Investigating Critical Friendship: Peeling Back the Layers

This self-study documents two teacher educators’ professional inquiry into the notions of critical friendship. Specifically, we asked: How does our interactive inquiry on the topic of critical friendship lead us to new understandings of critical friends? Three theoretical perspectives framed this study – More Knowledgeable Others, Thought Collective, and reflection. Data sources included (a) artifacts from the self-study scholarship/literature, (b) written and real-time (audio recorded) dialogue, and (c) critical friend response memos. We systematically analyzed our data, linking the initial themes to our theoretical frame. These themes led to three findings about critical friendship: flexible definitions, complex characteristics, and multiple learning phases. Based on these findings, we created two research tools useful for researchers enacting critical friendship – the Critical Friend Definition Continuum and the Critical Friend Guide for Quality Assurance. Ultimately, we assert that we, along with our colleagues, must be responsible brokers of critical friendship by explicitly explaining our purposes, definitions and uses of critical friendship within our work as self-study researchers

Secondary content area teachers speak about literacy and technology: Tensions, complexities, conceptualizations, and practices

The purpose of this study was to share the details, complexities, contradictions, parallels, conceptualizations, and practices of secondary content area teachers' use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance literacy practices and learning. Specifically, the research questions were: How do English, Science, and Social Studies teachers conceptualize the impacts ICTs have on literacy practices and learning? What is the relationship between English, Science, and Social Studies teachers' conceptualizations and their use of ICTs in their everyday pedagogical practices to enhance literacy practices and learning? I used the notions of literacy as a social practice to frame the study and writing as a method of inquiry to analyze the teachers' conceptualizations and practices. Through observations and interviews, I learned the teachers' stories. Within these stories, four tensions emerged in regard to how the teachers negotiate between their conceptualizations and classroom practices: (1) access to ICTs adequate for the task; (2) sufficient levels of ICT knowledge for the task; (3) fear of the unknown; and (4) identification of who benefits form the ICTs and how these benefits can be determined. The conclusions, or major themes highlighted in the teachers' stories, are that: (a) technology seems to be an add-on to support well-established practices, (b) teachers cling to traditional literacy practices, (c) teachers take up and use ICTs and literacy for unique purposes based on their individual classroom contexts, and (d) teachers' tensions limit their ability to envision beyond what they currently see and do in regards to ICTs and literacy