My living-educational-theory of place-based learning as a means to move towards a more socially just pedagogy in teacher education

Abstract

I researched my practice as a lecturer in a teacher education college in Zimbabwe as I was concerned that my teaching was not assisting students to realise their potential for independent thinking and knowledge creation and preparing them with appropriate skills and knowledge for life and work in the 21stcentury. I believe both aspects of education are essential in teacher preparation. There are injustices in the way the curriculum is enacted. I therefore focussed this research on improving learning to integrate social justice values into my practice and how to liberate my students and myself from traditional didactic pedagogy. I opted for Place-Based Learning as a teaching strategy since it has been shown to promote student engagement, critical thinking, innovation and reflexivity by embedding the learning in the social reality of the students. I collected and analysed data in the form of interviews, reflective diaries, and student assignments to enhance my learning to improve my practice and as evidence to support my knowledge claims that I had enabled students to become producers rather than just consumers of knowledge; fostered inclusion; and enabled transformative learning, all of which heightened student awareness of the need to make their future teaching more socially relevant and just. I conclude by proposing guidelines for professional practitioners in any educational context using Place-Based Learning to facilitate learning intended to promote students’ inclusion, democratic knowledge generation, and active participation.