The Transforming Power of Narrative in Teacher Education

Journaling the Art of Teaching: Multimodal Responding for Narrative Inquiry

“…In addition to being the focus of the teachers' personal and professional development, narrative inquiry, the recurrent process of inquiring into who we are and are becoming in relation to our teaching beliefs and practices (Chan, 2012;Saleh, Menon & Clandinin, 2014), also provided the working material or data used to answer our main research question. That is, as the teachers responded to the various activities, they not only inquired into their own narratives, but also provided important information for future implementations of the journal component.…”

Narrative Inquiry: A Dynamic Relationship between Culture, Language and Education

“…Clandinin and Connelly (2000) advocated narrative inquiry in which storytelling was acknowledged as a powerful tool for reflection on what personal practical knowledge teachers have and how such knowledge is formulated. Many educators have used life stories and personal narratives as a means of understanding teaching and learning (e.g., Chan, 2012;Chase, 2003;Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007;Yu, 2015). According to Lyons (2007), narrative is more than telling and reading stories, and "seemed especially useful to capture the situated complexities of teachers' work and classroom practice" (p.614).…”

“…Hong Kong students are generally regarded as passive learners and to lack critical thinking and self-reflection in learning (Chan, 2012;Chiu & Chan, 2009). Researchers have asserted that an examination-driven curriculum contributes to rote learning and resistance to creative activity (Ho, 1994;Sweeting, 1990).…”

Ideas of and Attitudes towards Projects and Changing Practices: Voices of Four Teachers

“…Since these projects are not mandatory, and do not count for grades in examinations (NCERT, 2009), they are neither known to all schools, nor implemented. Teacher presentations at the National Teachers' Science Congress (NCSTC, 2010;2012) that give a glimpse of what teachers around the country perceive as innovations in teaching-learning, include project practices. However, most projects reported were largely conducted with select students.…”

“…Besides, reports on project practices may not reflect teachers' intentions for engaging in such practices. One way to address this problem may be to simulate practice through a narrative (Chan, 2012). A discourse that begins with a narrative at an individual level has the potential to realise transformative actions in practice (Freire, 2000).…”