scholarly journals Beyond Schools: Community-Based Experiences as a Third Space in Teacher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Melanie D. Janzen ◽  
Christie Petersen

Some teacher education programs have incorporated community-based experiences for teacher candidates. Based on the experiences of developing and implementing a community-based practicum in our teacher education programs, the authors conducted a small exploratory case study, aimed at examining and critically considering community-based experiences as a “third space;” an opportunity through which to challenge teacher candidates’ strongly held understandings of teaching. The purposes of this article are to share our literature review, to provide some key insights from the study findings, and to explore our lingering questions regarding the development and implementation of community-based experiences and to consider the possibilities of community-based experiences as a third space in which to disrupt teacher candidates’ assumptions about teaching.

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Guillen ◽  
Ken Zeichner

This article examines the experiences of a group of nine community-based mentors of teacher candidates who partnered for several years through a local, community-based organization with the graduate elementary and secondary teacher education programs at a research university in the Pacific Northwest. Following a brief discussion of the history of partnerships between teacher education programs and local communities, we report the findings of a study of the perspectives of these community mentors on their work with teacher candidates and university teacher educators.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huanshu Yuan

This study reviewed current issues in preparing qualified teachers for increasing diverse student populations in the U.S. and in other multicultural and multiethnic countries. Based on the framework of community-based and multicultural teacher education, this literature review paper analyzed issues and problems existed in the current curriculum, content, and practicum in traditional teacher education programs in addressing cultural knowledge and competence of preparing pre-service teachers in a multicultural society. Drawing from implications from community-based teacher education, this paper proposed several suggested strategies to reform traditional teacher education programs to meet the needs from multicultural and multiracial student populations and instructional context. 


Author(s):  
Heidi L. Hallman

This chapter proposes the value of offering teacher candidates an opportunity to participate in community-based field experiences during their teacher education programs. Community-based field experiences, in contrast to traditional, classroom-based placements usually offered at this stage in prospective teachers' professional preparation, enable beginning teachers to conceptualize their own learning and the learning of their students in new ways. As part of teacher education programs, the community-based field experience serves a distinct purpose and place, and one that is often underexplored. This chapter describes the integration of community-based field experiences into teacher education programs and discusses the unique quality of community-based settings as potential sites for teachers' learning.


2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 1061-1079 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Webber ◽  
Dianne Miller

Few studies take up the question of how to teach pre-service or current teachers to practice integrated, interdisciplinary, and inquiry-based methodologies. In this literature review, scholarly research is explored to examine approaches to teacher education based in progressivism. Place- and community-based education is considered as an important approach for heightened student engagement in relation to social justice, rural revitalization, and Indigenous knowledges. Characteristics of strong teacher education programs are also examined. This broad investigation lays the foundation for a deeper inquiry into the organization and development of teacher education programs. Conclusions point to recommendations for teacher education programs with recognition of the potential for critical place-based education within the field of teacher education.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer

Race is a marker hiding more complex narratives. Children identify the social cues that continue to segregate based on race, yet too often teachers fail to provide support for making sense of these worlds. Current critical scholarship highlights the importance of addressing issues of race, culture, and social justice with future teachers. The timing of this work is urgent as health, social and civil unrest due to systemic racism in the U.S. raise critiques and also open possibilities to reimagine early childhood education. Classroom teachers feel pressure to standardize pedagogy and outcomes yet meet myriad student needs and talents in complex settings. This study builds on the current literature as it uses one case study to explore institutional messages and student perceptions in a future teacher education program that centers race, culture, identity, and social justice. Teaching as a caring profession is explored to illuminate the impact authentic, aesthetic, and rhetorical care may have in classrooms. Using key tenets of Critical Race Theory as an analytical tool enhanced the case study process by focusing the inquiry on identity within a racist society. Four themes are highlighted related to institutional values, rigorous coursework, white privilege, and connecting individual racial and cultural understanding with classroom practice. With consideration of ethical relationality, teacher education programs begin to address the impact of racist histories. This work calls for individualized critical inquiry regarding future teacher understanding of “self” in new contexts as well as an investigation of how teacher education programs fit into larger institutional philosophies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Kibler ◽  
René Pyatt ◽  
Jason Greenberg Motamedi ◽  
Ozen Guven

