Redesigning Teacher Education in the Context of Multiple Reform Initiatives

Author(s):  
Jessica DeMink-Carthew ◽  
Maria E Hyler ◽  
Linda Valli

Numerous teacher educators are revising their programs by focusing on high-leverage practices (HLPs). Concurrently, edTPA has been adopted by a number of states as a way to assess teacher candidates' readiness to teach. There is considerable conceptual congruence in these reform strategies. Both are practice-based, focusing on the authentic work of teaching. Nonetheless, the origins of these strategies, language, and materials are not seamless. HLPs, and ways of teaching them, are generated by local teacher educators themselves; edTPA was developed on a national scale with one purpose being to provide a common assessment of readiness to teach. This chapter illustrates the collective efforts of one teacher education program to productively handle the challenges that emerge in this dual reform climate while simultaneously meeting accreditation association requirements, including a conceptual framework for educator preparation programs. A model is subsequently presented for meaningful integration of edTPA, HLPs, and institutional conceptual frameworks.

Author(s):  
Jessica DeMink-Carthew ◽  
Maria E Hyler ◽  
Linda Valli

Numerous teacher educators are revising their programs by focusing on high-leverage practices (HLPs). Concurrently, edTPA has been adopted by a number of states as a way to assess teacher candidates' readiness to teach. There is considerable conceptual congruence in these reform strategies. Both are practice-based, focusing on the authentic work of teaching. Nonetheless, the origins of these strategies, language, and materials are not seamless. HLPs, and ways of teaching them, are generated by local teacher educators themselves; edTPA was developed on a national scale with one purpose being to provide a common assessment of readiness to teach. This chapter illustrates the collective efforts of one teacher education program to productively handle the challenges that emerge in this dual reform climate while simultaneously meeting accreditation association requirements, including a conceptual framework for educator preparation programs. A model is subsequently presented for meaningful integration of edTPA, HLPs, and institutional conceptual frameworks.


2016 ◽  
pp. 491-507
Author(s):  
Jessica DeMink-Carthew ◽  
Maria E Hyler ◽  
Linda Valli

Numerous teacher educators are revising their programs by focusing on high-leverage practices (HLPs). Concurrently, edTPA has been adopted by a number of states as a way to assess teacher candidates' readiness to teach. There is considerable conceptual congruence in these reform strategies. Both are practice-based, focusing on the authentic work of teaching. Nonetheless, the origins of these strategies, language, and materials are not seamless. HLPs, and ways of teaching them, are generated by local teacher educators themselves; edTPA was developed on a national scale with one purpose being to provide a common assessment of readiness to teach. This chapter illustrates the collective efforts of one teacher education program to productively handle the challenges that emerge in this dual reform climate while simultaneously meeting accreditation association requirements, including a conceptual framework for educator preparation programs. A model is subsequently presented for meaningful integration of edTPA, HLPs, and institutional conceptual frameworks.


Author(s):  
Gayle Y. Thieman

A major revision in a graduate teacher education program (GTEP) at a mid-sized urban university provided an opportunity to rethink goals as teacher educators in order to address issues of diversity and social justice. This chapter suggests some answers to the question: What characteristics of a teacher preparation program prepare teacher candidates (TCs) to provide high quality education for all students, including those who have been historically underserved? This chapter reports a case study of the relevant research and implementation of substantially revised university coursework to better prepare teacher candidates for a diverse student population, and increased collaboration to promote program coherence. Revised coursework emphasizes culturally responsive teaching, content area literacy, and accountability for K-12 student learning. Collaboration is facilitated by clustered placements, co-teaching, and lesson study.


2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manka Varghese ◽  
Julia R. Daniels ◽  
Caryn C. Park

