This document outlines the agenda and content for a teacher education course on narrative inquiry. It discusses John Dewey's views on experience and education, and how those influence narrative inquiry. It also introduces the three commonplaces of narrative inquiry according to Connelly and Clandinin: temporality, sociality, and place. Temporality refers to the past, present and future context. Sociality considers relationships and norms. Place examines the impact of physical location. The document provides examples and activities to help understand applying these concepts.

1. Creating Insight through
Narrative Inquiry
EDBE 8P15
Week 2

2. Agenda
• Welcome & Attendance
• Housekeeping
• Towards a Worldview of
Teaching
• Consider Dewey’s experience
• Narrative Inquiry in Teacher
Education
• Connelly and Clandinin
• 3 Commonplaces of
Narrative Inquiry
• Short Break
• Oral Chronicle presentations
• Small group discussions
• Short Break
• Related Literacy Narrative
Working Groups
• Letter writing
• Looking ahead to next week

3. Housekeeping
• Thank you for introducing yourselves and for trusting me to
lead you outside of your comfort zones.
• Having said that, please only share what you’re comfortable
sharing.
• The importance of our ‘safe space’
• What happens in 8P15, stays in 8P15
• Letters – please address group members by name
• Police checks, insurance forms & H&S forms are due on
January 22nd - next Wednesday
• Any Questions, Concerns, Clarifications?

4. Towards a Worldview of Teaching
• What do we mean by our schemata or worldview?
• https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/schema - a representation of a
concept or theory - an understanding
• Our view of the world, shaped by our experiences, colours our perceptions
and influences what we deem as being important in terms of our knowledge
and understanding about who learners are, and the student/teacher
relationship
• Read Aloud Activity: The Important Book, by Margaret Wise Brown
• How do we determine our personal schemata?
• Two women looked out from behind prison bars; one saw desert, the other,
stars
• What’s ‘The Important Thing’ about teachers, in the eyes of students?
• How could your worldview, as an educator, influence your students’ educational
experiences?

5. Think-Pair-Share
• How would the following statements influence a teacher’s
relationship with students if she/he thinks this way about
life and teaching?
• “It’s either my way or the highway.”
• “Those kinds of kids will never learn how to read and write
anyway, what’s the use?”
• “You gotta take chances in life.”
• “Every experience I live is a gift of life.”
• Think of your favourite teacher; how could you describe
their worldview, as you saw it?

6. Activity
• What kinds of quotes or
phrases reflect your schema
or worldview of life?
• Whole class sharing.
• go to this link to add your
quote or phrase or image.
• https://docs.google.com/doc
ument/d/1TB02zG75hcVEUk3
HLZR0ERaXAGsGbGAe8Jm
Ov4EKiJ4/edit?usp=sharing

7. Dewey - Traditional vs. Progressive Education
• Dewey believed that school should be a microcosm of the community or
the society – of the real world.
• Reflective thinking and experiential methods in school and society mark
him as one of the greatest educational philosophers in the world.
• By age 19, he expressed his worldview as: “If you lose faith in yourself,
you lose faith in humankind.” He believed that the purpose of
philosophy was that of addressing and solving the problems and
conflicts of human life.
• Dewey emphasized a student-centered, activity-oriented curriculum with
the focal point being the promotion of reflective thinking. He also
believed that the teacher should provide problems or situations that
would not only be interesting and challenging, but also would be
worthwhile in promoting social growth.

8. Dewey’s Criteria of Experience
• A Theory of Experience was needed if education was to be intelligently conducted on
its basis
• Category of Continuity or The Experiential Continuum
• Shaping environmental experiences that lead to growth
• Used to determine whether or not experiences are worthwhile, educationally
• Since we discriminate between values of experiences, we need to establish
criterion for discrimination for experiences to ensure the principle of continuity
• The principle of Continuity of Experience means “that every experience both takes up
something from those [experiences] which have gone before and modifies in some
way the quality of those [experiences] which come after.” (p.13)
• Can you think of any examples?
• Growth means growing or developing intellectually, physically and/or morally.
• Growth as education and education as growth.

9. The Educator’s Responsibility
• Continuity becomes a criterion to
determine whether experiences are
educative or miseducative. Every
experience is a moving force…the
mature educator has the responsibility to
evaluate each experience of the young in
a way in which the one having the less
mature experience cannot do…the
educator’s business is to see in what
direction the experience is
heading…failure to take the moving
force of an experience into account so
as to judge and direct it …means the
educator is being disloyal to the
principle of experience itself.
• A primary responsibility of educators is
that they not only be aware of the general
principle of the shaping of the actual
experience by envisioning conditions, but
that they also recognize surroundings that
are conducive to having experiences that
lead to growth. Above all, they should
know how to utilize the surroundings,
physical and social, that exist so as to
extract from them.
• Adult influence is more than just
exercising external control over
experiences, it requires a sympathetic
understanding, or empathy, over what
individual students may be experiencing.

