scholarly journals Experience with Diversity is Not Enough: A Pedagogical Framework for Teacher Candidates that Centers Critical Race Consciousness

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-59
Author(s):  
Alice Y. Lee ◽  
Amos J. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Clinical Placements ◽  
White Teacher ◽  
Critical Race Consciousness

Given the overwhelming whiteness of teacher education, we offer a pedagogical approach rooted in critical race theory, and draw on Carter’s (2008) notions of critical race consciousness to: 1) center a critical race perspective in methods-based coursework; and 2) employ critical race theory to analyze the function and role of clinical fieldwork. In this article, we provide examples of how we engage white teacher candidates to preemptively take stock of their own racial journey and biases prior to being responsible for educating students of color. We also focus on the process of selecting clinical placements and assignments. We explicate how current selection criteria for clinical sites and cooperating teachers are undergirded by systems of white supremacy, and problematize the reality of majority white clinical placements. We further provide suggestions for teacher education programs that pay particular attention to the roles and responsibilities of white teacher educators and predominantly white teacher education programs.

scholarly journals Critical Race Theory: Disruption in Teacher Education Pedagogy

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-71
Author(s):  
Andrea N Smith
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Teacher Preparation Program ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
12Th Grade

Teacher education programs are charged with preparing teacher candidates to successfully educate student populations that are more racially and culturally diverse than ever. However, a look at graduation rates among teacher education programs proves that the majority still produce, on average, a teaching force that is 80% White, although White students make up less than 49% the total Kindergarten-12th grade public school population (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Absent from the dialogue on diversity in teacher education is a discussion on how race and racism are institutionalized and maintained within such programs (Sleeter, 2016). In this article, the use of Critical Race Theory (CRT) offers tools to examine the role of race and racism in teacher education. I further consider the role CRT can play in the disruption of postsecondary rhetoric about teacher education programs. Focus is placed on my own experiences in a Teaching Internship Seminar course when applying the structures of CRT to encourage conversations on disruptive practices that facilitate social justice in a course within a teacher preparation program. The tenets of interest convergence and permanence of racism are examined in the context of course development as pedagogical practices that disrupt normative patterns in teacher education. I conclude by envisioning how faculty in teacher education programs might address these challenges in such a way that offers suggestions derived from these tenets.

Critical Race Theory and the Whiteness of Teacher Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine E. Sleeter
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Common Pattern ◽  
Interest Convergence ◽  
The Common

This article uses three tenets of critical race theory to critique the common pattern of teacher education focusing on preparing predominantly White cohorts of teacher candidates for racially and ethnically diverse students. The tenet of interest convergence asks how White interests are served through incremental steps. The tenet of color blindness prompts asking how structures that seem neutral, such as teacher testing, reinforce Whiteness and White interests. The tenet of experiential knowledge prompts asking whose voices are being heard. The article argues that much about teacher education can be changed, offering suggestions that derive from these tenets.

From salvation to inquiry: Preservice teachers’ conceptions of race

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Future Teacher ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
The Impact

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.

Key Competencies in Linguistically and Culturally Sustaining Mentoring and Instruction for Clinically-based Grow-Your-Own Teacher Education Programs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Kibler ◽  
René Pyatt ◽  
Jason Greenberg Motamedi ◽  
Ozen Guven
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Action Learning ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Grow Your Own ◽  
Mentoring Practices ◽  
Instructional Competencies

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.

How the Match Gets Made: Exploring Student Teacher Placements across Teacher Education Programs, Districts, and Schools

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200014
Author(s):  
Elise St. John ◽  
Dan Goldhaber ◽  
John Krieg ◽  
Roddy Theobald
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Student Teaching ◽  
Student Teacher ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Mentor Teachers ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Effective Teacher ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
K 12

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.

scholarly journals Cultivating Agentic Teacher Identities in the Field of a Teacher Education Program

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Anne Block ◽  
Paul Betts
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The University

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.

Teaching Diversity to Preservice Teachers: Encouraging Self-Reflection and Awareness to Develop Successful Teaching Practices

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marla S. Sanders ◽  
Kathryn Haselden ◽  
Randi M. Moss
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Diverse Schools

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.

A University-Community Partnership in Teacher Education From the Perspectives of Community-Based Teacher Educators

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Guillen ◽  
Ken Zeichner
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Research University ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Pacific

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.

Developing Digital Literacy

2017 ◽  
pp. 670-685
Author(s):  
Carolyn Haviland Obel-Omia
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Elementary School ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Elementary Education ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Literacy Teachers ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Reading And Writing

Teacher education programs are increasingly responsible for preparing teachers who use technology fluently across curricula. Future teachers must define literacy more broadly than they have in the past to include digital modes of reading and writing. Experience with digital tools in literacy methodology courses provides opportunities for teacher candidates to reflect critically on these tools, preparing teachers to use technology to its advantage in elementary school classrooms. This chapter describes four digital practices designed to engage teacher candidates in participating in and reflecting on authentic reading and writing to develop next-generation literacy teachers. These practices include examples of activities that can be adapted to both teacher preparation and elementary education classrooms.

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