scholarly journals Accommodations in Teacher Education: Perspectives of Teacher Candidates with Learning Disabilities and their Faculty Advisors

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Csoli ◽  
Tiffany L Gallagher

This study of teacher candidates with learning disabilities profiles their experi-ence in a teacher education program. Two teacher candidates and their faculty advisors offer perspectives at various points during the teacher education pro-gram. Findings indicate that the teacher candidates were able to complete their required courses when their professors facilitated appropriate accommodations for them. In their elementary classroom practica, the participants thrived when teaching in their trained discipline or content area, but often needed scaffolding from teacher associates when teaching mathematics and reading. Prior to dis-closing their disability to their teacher associates, the teacher candidates attempted to gauge their mentors’ tolerance of learning disabilities. Based on their lived experiences, the participants held distinct beliefs about integration and reducing the stigma of learning disabilities. Discussion on the implications for teacher education and support of teacher candidates with learning disabilities is offered.

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.


Author(s):  
Lyn Nichols

The research described in this paper explores the experiences of both students and teachers in the Aboriginal and Islander Teacher Education Program (AITEP) that operated during the late 1970s to early 1990s in Townsville, Australia. Using a phenomenological research this study explores the perceptions of the program and its influence based upon the experiences of those who participated in it, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous and to identify what they believe were elements that supported them to success. Preliminary findings from the study are presented. Implications of these experiences to current considerations in pre-service Indigenous teacher education are also presented.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Lassonde ◽  
Alison Black ◽  
Jane Miller ◽  
Hanfu Mi

Colleagues in a teacher education program describe their journey of programmatic self-study as they examine how they teach and assess teacher candidates’ writing in a series of three required and sequenced undergraduate literacy courses. They lead the reader through the questions they asked themselves about their instruction and their reflective process with a goal of improving teacher candidates’ technical, reflective, and creative writing. Readers are encouraged to reflect on their expectations for teacher candidates’ writing in light of instruction and assessment. Implications for teacher education are explored.


in education ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Anne Murray-Orr ◽  
Jennifer Mitton-Kukner

Becoming effective teachers is dependent upon a variety of factors intersecting with early career teachers’ beginning teaching experiences. This paper provides a glimpse into ways in which four early career secondary school teachers began to embed literacies into their teaching practices in content areas and how their approaches shifted between the final term of their teacher education program in 2013 and their first year of teaching in 2014. The authors explore three factors that may shape the practices of early career teachers, with disciplinary specialties in science, math, social studies, and other content areas, as they persist in infusing their teaching practice with literacy strategies over the first year of teaching, or alternatively discontinue using these strategies. These factors are coursework in a Literacy in the Content Areas course during their teacher education program, teaching context, and disciplinary specialty.Keywords: early-career teachers; secondary teachers; content-area literacy; disciplinary literacy; pedagogical content knowledge


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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Jansen ◽  
Dawn Berk ◽  
Erin Meikle

In this article, Amanda Jansen, Dawn Berk, and Erin Meikle investigate the impact of mathematics teacher education on teaching practices. In their study they interviewed six first-year teachers who graduated from the same elementary teacher education program and who were oriented toward teaching mathematics conceptually. They observed each teacher teaching two lessons: one on a mathematics topic that was developed in their teacher education program (target topic) and one on a mathematics topic that was not addressed in their program (control topic). Based on their observations, the authors identified four instructional practices for teaching mathematics conceptually that the participants used in their classroom practice and found that these teachers were more likely to enact two of these instructional practices when teaching target topics: use of mathematical language to support students' sense making and use of visual representations. They also found that the teachers enacted two other instructional practices—use of story problems and pressing students for mathematical explanations—in both target and control topic lessons but did so with limitations in control topic lessons. For teacher education to influence teaching, the authors assert, it is important to develop content knowledge for teaching and pedagogical knowledge in tandem with developing beliefs.


2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Cherubini

Preservice teacher-candidates are assigned to a number of different schools for their practicum experiences and as a result are immersed in a variety of school cultures and their respective climates. Interestingly, though matters related to school climate and the hidden curriculum are discussed in the literature, there is a lack of comprehensive research around preservice teachers’ expectations and observations during their formal teacher education program. Given that beginning teachers’ experiences are intensely impacted by their observations and experiences throughout their teacher training, the purpose of the study was to investigate teacher candidates’ beliefs about the climate of schools at the beginning and near completion of their teacher education program. More specifically, this study employed a mixed methods research design to determine how beliefs about the hidden curriculum of schools compared to teacher candidates’ impressions as they gained practice-teaching experience in various schools. The results may induce preservice education faculty to evaluate the underlying pedagogical causes that profoundly illuminate and engagingly implicate the tensions within teacher candidates’ expectations of school climate and their observed realities.


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