10. Interactions
• The principle of Continuity of Experience
is used as a criterion for determining the
value of an experience.
• The second chief principle for
determining the educational function and
force of an experience is Interaction
• Interaction assigns equal rights to both
factors in experience: objective and
internal conditions.
• Objective and internal conditions,
combined, form a Situation, which
becomes the basis for the experience.
• Life is a series of situations through which
we are all interacting with others in our
environment.
• The Environment is whatever conditions
interact with us to create the experiences
we have.

11. The Principles of Continuity and Interaction
are not mutually exclusive
Continuity
Interaction
+
= Experience

12. Educators must adapt to their students
• If educators are going to be selecting and constructing objective
conditions, they must do so for the specific students they are teaching;
teachers must know and understand their students’ needs and capacities.
• Failing to adapt materials to students’ needs and capacities may cause an
experience to be non-educative.
• Continuity, with respect to education, means that the future has to be
considered at every stage of the process.
• For learning and knowledge to be relevant and useful, the subject matter
can’t be learned in isolation; students must be able to generalize what
they’ve learned.

13. What’s Most Important, according to Dewey
• Fostering a positive attitude toward learning is critical
• The most important attitude that can be formed is that of a
desire to go on learning
• The present affects the future, so maximize your moments
and try to be present in all of them
• Maturity brings understanding and perspective; those
who have reached maturity are responsible for creating
favourable conditions for present experiences that will
positively affect future experiences

14. Constructivism
• An approach to learning and teaching that encourages learners to take
an active role in their learning
• The learner constructs new knowledge on prior knowledge, building
understanding and making sense of new information
• Students experience successful learning when they are actively
engaged in:
• constructing knowledge for themselves;
• reflecting on their views and the views of others;
• Arriving at new understandings that expand their worldview
• This course endeavors to embody Constructivist principles of learning
through our triad work sessions and letter writing

15. Narrative Inquiry in Teacher Education
Readings so far:
• How can narrative inquiry be
useful in teaching? (Ciuffetelli
Parker, 2010, 2011)
• Why is story important?
(Connelly & Clandinin, 2006)
• Why is experience important?
(Dewey, 1938)

16. Connelly & Clandinin (2006)
Narrative Inquiry is a way of
understanding experiences
as lived,
and as told through stories.

17. Dewey
Connelly & Clandinin

18. 3 Commonplaces of Narrative Inquiry
- Connelly & Clandinin
•Temporality – context of past, present, future
•Sociality – the influence of relationships and
norms on a situation
•Place – the influence of physical location on a
situation

19. Temporality gives context…
• Events under study are in temporal transition, so we describe them in terms of
past, present and future
• We paint a temporal picture of how we see things transitioning
• “To give a narrative explanation, one needs to know the temporal history.” (p.5)
• Temporality is the main dimension that distinguishes a telling inquiry from a
living inquiry
• When you’re living your story, you’re in the moment; when you’re telling your
story, you can set the stage.
• Activity –
1) Think of a classroom happening
2) Describe what happened
3) Thinking narratively, ask yourself what else you need to know to give a
temporal feeling to that story

20. Sociality – Conditions that influence
experiences
• Social conditions and personal conditions that form the individual’s
context
• Social conditions = existential conditions; environment, factors and
forces that influence experiences
• Personal conditions = feelings, hopes, desires…
Imagine the same classroom happening, but this time:
1) Only focus on the teacher (feelings, morality,
responses to happening, etc).
1) Now only focus on the teacher’s social conditions (i.e.
the context including administration, policy,
community, etc) that shape the happening and the
teacher’s part in it.

21. Place
• Physical place, or sequence of places, where experiences occur
• For Narrative Inquiry, the specificity of place is crucial; every
place has an impact/influence.
Think back to the classroom happening
1) Describe what happened in abstract form, in general terms
2) Now describe the classroom (the place) in its context and full
detail, thinking through the impact of this particular place on
the happening

22. 3 Commonplaces* of Narrative Inquiry
(Connelly & Clandinin)
Temporality
Sociality
Place
* The study of one, or a combination, of these might
find its place in other forms of qualitative research,
but what makes a narrative inquiry, is the
simultaneous exploration of all 3.

23. Questions? Concerns? Clarifications?

24. 5 minutes, please
Presenters are
invited to get
set up.

25. Oral Chronicle Presentations
• Oral Chronicle presentations – Absolute maximum: 15 min
• This assignment is personal and the feedback should follow the
THINK guidelines. Only share comments that are:
True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary and/or Kind.
We will hear all 3 presentation and then break into smaller groups for
discussion and debrief.

26. 5 minutes, please

27. Related Literacy Narratives – Triad work session
For the next 10 minutes, discuss this week’s readings with your
group members to uncover deeper meanings and make
connections to what you’ve read.

28. Letter Writing
Take a moment to reflect on your discussion and draft
a letter to your group-mates that demonstrates:
• Growth in understanding of the reading
• Connections/new insights that have evolved from the
discussion
• References to the previous week’s reading

29. Looking Ahead to Next Class…
• Ciuffetelli-Parker (2011) and Forum post on Recovery of
Meaning
• Placement confirmed
• Notepaper for Oral Chronicle feedback
• Presenting next week:
• 1. Kaitlin Honan
• 2. Piper Roobroeck
• 3. Prabhjot Hothi