Andrew Stremmel

Reflection Through Narrative: The Power of Narrative Inquiry in Early Childhood Teacher Education

This article discusses the value of narrative for conceptualizing and promoting teacher research and inquiry in early childhood teacher education. The article provides an overview of essential forms and functions of narrative, paying particular attention to the contributions of narrative inquiry, which is a research framework rarely applied to early childhood education. In this discussion, we provide illustrative examples of our teaching and research with early childhood teacher researchers applying elements of narrative at the graduate level. These narrative-in-action examples are drawn from the second authors inquiry collaboration with teachers in the rural Midwest and the first authors teaching of an MA level course on narrative inquiry and memoir in a metropolitan area in northern California.

Countering the Essentialized Discourse of Teacher Education

In this paper, the authors engage in a collaborative inquiry illustrative of a dialogical process of meaning making addressing the future of teacher education in times marked by uncertainty, intense public and political scrutiny, changing policy, and imposed learning standards. The authors urge teacher education programs and teacher educators to reclaim their crucial role in driving education discourses rather than submitting to mandates based on flawed ideological assumptions about teaching, learning, children, and communities. Teacher educators need to participate in the counternarrative of the de-essentializing “turn” in teacher education. By critiquing and problematizing minimalist and flawed assumptions driving education policy, teacher education programs can shift the focus back to advocating for what is relevant and meaningful to the communities they serve. De-essentializing teacher education necessitates embracing complex curricula and pedagogies of unknowability, rather than perpetuating simplistic disciplinary pedagogies of safety and certitude.

Child Development Laboratory Schools as Generators of Knowledge in Early Childhood Education: New Models and Approaches

Research Findings: University-based child development laboratory programs have a long and rich history of supporting teaching, research, and outreach activities in the child development/early childhood education fields. Although these programs were originally developed in order to conduct research on children and families to inform policy and practice, this mission has yet to be fully achieved. Practice or Policy: This paper provides an overview of the potential for 21st-century child development laboratory schools to be places that generate and disseminate new knowledge and understanding of children, families, teachers, curriculum, and classroom processes. An overview of the current context for laboratory schools is presented, outlining the challenges that limit schools’ ability to actively support comprehensive teaching, research, and outreach/engagement activities. An overview of applied developmental science is presented as a framework that can play a critical role in the future as laboratory schools strive to continue and enhance their important roles in the generation of new knowledge into the 21st century. A laboratory schools consortium is proposed as a mechanism to support knowledge generation.

Change Within a Teacher Education Program and Laboratory: A Reflective Commentary

Intentional, systemic philosophical change on an educational program level and on an individual level is often a slow and cyclic process. In this article, we reflect on the journey of philosophical change and growth from a traditional philosophy to an inquiry-based, Reggio-inspired one that occurred on both levels in an early childhood teacher education program and laboratory school over a period of 7 years. As an inquiry group, we reflected on the change we experienced in our own teaching methods, our interactions with staff members and each other, and our perceptions of change in interaction with our students. After carefully and systematically reviewing our reflections, five trends in change were identified. They were (a) recasting the image of the teacher and reevaluating the process of teaching and learning, (b) valuing dialogue, (c) cultivating a reflective mindset, (d) valuing outside perspectives, and (e) building meaningful relationships. The process of reflecting on and documenting our journey has improved our ability to articulate the change we made and to see our growth. Further it has illuminated future teaching and learning directions and aims that we intend to pursue. Finally, we hope that sharing this process will encourage others to examine what, how, and why of their teaching and learning in order to enhance their own professional development journey.

Turning the soul: Nurturing the inner lives of student teachers

Abstract This article describes activities and experiences that encourage students to construct and reconstruct knowledge of self and teaching through community building and reflective practices. Following the assumption that teacher education should focus on the human and ethical dimensions of teaching, and the conscious development of a sense of self, specifically the inner self, the author makes the claim that teaching is an act of “soul turning,” or self‐transformation. When students of teaching are given opportunities to reflect on who they are in the context of their teaching and in relationships with others, possibilities exist for the development of greater self‐understanding and awareness.