Background Teacher education candidates are in different places in terms of developing their identities and relationships to equity and social justice. Various approaches have been taken within university-based teacher education programs to engage with candidates, wherever they are in this development. One such approach has been engaging or drawing on teachers’ own lenses, especially through challenging and understanding their racialized selves. Purpose This conceptual article examines how race-based caucuses (RBCs) in one teacher education program attempted to shift candidates’ understandings of their racialized selves as related to their teacher identities. Context RBCs were instituted in one elementary teacher education program to help White teacher candidates and candidates of Color construct critical teacher identities. Candidates were asked to participate in caucuses according to the ways they had been racialized within schools. Facilitators who demonstrated a willingness to sit with the work of engaging race and racialization led the caucuses. Observances For the candidates of Color, the “overwhelming presence of Whiteness” in the teacher education program and in the schools required the RBCs to focus on reframing deficit narratives of teachers of Color to an asset-based view of their value and contribution to the teaching profession. The RBC provided space for White teacher candidates to explore the consequences of Whiteness for their future identities as teachers and for the kinds of communities that they could and wanted to cultivate with students. Messiness and challenges abounded in both RBCs. Discussion and Reflections Emotions—and especially emotion labor—were central to RBCs. For teacher candidates of Color, facing one's own oppression was painful but also presented opportunities for them to articulate emotions and experiences in relatively safe spaces. In a different way, the RBCs resulted in significant emotional upheaval for White teacher candidates that shifted into deeper self-reflection and sense of awareness and allyship (for some)— although in a few cases, RBCs led to even deeper resistance. Conclusions Race-based caucusing is a messy and challenging practice that can provide opportunities to reflect constructively on emotions and produce emotional upheaval for teacher candidates. Teacher educators and programs must approach RBCs with an orientation toward hyperreflexivity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Kitchen ◽  
John Hodson

This article studies a community-based Indigenous teacher education program in Northwestern Ontario in Canada. This program, the result of a partnership between the Northern Nishnawbe Education Council and Brock University, was designed to prepare Nishnawbe Aski teachers able to teacher through a Two Worlds Orientation: unique Indigenous understandings combined with Western educational principles. The program characteristics and structure are outlined. The strengths of the program, as identified byteacher candidates and teacher educators, are explored. Impediments to success are also considered.


Author(s):  
Fariba Haghighi Irani ◽  
Azizeh Chalak ◽  
Hossein Heidari Tabrizi

Abstract The critical role of teachers suggests that assessing teacher identity construction helps teacher educators understand the changes in teachers and design materials in harmony with their needs in teacher education programs. However, only a few studies have focused on assessing pre-service teachers’ identity in the long term in Iran. To address this gap, the contribution of a pre-service teacher education program consisting of three phases, namely engage, study, and activate to the professional identity construction of eight pre-service teachers in an institute in Tehran was assessed. Pre-course and post-course interviews, two reflective essays, ten observation notes, and two teaching performances were gathered over a year and analyzed as guided by grounded theory and discourse analysis. Findings revealed two significant changes in the participants’ identities when they transitioned from engage to study and from study to activate phases that yielded study phase as the peak of the changes. Overall, three major shifts were identified in the participants’ identities: from a commitment to evaluation towards a commitment to modality, from one-dimensional to multi-dimensional perceptions, and from problem analysis to problem-solving skills. Current findings may facilitate teacher identity construction by designing local programs matching the needs of pre-service teachers. It may also assist teacher educators by assessing the quality of teachers’ performance and developing teacher assessment tools.


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.


Author(s):  
Carlos E. Quiñones-Padovani ◽  
Clarena Larrotta

The qualitative research study explored in this chapter took place in a physical education teacher education program at a large public university in Puerto Rico. Study findings are relevant for similar programs in the United States. The research questions guiding the chapter are: (1) What can physical education teacher candidates do to help promote community health awareness? (2) What does transformational learning look like for physical education teacher candidates in a physical education teacher education program? (3) From the point of view of the university instructor, what are the challenges training physical education teacher candidates to promote health awareness? Data collection sources include: The researcher's journal, informal conversations with physical education teacher education university colleagues from different institutions, alumni questionnaire responses, electronic communications with 11 physical education teacher education program graduates, and documents (e.g., the National Association for Sports and Physical Education Standards, and the Physical Education Teacher Education Standards). The authors draw on transformational learning theory as a framework to inform the study, and narrative analysis plays a central role reporting study findings. The chapter includes the following sections: a theoretical framework section discussing how transformational learning theory informs the study; a relevant literature section that provides the definition, benefits, and connection with concepts such as physical activity, community health, and effective teaching in physical education; a qualitative methodology section that describes the study setting and participants; data collection sources and data analysis procedures; a study findings section that is organized by research questions; an implications for practice section; and conclusion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (3 (253)) ◽  
pp. 173-193
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Brzosko-Barratt

This paper is a part of a larger instrumental case study exploring the process of creating a CLIL teacher education program for early primary level at the University of Warsaw. The paper identifies some challenges related to program design and describes areas of growth of student teachers specifically related to CLIL planning instruction. The data were collected over a period of five years and included interviews and focused groups with student teachers, teacher educators and mentor teachers as well as the analysis of CLIL units created by the student teachers.


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