- Year 2018
- NSF Noyce Award # 1540678
- First Name Mark
- Last Name Windschitl
- Discipline Other: Science Education
- Co-PI(s)
Karin Lohwasser
, University of Washington, College of Education
, loh2o@uw.edu - Presenters
Karin Lohwasser
, University of Washington, College of Education
loh2o@uw.edu
Need
Most states require prospective teachers to spend time in classrooms to practice teaching, yet there is still little agreement on what makes such internships effective in preparing teachers for their profession. As a result, what pre-service teachers (PSTs) experience in schools varies widely in terms of context, instructional vision, and trajectory of what they can do; it is only loosely connected with their university courses; and adequate guidance for candidates and mentor teachers in how to make their collaboration worth their time and commitment is rare. Missing is a broader research base that informs the design of effective field experiences for PSTs. The presented research provides important data to inform teacher education programs? instructional and programmatic decisions.
Goals
We analyzed case studies of 66 PSTs from three secondary teacher education programs and their opportunities to learn teaching as they navigated their clinical experiences. For this study, we focus only on their opportunities to learn planning as the prerequisite for purposeful teaching and assessment and adapting instruction for students’ needs. We mapped out PSTs’ opportunities to actively engage in planning routines based on the regular survey-logs and interviews they completed. As an organizing structure, we used the congruence between the pedagogical culture and practices in their classroom settings and the instructional vision emphasized by the preparation program at the three universities. Through this analysis, we seek to answer the following questions: • What types and patterns of opportunities to engage in planning characterize the experiences of PSTs over the trajectory of their field placement? • How are these opportunities to learn mediated by the congruence between philosophies and practices endorsed by the teacher preparation program and those endorsed by practitioners in the PSTs’ field placement?
Approach
We define “opportunities to learn” (OTL), using a sociocultural perspective on activity (Greeno & Gresalfi, 2008), as situations that PSTs encounter or generate during their internship that allow them to observe, engage in, and make sense of the complex work of teaching. Overlapping, instructional congruence and its possible benefits can be viewed through the lens of situated theory (Greeno and Engeström, 2006) which describes knowing as a process that is rooted in activity, that involves interactions with others, and is mediated by tools and other resources. Over the course of their eight to ten month long field placement, participants responded to on-line surveys (every three weeks) and four one-hour long interviews. Questions and prompts were clustered by different types of opportunities to learn the work of teaching, e.g. to observe planning, to participate in co-planning of units or individual lessons, and their chances to plan individually, and use reform-oriented practices.
Outcomes
Our data indicate that participants’ opportunities to learn about planning, as well as the frequency and distribution of these opportunities over time were markedly different for participants in high and medium-congruence placements versus low-congruence placements. While most participants were eventually able to design their own lessons at some point during the clinical experience, those individuals in high and medium-congruence classrooms were far more likely to receive early scaffolding for this work from their mentor, to do this work independently for a longer period of time, and to try out rigorous and responsive teaching.
Broader Impacts
This study brings to light the under-studied and under-supported practice of learning to plan for instruction during PSTs’ clinical experiences. Preparing novices for being professionals in a system requires going beyond the status-quo instructional practices being replicated towards pre- and inservice teacher dyads co-developing a more nuanced vision of the work of teaching in their shared classroom. To provide for the necessary learning trajectories for PSTs in the current structure of field placements, the role of university assignments, opportunities to learn about the system, and the support for cooperating teachers need stronger consideration. We believe that the development of a research-based system of tools, routines, and information resources for teacher education programs and their school partners in support of PSTs’ cumulative and coherent opportunities to learn over the course of their field placement would be a viable approach.