Grow-Your-Own (GYO) Teacher Education programs that aim to diversify and strengthen the teacher workforce must provide high-quality learning experiences that support the success and retention of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) teacher candidates and bilingual teacher candidates. Such work requires a holistic and systematic approach to conceptualizing instruction and mentoring that is both linguistically and culturally sustaining. To guide this work in the Master of Arts in Teaching in Clinically Based Elementary program at Oregon State University’s College of Education, we conducted a review of relevant literature and frameworks related to linguistically responsive and/or sustaining teaching or mentoring practices. We developed a set of ten mentoring competencies for school-based cooperating/clinical teachers and university supervisors. They are grouped into the domains of: Facilitating Linguistically and Culturally Sustaining Instruction, Engaging with Mentees, Recognizing and Interrupting Inequitable Practices and Policies, and Advocating for Equity. We also developed a set of twelve instructional competencies for teacher candidates as well as the university instructors who teach them. The instructional competencies are grouped into the domains of: Engaging in Self-reflection and Taking Action, Learning About Students and Re-visioning Instruction, Creating Community, and Facilitating Language and Literacy Development in Context. We are currently operationalizing these competencies to develop and conduct surveys and focus groups with various GYO stakeholders for the purposes of ongoing program evaluation and improvement, as well as further refinement of these competencies.


2021 ◽  
pp. e20200014
Author(s):  
Elise St. John ◽  
Dan Goldhaber ◽  
John Krieg ◽  
Roddy Theobald

Emerging research finds connections between teacher candidates’ student teaching placements and their future career paths and effectiveness. Yet relatively little is known about the factors that influence these placements and how teacher education programs (TEPs) and K-12 school systems match teacher candidates to mentor teachers. In our study of this process in Washington state, we find that TEPs and K-12 systems share overarching goals related to successful student teacher placements and developing a highly effective teacher workforce. However, distinct accountabilities and day-to-day demands also sometimes lead them to prioritize other objectives. In addition, we identified informational asymmetries, which left TEPs questioning how mentor teachers were selected, and districts and schools with limited information with which to make intentional matches between teacher candidates and mentor teachers. The findings from this study inform both practice and research in teacher education and human resources. First, they illuminate practices that appear to contribute to informational gaps and institutional disadvantages in the placement of student teachers. Additionally, they raise questions about what constitutes an effective mentor teacher and provide researchers and policymakers with better insight into the professional realities of teacher educators and K-12 educators, as well as those of district human resource (HR) coordinators, which is important given their differing accountabilities and distinctive positionings in the education of teacher candidates.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Anne Block ◽  
Paul Betts

Teacher candidates’ individual and collaborative inquiry occurs within multiple and layered contexts of learning. The layered contexts support a strong connection between the practicum and the university and the emergent teaching identities. Our understanding of teacher identity is as situated and socially constructed, yet fluid and agentic. This paper explores how agentic teaching identities emerge within the layered contexts of our teacher education program as examined in five narratives of teacher candidates’ experience. These narratives involve tension, inquiry, successes and risks, as teacher candidates negotiate what is means to learn how to teach, to teach and to critically reflect on knowledge needed to teach. We conclude that navigating teacher identity is a teacher candidate capacity that could be explicitly cultivated by teacher education programs.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marla S. Sanders ◽  
Kathryn Haselden ◽  
Randi M. Moss

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to promote discussion of how teacher education programs can better prepare teacher candidates to teach for social justice in ethnically and culturally diverse schools. The authors suggest that teacher education programs must develop teacher candidates’ capacity to teach for social justice through preparation programs that encourage critical reflection and awareness of one’s beliefs, perceptions, and professional practice. The authors ask the following questions: How can teacher educators provide structures in professional preparation programs that will produce reflective practitioners? How might we prepare teacher candidates who are constantly thinking about how they perceive their students and their families and how those perceptions affect the way they relate to students? Through a discussion of five case scenarios, the authors discuss prior research on preparing teachers for culturally diverse schools and offer suggestions for improving professional education programs.


Author(s):  
Melissa D. Hartley ◽  
Barbara L. Ludlow ◽  
Michael C. Duff

Second Life®, an online virtual world, is currently used at West Virginia University for simulation activities and role-playing exercises in teacher education programs in special education. The purpose of this chapter is to describe a design experiment in a pilot case study, explain the rationale for using virtual reality, describe how learning activities were developed, implemented, and evaluated, discuss plans for future research and practice, and offer suggestions for using virtual simulations in other teacher education programs.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document