Education Commons^™

Focusing On Faculty Reflection: How University Students Are Positioned In Service-Learning Courses, Meghan E. Barnes, Lucy Steele, Heather Coffey

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Service-learning is often identified as a pedagogy to prepare undergraduates for life beyond college. However, research suggests service-learning courses rarely challenge learners to explore structural causes of inequity or engage in transformative action. This study explores how one college professor positioned students as they engaged in service-learning. Through document analysis of nine semesters of one course, researchers sought to understand how positioning of university students shapes the effectiveness of service-learning coursework with a justice orientation.

Service Learning In Adapted Physical Education: Connecting The Classroom To The Community, Matthew R. Martin, Amy Gagnon

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

The purpose of the qualitative study was to explore Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) undergraduate students’ perceptions about working with individuals with disabilities while performing Service Learning (SL) at two community-based sites. Using a grounded theory research design, data from field notes, supervisor evaluations, and focus groups were coded and analyzed to identify five themes of perceptions and level of competence: social emotional climate, prior preparation, delivery of instruction, career readiness, and developing leadership.

Facing Publishing Paralysis In Teacher Education: Book Critique Of Writing Your Journal Article In Twelve Weeks (2nd Ed.), Donna Zerr, Carissa Gober, David Wolff

Essays in Education

Our lived experiences as Teacher Education faculty in the realm of scholarly writing was filled with anxiety and trepidation. In the attempt to develop as writers, we participated in a professional learning community book discussion on Wendy Laura Belcher’s workbook, Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success (2nd ed.). The text’s exercises helped motivate our steps through the writing process and developed productive writing habits for publication. This article is a critique of the book which helped us face and overcome our fears of writing with the intention to publish academic scholarship. The workbook …

I Didn’T See It Coming: Navigating An Uncomfortable Episode During Doctoral Research Fieldwork, Narina A. Samah

The Qualitative Report

In this article, I revisit my experiences during my doctoral fieldwork from the lens of a novice qualitative researcher. Initially embracing the role of narrative inquirer, I was in the midst of navigating my inquisitive journey by re-examining my personal practical knowledge as a means to confront my puzzle of practice. Six months of fieldwork allowed me to re-experience my classroom teaching practice through a pair of new eyes. As my research was ending, events took an unexpected turn, leading to the delicate issue of female teacher/lecturer-student relationships during research fieldwork and the dilemma of deciding whether to include or …

Room For Breathing: Mindfulness, Currere, And Contemplative Practices In Teacher Education, Hongyu Wang, Jo Flory

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper explores the intersections of using autobiographical (currere) writing and mindful meditations as two forms of contemplative practices in teacher education, from the perspectives of both a secondary classroom teacher and a teacher educator. An experientially-based conceptual inquiry, it is contextualized through first-person autobiographical narrations reconstructed from the authors’ currere writings and mindfulness practices, in order to draw connections between both through the theme of making room for breathing. The pedagogical contexts surrounding how students practice mindfulness and currere in teacher education are discussed, and the body, emotions, temporality, space, and relationality are analyzed as intersecting and complementary …

Fish In A Tree Book Study Assignment Description, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

Individuals lead storied lives, and everyone has a story to tell. Our stories can be shared orally and documented in print. Often, learners are exposed to stories through novels and other trade books. Teacher educators may benefit from using the stories in novels and trade books as case studies in preservice teacher preparation course. This assignment description outlines how to use the novel, Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, as a case study to contextualize and understand the lived story of an individual living and learning with dyslexia. Through the novel, preservice teachers experience the dilemmas faced and …

Language Learning Simulation Using Duolingo Assignment Description, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

It is likely that preservice teachers will work with students learning English as their second (third, fourth, etc.) language. For preservice teachers to better understand the language learning process, Duolingo was used to simulate the learning experience. The assignment description outlines how preservice teachers can reflection pre-simulation and post-simulation about what they learned about language learning.

