Context
The crux of professional learning for educators is to empower others to construct meaningful understanding through educative experiences (Dewey, 1938). In order for teachers to use their knowledge to improve their teaching practice and to create educative experiences for others, they must first construct an understanding as learners themselves. This process of making meaning, as opposed to getting meaning, is dependent on teachers’ opportunity to transact with texts, and is aided by communication with and support from a caring community of learners. We are three female teacher educators and program leaders representing special education, educational leadership and literacy education for a teaching-focused university in the Midwestern …show more content…
Epistemologically, transactional and feminist communication theories recognize the relationship between a knower and his or her environment, both in what they know and how they communicate that knowledge. Humans share an ecological relationship with their environment—both taking from it and contributing to it (Dewey & …show more content…
86). Professional learning that makes a difference in classroom instruction offers educators opportunities grounded in the complex environment of practice while supporting and nurturing reflections and discourse on their developing knowledge, often termed praxis. From a feminist perspective, care and understanding are at the center of teaching and learning (Noddings, 1984). Like the typically female role of a midwife who helps draw new life from the mother, a teacher recognizes that knowledge is created within and drawn from the learner. Such a theory of knowledge creation is a departure from the more traditional and often male perspective of a banker who deposits knowledge within the learner (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986).
Expanding the feminist focus on care and understanding, a framework for women’s ways of knowing grounded our research. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) advocate for women to become constructivist knowers who see knowledge as actively constructed by all human beings. Constructivist knowers move beyond silent receivers of knowledge and act with a sense of agency. To act with agency, women must gain confidence and skill in using information from a wide range of sources to form their own understandings (Colflesh,
The crux of professional learning for educators is to empower others to construct meaningful understanding through educative experiences (Dewey, 1938). In order for teachers to use their knowledge to improve their teaching practice and to create educative experiences for others, they must first construct an understanding as learners themselves. This process of making meaning, as opposed to getting meaning, is dependent on teachers’ opportunity to transact with texts, and is aided by communication with and support from a caring community of learners. We are three female teacher educators and program leaders representing special education, educational leadership and literacy education for a teaching-focused university in the Midwestern …show more content…
Epistemologically, transactional and feminist communication theories recognize the relationship between a knower and his or her environment, both in what they know and how they communicate that knowledge. Humans share an ecological relationship with their environment—both taking from it and contributing to it (Dewey & …show more content…
86). Professional learning that makes a difference in classroom instruction offers educators opportunities grounded in the complex environment of practice while supporting and nurturing reflections and discourse on their developing knowledge, often termed praxis. From a feminist perspective, care and understanding are at the center of teaching and learning (Noddings, 1984). Like the typically female role of a midwife who helps draw new life from the mother, a teacher recognizes that knowledge is created within and drawn from the learner. Such a theory of knowledge creation is a departure from the more traditional and often male perspective of a banker who deposits knowledge within the learner (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986).
Expanding the feminist focus on care and understanding, a framework for women’s ways of knowing grounded our research. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (1986) advocate for women to become constructivist knowers who see knowledge as actively constructed by all human beings. Constructivist knowers move beyond silent receivers of knowledge and act with a sense of agency. To act with agency, women must gain confidence and skill in using information from a wide range of sources to form their own understandings (Colflesh,