Walking toward transformation: Experiential pedagogy and preservice middle grades teacher's reflections on bias and community

This case study examines how a walking and photo-essay assignment impacted 21 middle grades preservice teacher's (PSTs) reflections on bias, community, and teaching. Situated within a semester course and in partnership with a refugee resettlement agency, PSTs walked through a local refugee and immigrant neighborhood, documented observations through photography, and wrote reflective essays analyzing their experiences. Drawing on culturally sustaining pedagogy and experiential learning theory, we analyzed PSTs' photographs and written reflections using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that walking disrupted many PSTs' deficit assumptions about urban neighborhoods, though transformation was uneven. PSTs used personal comparison as a primary sensemaking strategy shaped by their racialized and classed positionalities. Photography functioned as a reflexive tool that surfaced implicit biases through choices about what to notice and frame. Implications include designing recursive walking experiences across multiple courses and scaffolding structured reflection that explicitly addresses power, race, and place.