UW–Madison’s Kelly Hayek, Irene Ann Resenly, and Kyle Harrison were featured on the first episode of the Revolutionizing Education podcast produced by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).
Hayek is the student and alumni support specialist for the School of Education’s Teacher Education Center. Resenly is a doctoral candidate within the School’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction as well as a 5th grade teacher, and Harrison is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
In the episode, titled “Joy in Teacher Education,” Hayek, Resenly, and Harrison share the results of a study they presented at AACTE’s 2021 Annual Meeting that sought to answer the question: “What is the role of joy in teacher education?”
Hayek explained that the study evolved from their shared work supporting preservice teachers and teacher candidates. “What we recognized is that the crossroads of our work was a shared approach, which is joy,” she said.
Resenly added that in the practice of teacher education, much of the daily work is spent on “learning through struggle,” which she defined as “what might not have been successful in teaching practice, the feeling of a lack of expertise, or societal or institutional forces working against teaching.”
In contrast, the researchers aimed to center “noticing, understanding, and replicating joy as critical work in teacher education” for their study.
The three used autoethnography, or self-reflection, as a methodological tool, because, as Harrison explained, “it allows the researcher to examine their beliefs and experiences in an attempt to parcel out salient memories and seek for their deeper meanings within the context of society.”
Harrison added: “Reflecting on and sharing moments of practice is not only something that we facilitate for others, but is a common part of our practice as a team of academic staff and graduate students positioned to offer cross-programmatic support to preservice teachers.”
In short, “This is an organic way of speaking for us,” he said.
Harrison explained they used the following question to guide their search for stories, experiences, and moments of practice: “What spaces did we discover that offered us the ability to use joy in our practice in supporting preservice teachers?”
Hear the full episode at aacte.org.