Learning from students before managing classroom. Using email to connect secondary students and pre-services teachers

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Fotografia di copertina di Vittorio Midoro
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Published: Oct 19, 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17471/2499-4324/789
Keywords:
Student Voice, Educational Technology, Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL)

Main Article Content

Alison Cook-Sather
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA

Abstract

This article presents a case study of a project through which secondary certification candidates who attend two selective, liberal arts colleges in the northeastern United States participate in a semester-long email exchange with high school students who attend local secondary schools. This exchange, which takes place before the certification candidates undertake student teaching, has a number of outcomes. According to the pre-service teachers and secondary students who participate in the project, the email exchange: (1) creates links outside of regular space, time, and relationships within which individualized communication can take place; (2) affects, in positive and negative ways, the kind of communication participants have; (3) facilitates careful analysis and reflection; (4) gives participants insight into others’ perspectives; and (5) constitutes a record of the dialogues. Because the email exchange creates a kind of liminal space - an inbetween space and time, in which neither the teachers-to-be nor the students are in their usual roles - the participants in this project can try on new ways of being, develop new ways of interacting, and experiment with whom they are trying to become.

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 23 No. 2 (2015): TD65 - Dossier: Student voice
Section
Articles - Special Issue

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