In Order to Be You Have to Be: Modeling a Constructivist Approach For for Teacher Candidates

Self-study is a method of investigating the self in relation to the other in practice. As a teacher of teachers, embarking on a self-study allowed me to go beyond investigating the content I teach and required me to investigate the manner in which it needed to be taught. This paper is an analysis of the dynamics of teaching and learning that I experienced as a university instructor who taught an instructional methods course to teacher candidates. Throughout the course, the teacher candidates were immersed in a constructivist theory of learning that underpinned the instructional strategies that I modeled throughout the 20 sessions. Twenty-eight fifth-year concurrent education students participated in two separate focus group interviews on two campuses at the end of the course. This data was collected along with my weekly reflective journal. Findings indicate that through an immersion experience dissonance ensued. In spite of the inherent challenges, both the teacher candidates and I were more likely to continue to apply parts of a constructivist learning theory beyond the present and extend what we had learned, into our future teaching and learning practice. If successful, both student and instructor have the potential to create more fully developed classrooms meeting the needs of most learners.