Co-Learning in Action: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Study of Funds of Knowledge in Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter explores how a teacher educator and a cohort of teacher candidates engage with the framework of Funds of Knowledge as a tool in teacher education. The initiative aims to cultivate culturally responsive practices among participants by adopting a Funds of Knowledge approach to support multilingual learners through digital storytelling. Co-learning is woven throughout the project, with a specific focus on disrupting hierarchical structures and power dynamics within the classroom. The project employs collaborative auto-ethnography, which aligns with the co-learning stance by ensuring that all co-authors have equitable access and voice in the process. The findings reveal the complexity of the sociocultural ecology in teacher education. Through the juxtaposition of these perspectives, we drew on our personal, local, and sociocultural resources to make meaningful contributions to the learning environment, illustrating how the Funds of Knowledge approach fosters a dynamic and richly complex dimension within educational spaces.