Looking Back In Order To Move Forward: Lessons From Covid-19 For Teacher Education, Kiersten Greene, Lizabeth Cain, Elizabeth Brennan, Brianna Vaughan

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

This article provides critical perspectives on education technology integration in a teacher education context in a post-pandemic world. The authors—two early career teachers, one in a pre-school and one in an elementary school, and two elementary teacher education faculty members at a mid-sized public university—use the U.S. Department of Education’s 2016 guiding principles for educational technology in teacher education for analysis. The commentary evolves directly from and reflects the authors’ collective experience across the P-20 spectrum in education technology, with close attention paid to what was learned during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent pivot to remote learning …

“I Changed My Mind”: Exploring Why College Students Change Majors To Become Teachers, Ross Bussell

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

While teacher education programs have long studied what draws students to choose a career in teaching, a less studied aspect of teacher candidates relates to students who change majors to become teachers. As a phenomenon that is common in teacher preparation, I am interested in better understanding why this happens. This article centers around six participants who began college choosing a science major, changing their course of study after at least one full year. Through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, a discussion of what led the participants to change majors, what they were looking for when deciding to become teachers, and …

On Becoming Online Educators: Developing Hybrid Learning-Centered Pedagogy, Rachel Toncelli Edd, Leila Rosa Phd

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version of this article here.

Recent global events pushed in-person learning to online formats. As K-12 teachers struggled with shifting from in-person to online teaching while adapting and adjusting instruction, and higher education prepared to do the same, two faculty members in a TESOL teacher preparation program joined forces to question assumptions about online teaching, reflect on praxis, and revisit pedagogy and practices through a critical autoethnographic study. Building from adult constructivist learning theory and collegial inquiry, the researchers utilized the pandemic as a stage for innovation and an opportunity to study their own ability, as …

The Best Way To Learn A Pedagogy Is Practice: A Project-Based Learning Journey, Kelly C. Margot, Katherine Worden

Michigan Reading Journal

Project based learning (PBL) is an instructional practice that gives students an opportunity to learn while focused on sustained inquiry. The teacher becomes a facilitator of learning by guiding students through an inquiry-process that includes authentic learning leading to a student-created product that will be shown to an authentic audience. Preservice teachers often lack exposure to this type of inquiry-based learning from their own school experiences and may be intimidated by this type of pedagogy. This manuscript tells the story of one English preservice teacher’s experience learning to be more comfortable with PBL and the role teacher education played by …

Lessons We Learned From Avatars: Cultivating Meaningful Preservice Teacher Online Experiences During Covid-19 And Beyond, Kristin M. Murphy, Janna Jackson Kellinger

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

Like flight simulators used to train airline pilots prior to flying an actual airplane, mixed reality simulations provide an opportunity to interact with avatars in order to practice newly learned behaviors in an online environment. As teacher educators, we have used mixed reality simulations as a part of our coursework for the past five years. In this article, we discuss implications and lessons learned for teacher education practice and research in the online environment during COVID-19 and beyond based on our experiences using mixed reality.

Thinking About Teaching: A Rural Social Studies Teacher's Path To Strive For Excellence, Dana F. Serure

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

Thinking About Teaching: A rural social studies teacher's path to strive for excellence by Casey Jakubowski (2020) offers insights about the macros and micros of teaching. The book is geared toward educators and teacher candidates who seek to know more about the teaching profession. The book comprises four parts, including: 1) an introduction of practice which details twenty brief chapters of hot education topics, 2) curriculum and instruction, 3) rural education, and 4) a conclusion that pinpoints recommendations about teaching based on his experience that spans twenty years in the education field. Throughout the book Jakubowski expresses his professional journey …

Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions About Out-Of-Field Teaching: Implications For Students, Teachers And Schools, Elizabeth Wheeley, Helen Klieve, Eunjae Park, Anna Du Plessis

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Out-of-field teaching occurs in schools and education systems worldwide. Early career teachers are more likely to be required to teach out-of-field and also to experience adverse effects from this experience, potentially contributing to workforce issues and teacher attrition. This mixed data Australian study reports on the perceptions of preservice teachers—emerging professionals—regarding issues associated with out-of-field teaching. Survey data were collected from 133 preservice teachers. Data were analysed with an initial layer of sentiment analysis followed by a thematic analysis of their perceptions of consequences for teachers, students, and schools/communities. Findings reveal that preservice teachers are very aware of the mostly …

Interrogating Racism: An Arts-Based Self-Study Of The Interactions Of One White Teacher Educator In A Rural Teacher Preparation Program, Jaime Vanenkevort

All NMU Master's Theses

This arts-based self-study examined racism, whiteness, and white supremacy in the practices of one teacher educator in a rural, Midwestern university. Data was generated using arts-based methods. Narrative inquiry and critical incident technique (CIT) were utilized to analyze data. Through arts-based self-study techniques, I demonstrate how arts-based self-study can create diverse and multimodal access to understand identity construction and the effort to dismantle racism and other systemic barriers in the teacher education context. Furthermore, through multimodal arts-based data collection, I demonstrate the possibility for educators to navigate complex memory and emotional processing to develop more complex, nuanced understandings of antiracist …

