My First Academic Summary

SUMMARY 

Narratives in Teacher Education

           

              Narratives in teacher education is an informative article written by Dolk & den Hertog

(2008) which accounts for a learning experience developed in The Netherlands. It aims to bridge the 

gap between theory and experience in teacher education colleges. The authors claim that by means of this approach, prospective teachers are stimulated to construct their own knowledge, observing and investigating into real classroom contexts and bringing their own experiences into their training.

               The learning experience which the authors refer to is a multimedia interactive learning environment (MILE). This environment brings 70 hours of mathematics teaching and contains videos of real lessons plus communication tools for learners and journals as well. Since it is divided in short fragments, prospective primary teachers are allowed to watch them as many times as they require and later intervene in enriching discussions.

                The authors outline the importance of using narratives in teacher training as a framework to record thoughts and feelings during observations in order to promote prospective teachers´ reflection on their own practice. According to Dolk & den Hertog (2008) through reflection students may share their own beliefs on education, negotiate meaning and interpretation of observed environments and construct stories by becoming very intense observers. These discussions also allow prospective teachers to move between scientific theories and their own hypothesis on education.

                  In order to develop a narrative knowledge, the authors suggest starting by observing the real context video to stimulate an active discussion on the situations presented. Then analyzing and reflecting by focusing mainly on the interaction among children, teachers and subject matter within a specific environment. Finally, expanding their personal knowledge to develop a personal didactic theory. As the authors describe this is a cycling process and one step is totally related to the others.

                 All in all, Dolk & den Hertog (2008) reveal that students of teacher training colleges “learn to teach by teaching” (p.228). They assert that to reach this goal, teachers need to interact with their peers and base their knowledge not only on theory but also on personal practical experience.

References

Dolk , M & den Hertog, J.  (2008) Narratives in teacher education, Interactive Learning Environments, 16:3, 215-229, DOI: 10.1080/10494820802113970