Routledge Narrative Ecologies: Teachers as Pedagogical Toolmakers

In recent years there has been significant investment by policy makers in the potential of technological tools to transform learning and teaching across a range of professional practitioner groups; education, nursing and social care. There remain, however, outstanding issues concerning the ways educators and professional practitioners harness the potential of technologies to innovate and develop pedagogical practice. With so much attention focusing on technologies themselves, the complexity of what it takes for practitioners to innovate and develop their own pedagogical practice can easily be overlooked. This book promotes a teacher-centred model of professional development and practice; a model that promotes teachers as active agents as they draw upon a range of factors within a narrative ecology framework to inform their development of pedagogical tools. The combination of narrative methodologies with ecological theories offers a much more nuanced view of teachers’ professional learning, and Turvey provides an innovative methodological approach to narrative research, supported by an empirical evidence base which crosses educational and socio-cultural contexts. Chapters cover: -Teachers as pedagogical toolmakers -A teacher-centred narrative ecology -Storying teachers’ experiences: what can we learn? The narrative ecologies that emerge in this book suggest an incremental process of pedagogical change and development, driven by teachers at the heart of the process. This book will be key reading for postgraduate students and academics focusing on narrative methodologies and aspects of professional learning within contemporary contexts. Review "What Keith has contributed to the teacher education canon is a design for a methodological and pedagogical approach to teachers' learning that will inspire teacher educators to observe more closely the individual student’s pedagogical activity within a complex technical and socio-cultural ecology." - Christina Preston, ITTE Newsletter "This book wins out over others in its holistic and nuanced approach to a number of key educational issues, namely the potential of technological tools to transform learning. More importantly, however, Turvey reminds us that for such tools to be harnessed effectively we need to put the teacher, not the tools, at the centre of this enterprise. For new technologies to work we must develop new models of interaction between the technology, the user and the pedagogic and biographical contexts in which they are to be used. Turvey has done this. The rich array of ideas and applications presented in this very usable book also demonstrate the important contribution university research and theory play in the education of pre- and in-service teachers."  - David Stephens, Research in Education "Overall I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Narrative Ecologies’ and, as an Educational Developer, the book has given me a more expanded view of what factors need to be considered when asking educators to adopt new technologies...Turvey has done a fantastic job arguing the case for his model, using vignettes and personal experiences to make the theoretical side of the book more accessible whilst his findings have given a lot of food-for-thought to anyone working with educators in the adoption of technological tools." - Nick Botfield, Educational Developer, University of Bedfordshire Association for Learning Technology     About the Author Keith Turvey is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Brighton, UK.