What Counts As Rigor When Rigor Counts?: Increasing Intentionality In Teacher Education, Derek Riddle, Chyllis E. Scott, Leann G. Putney

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

Debates regarding the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs continue to persist. The level of rigor in teacher preparation programs and the ability of teacher educators to prepare candidates for the challenges persist in the educational climate. In higher education, rigor has been well-defined, but the understanding is limited, specifically rigor in preparing new teachers. This study undertook a telling case approach to explore student and faculty perceptions of rigor in a teacher preparation course. This research “leans in” to the criticism of rigor by exploring how teacher preparation programs can match the rigor and demands of the profession and to …

Teaching Priorities As Both Durable And Flexible: Writing Pedagogy Classes Across International Contexts, Charlotte L. Land, Jessica Cira Rubin

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article developed from a year-long inquiry into our practices as writing teacher educators. As new university faculty in two different countries, we drew on a previous literature review project to identify enduring priorities for teaching writing pedagogy. We then analyzed our developing practices in these unfamiliar places, specifically noting what also felt flexible enough to work across contexts, leaving space for local adaptation. For each of our classes, we explore how we expressed those priorities: discussing teaching practices as connected with theories and discourses of teaching writing, supporting teacher-student experiences through a cycle of writing, and facilitating appreciative views …

Guns, Classrooms, And Politics: Eliciting And Reflecting Upon Education Student Beliefs In The Age Of School Shootings, James K. Rigney, Gage Jeter

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

Unearthing the perspectives students bring with them in their college-level education coursework is especially important as education instructors are tasked with interrupting the unexamined proliferation of dominant ideologies among future educational professionals. The introduction to education course serves as an important site for this interrogation. One trend largely unexplored in the scholarly literature is the pedagogical use of controversy in introduction to education coursework. This study analyzes student discussion of the controversy of school gun violence within a redesigned introduction to education course. Data for this study come from student postings and final reflection papers in an online section of …

Building Community In An Asynchronous Write-To-Learn Course, Mary K. Tedrow

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This study examines one online asynchronous course, Writing in Literature, devised by the researcher to determine the potential for building a student-centered course functioning as a learning community in spite of the limitations of the lack of shared space or time. The course was examined via student surveys that qualified experiences within the course as well as a review and coding of end-of-course student reflections. The survey and reflective commentary indicate that it is possible for an asynchronous course to effectively build a vibrant learning community. The learner to learner, learner to instructor, and learner to content framework recommended …

Structured Pathways, Reinforced Plans: Exploring The Impact Of A Dual Enrollment Program On The College Choice And Career Interests Of Future Teachers Of Color, Jennifer M. Johnson, Joseph H. Paris, Juliet D. Curci

Journal of College Access

In response to the critical shortage of a diverse teacher workforce, Temple Education Scholars is a “Grow Your Own" dual enrollment program model designed to promote access to postsecondary education and educator diversity. Grow Your Own programs have frequently been cited as a promising and potentially sustainable model for addressing the disparity between the racial identifications of students and those of their teachers. Using social cognitive career theory, we explore how three participants in the Temple Education Scholars program develop academic and career interests in teaching and make educational choices related to their career aspirations. Following case study analysis, we …

Assessing Teacher Candidates’ Pedagogical Judgement: An Analysis Of Clinically-Based Instructional Assignments, Sonia Janis, Mardi Schmeichel, Joseph Mcanulty, Chantelle Grace, Kaitlin Wegrzyn

Journal of Educational Supervision

Research on clinically-based teacher education indicates that facilitating clinical experiences for teacher candidates improves their preparation for the profession. While we have answered the call to implement rich clinical experiences in our teacher education program, we have found that we also needed to design new, robust strategies to assess what the candidates are taking away from their clinical experiences. This paper describes our use of Horn and Campbell’s (2015) notion of “pedagogical judgment” to analyze the work of social studies teacher candidates in clinical placements. We describe a rubric developed to evaluate candidates’ pedagogical judgment and offer insights into the …

Addressing The Social Loafing Problem In Assessment Practices From The Perspectives Of Tanzania’S Pre-Service Teachers, Joseph Reginard Milinga, Ezelina Angetile Kibonde, Venance Paul Mallya, Monica Asagwile Mwakifuna

