Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction / Debbie K. Mercer / This phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of two elementary pre-service teachers in a Mid-western rural university in an attempt to heighten the quality and depth of those experiences as they pertain to pre-service teacher preparation prior to student teaching. The study analyzed the pre-service teachers’ descriptions of their lived experiences in elementary schools during internship experiences and how those experiences contributed to their personal growth as educators. Flick’s (2009) recommendations for phenomenological data analysis of personal journals and face-to-face interviews was used as a methodological framework for exploration of the two pre-service teachers’ lived experiences while Van Manen’s (1990) journal and interview methodologies were used for data collection. The findings were represented in thematic format and revealed transformational learning experiences for both participants. The six phenomenological themes captured the essences of teacher and student relationships and how classroom experiences contributed to personal learning opportunities for the pre-service teachers. Moreover, the findings of this study bolstered the necessity for pre-service teachers to reflect upon and evaluate interpersonal and intrapersonal lived experiences as they relate to the basic tenets of phenomenology in order to gain a fuller appreciation for how lived experiences of pre-service teachers, and their students, contribute to professional growth and improved decision-making skills. This study argues for a more attuned investigation of the basic tenets of phenomenology to increase student achievement through improved teacher and student relationships, and to enhance pre-service teachers’ personal and professional learning.

I present the dissertation web as a montage of a postmodern inquiry of my doctoral internship and research experiences—concerns and jubilation—positioned within the discourses of <a href="site_map2.htm#2">postmodern</a>, dissertation, academia, experimentalism and cyberspace innovations among others. I create a <a href="site_map2.htm#3">social constructionistic</a> interactive interplay, using <a href="site_map2.htm#5">hypertext</a>, among my various voices of an intern, a researcher and a person. In the dissertation web—my inquiry—I practice the characterization of postmodernism on numerous fronts—subject of study, context of study, methodology and re-presentation of the inquiry. Implicitly and explicitly, I articulate the various characterizations of postmodernism in my inquiry by challenging the traditional research practices (meta<a href="site_map2.htm#4">narratives</a>). I challenge the traditional praxis by alternate per<b>form</b>ances of research practices such as studying myself in a cultural context of an internship using the methodology of <a href="site_map2.htm#11">autoethnography</a> and performance. The <a href="site_map2.htm#5">hypertext</a> docuverse is a further characterization of postmodernism in the styles and structures that are used for re-presentation of the narratives. The styles of narration I use—such as words and graphics, prose and poetry, first person conversational texts, narratives and collages—blur the boundary of "academic" writing, literature, and art. The hypertext is intended as a <a href="site_map2.htm#6">metaphorical</a> experiential, intertextual journey of an <a href="site_map2.htm#12">intern</a> and a <a href="site_map2.htm#14">researcher</a>. Rather than a fixed structure, I create numerous structures of possible structures to privilege the readers' <a href="site_map2.htm#1">navigational</a> choices. I anticipate that the reader's choices in the virtual space might create a sense of meaning-transformation as one traverses through the dissertation web, thus, valuing <a href="site_map2.htm#8">fragmentation</a> and connection as aspects of sense-making, which are contextualized (among others) by the reader's meaning frames and my hypertextual <a href="site_map2.htm#7">performances</a>. The dissertation is submitted in three formats—exclusive dissertation web.pdf, intertextual dissertation web.pdf, and xml version. The<b> <i>exclusive dissertation web.pdf</i> </b>is a web capture in pdf format of all the "files" that compose the dissertation web created in html. The <i><b>intertextual dissertation web.pdf</b> </i> is a web capture of my dissertation along with the capture of external web resources that contextualize my dissertation web, thus illustrating the intertextuality of hypertexts by making the dissertation part of the larger textual web. Due to the web capture, the "docuverse" is nonlinear and the pages do not follow any particular or author predefined sequences. So, <i>please use the internal links or the bookmarks to read or browse the dissertation web</i> rather than scroll from the first "page" to the last "page" of the pdf formatted docuverse. The third version in xml will be made available at a later date. An html version of the dissertation is available directly from the researcher-author. CAUTION! The links from the abstract may be broken due to archiving of the dissertation web. / Ph. D.