (EL A) teachers. Evolution of the "old page," or written hardcopy texts, to the "new" (Kress, 2003), or electronic page, means that today's learners have experience with reading a variety of texts. Image, music, and electronic inscription (font, style, flash, and so on) are features of multimodal texts that many learners prefer to read and create. With the screen becoming the dominant medium (Kress, 2003), there is an increasing need for learners to under-

62 citations


"Purposeful Tensions: Lessons Learne..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…affordances of digital composing/storytelling in supporting complex negotiations of discourses of teaching and the creation of a teaching vision (Albers, 2006, 2011; Beach, 2014; McVee et al., 2012; Pandya, 2014; Rish, 2013; Sydnor et al., 2015) the questions guiding our study were as follows:…...

    [...]

  • ...Researchers have explored the creation of digital videos in teacher education to productively engage new technologies and as a multimodal response to written text (Albers, 2006, 2011; Beach, 2014; McVee, Bailey, & Shanahan, 2012; Pandya, 2014; Rish, 2013; Sydnor et al., 2015)....

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Frequently Asked Questions (1)
Q1. What are the contributions in "Space for teacher candidates to begin to sort out the complexities related to their evolving beliefs and understandings and negotiate their professional identities as they explore multiple voices of experience about teaching and learning they have encountered in their time as k-12 students, in teacher education coursework, and in field placements (authors, 2015). review of the literature constructing teaching identities we encourage the construction of a teaching vision based on our understanding that the development of a teacher identity is a critically important component of the learning-to-teach" ?

In this qualitative study the authors present a brief overview of a digital story project and discuss how two teacher candidates ’ implicit metaphors of teachers and students within this project made visible their negotiated and evolving visions of their future classrooms. This study served as a launching pad to modify their methods courses to support teacher candidates to begin the negotiation of their professional identities as they explore multiple experiences about teaching and learning. Implications include how the digital stories challenged us to find ways to enhance their courses by providing more intentional class engagements providing their students with opportunities to explore the tensions between the industrial and inquiry model in the classrooms the authors visit and work in, as well as the ones they hope to create. Each semester, the authors set out with lofty goals of inspiring the aspiring teachers with whom they work to thoughtfully consider the kind of educators they want to become and supporting them on this journey. One method the authors have found beneficial in moving us toward achieving this goal is a project in which teacher candidates create digital stories envisioning their own future classrooms. This project was designed to elicit the developing visions their teacher candidates were constructing in elementary literacy methods courses across three different university settings. This project replaced the traditional beliefs and understandings paper previously assigned in these courses which had become a rote exercise. The digital story project is intended to provide an authentic