Fostering the Disposition to Serve

Author(s):  
Reid Richard Riggle

Many teacher candidates enter teacher preparation programs with the desire to serve or to change the lives of others. Teacher education programs are uniquely positions leverage this desire to serve through intentional service-learning field placements. Service-learning, particularly early in the preparation program, can play a critical role in building the disposition to serve. This chapter explores one way teacher preparation programs can cultivate the orientation to serve high-need schools. Candidates enrolled in the Village Project serve in high-need schools, address a real community and educational need, and are provided reflection opportunities to connect the experience to their developing knowledge of learning and motivation. Ultimately, the goal the Village Project as an early service-learning field experience is to help teacher candidates develop a professional identity that increases the personal desire to work in educational communities that have a need.

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz

Translanguaging has become a particularly relevant (and controversial) concept for the field of bilingual education, with concrete implications for teacher preparation programs serving teacher candidates (TCs) who may identify as heritage speakers of Spanish. However, the regard and understanding of translanguaging, its pedagogical potential, and the positionality to implement it are not evenly distributed among stakeholders involved in the teacher preparation process. This article explores the relationship among California public teacher preparation programs, their bilingual teacher candidates, and the districts that host their field placements that ultimately hire them. Building on the metaphorical concepts of ideological and implementational spaces (Flores & Schissel, 2014), the space between and encompassing the overlap between credentialing programs and school districts is characterized as a friction space beset by tensions between monoglossic and heteroglossic stances and the pragmatism of “entering the workforce.” The dynamics of this space are illustrated in five retratos constructed on qualitative data obtained through semistructured interviews. Based on the author's localized experiences, the article concludes by proposing approaches to navigate the friction space, reinforce the bilingual candidates' counterideological stances, and advance a much-needed productive dialogue in the teacher preparation ecology.


2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 597-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Sokal ◽  
Vern Barrett ◽  
Allan Appel ◽  
Anneke Funk ◽  
Mykaila Radawetz

One hundred teacher candidates enrolled in a mandatory course on service learning were surveyed pre- and post-course to determine their civic attitudes and willingness to take the service learning course. Quantitative analysis indicated significant growth in civic attitudes in all students, and this growth was not differentially affected by the students’ willingness to take the course. Qualitative data were analyzed to determine the underpinnings for students’ perceptions, and recommendations about the wisdom of making such courses mandatory in teacher preparation programs are provided.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 728-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Brady ◽  
Katie Miller ◽  
Jazarae McCormick ◽  
Lawrence A. Heiser

Educators struggle with “value-added” teacher evaluation models based on high-stakes student assessments. Despite validity and reliability threats, these models evaluate university-based teacher preparation programs (TPPs), and play a role in state and professional accreditation. This study reports a more rational value-added evaluation model linking student performance to teacher candidates’ lessons during Practicum and Student Teaching. Results indicate that K-12 students showed learning gains on these lessons, with mixed findings on comparisons of part-time to full-time internships, academic and functional lessons, and candidates’ grade point averages (GPAs). Results indicated that teacher candidates’ lessons are a viable value-added model (VAM) alternative for TPPs.


Author(s):  
Lisa VASQUEZ

The current state of education embodies increasing public demands and policy mandates for teacher accountability in all classrooms, pre-kindergarten through Grade 12. Leaders expect increased academic performance to meet grade-level curriculum standards within a multicultural society. Teacher preparation programs are tasked to create and manage field experiences that guide practice within diverse learning communities. Teacher candidates interact with the cultural, social, and historical context of schools, of professional colleagues, and of the pupils they teach. In addition, teacher candidates should be prepared to develop practices that are intentional, personalized, differentiated, and purposeful for the pupils within their classrooms. This paper offers a case study of one university’s re-design of field experience supervision in its teacher preparation programs. The curriculum designers sought to ensure support for teacher candidates based on each student’s individual needs, while fostering systemic change responsive to ideas of race, gender, and other areas of intersectionality in a multicultural society. The field supervisor was the key to connect the practical, field-based experiences with the vision and mission of the university. Thus, program leaders identified the need to invest in the professional development of field supervisors in a way that brought the vision and mission to life—from words to action. The resulting framework included a multi-faceted approach of coaching / mentoring, professional development, and reflective discourse with colleagues.


