Toward Inquiry and Problem Posing in Teacher Education

Inquiries in teaching help teachers to continually monitor, evaluate, and revise their practice (Hill-Jackson et al., 2019) as well as generate new knowledge (Bailey & Van Harken, 2014). What is lacking in teacher education is the requisite for preservice and inservice teachers to engage in healthy skepticism about the art of teaching and learning so they can question certain taken-for-granted teaching practices (Craig et al., 2022). In teacher education programs, preservice teachers (PSTs), for example, are typically expected to assume a passive role when learning about the best teaching methods and techniques (van Katwijk et al., 2022). Pedagogical procedures and content knowledge are delivered to them via a one-way conduit (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995; Craig, 2002) for which the exchange of knowledge and ideas is not the expectation or solicited. Teacher educators often deposit the best teaching techniques and methods onto PSTs who function as compliant receptacles. These unidirectional transmissions of knowledge are devoid of inquiry and mirror Freire’s (2000) concept of education as a process of depositing knowledge. Freire (2000) noted: