Challenging the politics of education: Intertwining dialogic pedagogy with a research-based practicum for first-year pre-service teachers

The public education system in the United States has long been under assault from neoliberal educational reforms. Those reforms have been characterized by anti-democratic and homogenizing assessment methods and systems that reinforce the banking model of education. In this model, students learn to passively and uncritically consume the knowledge transmitted to them in school. In order to counteract the banking model, this research urged first-year, pre-service teachers (PSTs) in an Introduction with Internship in Bilingual/ESL Education college coursework to engage in a dialogic problem-posing pedagogy grounded in a Freirian perspective. PSTs conducted a mini research-based practicum (RBP) that was six weeks long and required a total of 24-hour field observations across local public elementary schools. The RBP framework consisted of a research question, a mini literature review, practicum observations, findings, a group-written report, and a group presentation. In this study, we analyzed the RBP process and data sources that responded to our guiding question: What counts as good teaching according to PSTs? The major findings included: (a) good teaching means relationship building, (b) good teaching starts with understanding the multiple roles of the teacher, and (c) good teaching is inclusive. We discussed the transformative moves that PSTs went through while engaging in a dialogic problem-posing pedagogy. Teacher-educators (TEs) can benefit from this study, as the viability of the transformative effects of a dialogic problem-posing pedagogy, along with its challenges and coping methods, were discussed.