Author(s):  
Tonya Huber ◽  
Elizabeth R. Sanmiguel ◽  
Lorena P. Cestou ◽  
Mayra L. Hernandez

As teacher-preparation programs educate and evaluate candidates to become globally competent instructional leaders, special attention should be given to international service-learning. Immersing teacher candidates in real-world experiences beyond their comfort zone is a cornerstone of this theoretical inquiry, including self-reflection strategies grounded on Paulo Freire's liberatory pedagogy for social justice. The research team reviews self- and cultural-awareness experiences, dispositions, and profiles of university teacher candidates, during a semester of curriculum studies affording opportunities to engage in local, local to global, and/or global/international service-learning. The discoveries will inform teacher educators as they develop and strengthen critical inquiry and service-learning components of their own courses.


Author(s):  
Alpana Bhattacharya

Teacher preparation programs in the United States are expected to educate preservice teacher candidates through instructor-learner partnerships. Collaborative learning, project-based learning, and authentic assessment therefore are vital for preparing teacher candidates to teach in 7-12 grades. This chapter shares instances of instructor-learner partnership from an undergraduate educational psychology course via course-based and field-based assignments. First, an overview of constructivism is presented as foundational theory anchoring instructor-learner partnership in the teacher preparation course. Next, instructor-learner partnership is illustrated within a simulation task, technology-enhanced project, and fieldwork experience. Finally, instructor-learner partnership in formative assessment of course-based and field-based activities are illustrated. The chapter concludes with recommendations for inculcating instructor-learner partnership in teacher education courses, and directions for future research pertinent to instructor-learner partnership in teacher preparation programs.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1021-1036
Author(s):  
Charmion Rush ◽  
Karena J. Cooper-Duffy

As online teacher preparation programs continue to grow, guiding the process for edTPA candidates can pose varying challenges. As such, teacher preparation programs must be equipped to provide guidance to online candidates as they complete the actionable items required for edTPA. Provided from the field supervisors' perspective, this chapter outlines the current process Western Carolina University has in place to provide effective clinical and teacher candidate experiences for students in their online program. The purpose of this chapter provides guided structure for graduate special education teachers pursing initial licensure through an online masters' program. This chapter will include 1) the challenges of guiding online students through the e-portfolio process, 2) an exploration of the provided structure for the teacher candidates to fulfill the requirements of edTPA, as well as 3) recommendations for teacher preparation programs and teacher candidate readiness in the practice and application of e-performance assessments and edTPA.


Author(s):  
Kisha L. Walker ◽  
Stacy Ness ◽  
Fran Reed ◽  
Katherine Strang

What if teacher candidates had the opportunity to practice research-based instructional strategies and the application of critical skills without fear of failure or harm to students? Would you be interested? One of the biggest challenges that teacher preparation programs face is a struggle to provide meaningful and realistic practice for pre-service teacher candidates. How do we provide practice in “real” settings with “real” students who demonstrate a depth and breadth of learning and behavioral challenges? How do we make practice sessions safe environments for both our teacher candidates and the students they serve? How do we provide needed experiences for candidates in a world where in-person learning may be curtailed by unforeseen circumstances? The purpose of this chapter is to examine the use of virtual reality simulations in education that provide scaffolded learning experiences for pre-service teachers in an online learning environment.


Author(s):  
Alden J. Edson ◽  
Amanda Thomas

In a curriculum system, instructional materials and their enactment impacts students learning of school mathematics. In this chapter, the authors re-examine enacted curriculum in light of research on Digital Instructional Materials (DIMs) and the critical role of the mathematics teacher. This chapter documents research from two different studies suggesting that, while effectively leveraging digital materials may require teachers to think outside of their traditional views of how mathematics content is learned and communicated, doing so requires more than the resources themselves. In order to seize upon the potential for DIMs to support student learning in mathematics, teacher preparation must offer opportunities for teachers to develop and transform their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) knowledge for and with DIMs. To this end, the authors propose specific recommendations for teacher preparation programs in the digital age.


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