Who am I in my story of teaching?: Confronting puzzle of practice through narrative inquiry

Abstract

This paper showcases an episode during which I embraced my inquirer self as an attempt to confront my puzzle of practice that had long became the basis of my uncertainty towards my own teaching. Chronologically, the paper is of seven parts. The first part depicts my initial intention of revisiting my teaching practice as means of unpacking my frames of reference that were the basis of my puzzle of practice. Part two describes how I employed narrative inquiry as my main research design, while incorporating the elements of self-study and autoethnography that served as the powerful mechanism for my research. Two main field texts were gathered during this particular phase of my fieldwork: my teaching/research journal and my students’ learning journals that were analysed and transformed into research texts. The next three parts of this paper illustrate how I re-story the time when I re-experienced my teaching and critically re-examined my teaching approach and strategies with the help of my students’ feedback in seeing my practice through a different lens. These parts also accentuate the struggle I faced with in my effort to transform my teaching practice - from a “teacher-focused strategy” or a “teacher-directed”, into one that promoted “student-centred” learning approach. In part six of this paper, I attempt to answer the question of “Who am I in my story of teaching?” by reflecting on the three main lessons learned throughout my research journey. Finally, in hindsight, it came to my knowledge that in searching the possible answer to my puzzle of practice, what I needed most is to continuously make my frames of reference more open, reflective, and emotionally able to change.