Rediscovering Ourselves as Educators: An Exploration of Our Own Teaching Practices during a Global Pandemic

Abstract

The purpose of this manuscript is to tell the story of two literacy methods professors’ teaching experiences in Fall of 2020. We found ourselves in a unique situation in that one of us was teaching fully online and the other using a hybrid model of both in person and online instruction. Together, we knew that there was something to discover in regard to higher education, specifically preservice service teacher methods courses, that needed to be explored. Therefore, we asked ourselves five reflective questions at the end of each month in the fall semester. Collectively, we decided on these questions as they related most to what we had experienced in Spring of 2020 and what we wanted to further learn from in the Fall. We answered these questions individually and then came together in a zoom meeting to discuss our reflection and anything else that we wanted/needed to share. While we found this process of reflecting and sharing to be cathartic to our own experiences, it was also uncomfortable to bump against our own beliefs about teaching and education in general. As a result, we share our collective conversation based on our reflections. This framework allowed us to move from “teacher lounge” talk and into action because our conversations were more structured and purposeful. We were able to understand ourselves as educators better and provide a framework for reflection for the field of education