Reconceptualizing a Secondary Content Area Reading Course From a Phenomenological Perspective Using Reflections of Preservice Teachers.

Abstract

This study is the reconceptualization of a secondary education six credit hour content area reading course. Classroom and field experiences were modified to promote preservice teachers' reflections concerning what teaching is, who teachers are, and self-as-teacher. The purpose of the revised multifaceted course was to provide opportunities for students' rethinking of teaching as they were taught or teaching as they experienced such in student teaching. In addition, prior lived experiences and students' resistance to a course in content area reading were examined from a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective. The existing course classroom experience was modified to include reading autobiographies and construction of personal teaching metaphors. The field experience was modified to include mentor/intern journals and participant observations recorded while observing and teaching in a large urban southern high school. Three pairs of preservice teachers/practicing teachers were selected for study. Student reading autobiographies, personal teaching metaphors, mentor/intern journals, and participant observations were described and interpreted. Ultimately, the reflections by students and their mentors exhibited strengthening of the attitudes, philosophies, and methodologies the preservice teachers used to understand what teaching is, who teachers are, and self-as-teacher. By gaining a thoughtfulness of themselves as teachers, preservice students should develop a curriculum for their future content classes which is sensitive to recognizing learners as active constructors of their own knowledge.