The Power of Uncertainty: reflections of pre-service literacy tutors

Abstract

This study of pre-service elementary teachers in a literacy methods course describes the ways in which they reflected upon their experiences tutoring children in reading and writing. The results show that those tutors who were most effective at creating and implementing successful reading instruction looked at their experiences in profoundly different ways than their classmates. Their journals showed that the journals of the outstanding tutors differed from the others in three ways: (a) the quality and quantity of cognitive effort they put into teaching and reflecting about teaching; (b) their tolerance of ambiguity; and (c) the complex ways in which they understood the relationship between emotions and learning. The paper describes some specific skills that future teachers can be taught that could improve the quality of their teaching; (a) asking more, as well as more in-depth questions about their experiences; and (b) risk-taking, and self-evaluation.