Fostering Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Students’ Reflections about Teaching Emergent Literacy: Offering Choices of Aesthetic Reflexive Modalities

Fostering Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Students’ Reflections about Teaching Emergent Literacy: Offering Choices of Aesthetic Reflexive Modalities For the research to be arts-based the chosen art has to be an integral and informative part of the process, producing knowledge otherwise inaccessible. (Suominen, 2003, p. 34)_______________________________________________________________________Objectives: explain why and how I turned to the arts to foster MAT students’ abilities to reflect about their literacy tutoring experiences with primary school children from multicultural backgrounds; share an arts-based study I conducted to explore in what ways creating arts representations of choice might stimulate the MAT students’ motivation and abilities to thoughtfully consider their pedagogy; describe in what ways the MAT students’ choices of reflective artistic representations connected to their willingness to explore reflective modes and also to their talents, aptitudes, and multiple intelligences; and share examples of the MAT students’ arts-based reflections.Theoretical Framework: Arts-based research in education that posits there are multiple realities and ways of doing and understanding (Butler-Kisber & Poldmer, 2010); and, scholars’ views on teachers’ reflexive dispositions that indicate beginning teachers usually need interventions to carefully consider their knowledge constructions (Richert & Bove, 2010).Methodology: Data were the MAT students’ weekly arts-based teaching reflections, their end of semester focus group comments regarding the value of arts-based reflections, and my weekly journal notes about the project. I analyzed the data using Constant Comparative methods (Ryan & Bernard, 2000).DiscoveriesEngaging in arts constructions fostered and illuminated the MAT students’ introspections. The MAT students preferred to reflect about their pedagogy in myriad ways. Some “tried out” diverse artistic approaches each week; others relied on their aptitudes, talents, and multiple intelligences to promote and illuminate their critical reflection (see Gardiner in Smith, 2008). All students believed arts-based constructions motivated them to reflect about their teaching.