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Recent developments of higher teacher education in Tanzania have witnessed high student enrolments necessitating change of an emphasis from individual assessment to group-based assessment practices. In this context, informed by the constructivist philosophical perspective, this article reports on the pre-service teachers’ voices regarding the prevalence, impacts and counteractive strategies of social loafing. The pre-service teachers are drawn from one higher education institution in Tanzania that serves as a case study. It draws on qualitative data collected from a sample of purposively selected undergraduate pre-service teachers. The study found social loafing tendencies to be commonplace and with far-reaching consequences amongst students …

Speculative Essays On Neoliberalism In Education: Dreams Of Resistance And Action For A More Socially Just Future, Lindsey Crumley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The way in which teachers are educated has wide reaching impacts on the ways students in their classrooms are educated. When test scores are regarded as the sole marker of a good teacher, then critical pedagogies and theories are left out of teacher education spaces. This dissertation aims to discuss a multitude of issues, both structural and day-to-day, that plague both education as a whole and teacher education specifically. Additionally, this dissertation aims to show ways in which communities, teacher educators, students, and schools are acting in resistance to the forms of control seen in education. This dissertation will use …

Comparing Special Education Teachers’ Personality Profile With Their Choice To Teach, Laron A. Scott, Lauren Bruno, Philip Gnilka, Lindsay Kozachuk, Katherine Brendli, Vivian Vitullo

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

Researchers have yet to examine the association of Holland personality profiles as it relates to special education teachers. In response to this need, we report the personality and vocational profiles (Holland Codes) of 134 special education teachers across a special education training program. The purpose of this paper is to summarize findings from the Self-Directed Search measure commonly used to assess the personality of participants in an occupation and suggest implications for participants’ choice in becoming a special education teacher. Our focus was on personality match with vocational choice to include participants’ demographic (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, and geographical location) profile. …

Planning And Teaching For Student Learning In Mathematics: How Graduate Student Instructors Develop And Implement Instruction, Jennifer S. Crooks-Monastra

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore undergraduate mathematics teaching from the perspective of a graduate student serving as a first-time precalculus instructor of record. A multiple case study was designed to follow three mathematics graduate student instructors (MGSIs) through one semester of teaching to understand their goals for student learning, efforts to achieve these goals, influences on planning, and to identify challenges they encountered. For each MGSI, data collection included four interviews, three observations of teaching, weekly journal entries, and written assignments from a pedagogy course. A focus group, field notes from the pedagogy course, audio from mentor …

Black Liberation In Teacher Education: (Re)Envisioning Educator Preparation To Defend Black Life And Possibility, Justin A. Coles, Darrius Stanley

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Current configurations of teacher education programs are insufficient in attracting and producing teachers equipped to teach through the permanence of antiblackness, instead still relying on race-neutral or color-evasive pedagogies that perpetuate the misrecognition of antiblackness. As evident by the sustained inequities experienced by Black children and the routine marginalization of Black (teacher) educators in the field, we recognize that teacher education programs, and subsequently P-12 classrooms, are not designed nor equipped to reduce the harm caused by persistent anti-Black racism. Despite the ways Blackness is derided and invisibilized in educator preparation, Black students, families, and communities have long countered anti-Black …

Teacher Educators Learning With Prospective Teachers: Finding Relevant Mathematics In Our (Their) Lives, Lindsay M. Keazer, Eryn M. Maher

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

Two mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) discuss the mathematical contexts generated by prospective teachers (PTs) when pushed to look for relevant mathematics in their lives and communities. Through collaborative teacher action research focused on iterations of collecting, categorizing, and discussing PTs’ mathematical contexts, and posing selected examples for PTs’ own examination, layers of learning occurred for both PTs and MTEs. PTs began to craft more personalized, story-like contexts, seemingly noticing more mathematics in their lives. MTEs were unexpectedly pushed to clarify their thinking about what it means to develop contexts that are authentic and relevant, and to contemplate how their actions …

Covid-19 Modifications To A Service-Learning Project Designed To Prepare Special Education Students To Be Effective Participants In Transdisciplinary Collaborations, Kathy R. Doody, Katrina Fulcher-Rood, Pamela Schuetze

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

This research study examined the impact of COVID-19 on university students’ perceptions about the effectiveness of a community-based service-learning project designed to prepare graduate students in special education and undergraduate students in psychology and speech-language pathology to work in transdisciplinary teams in early childhood settings. Students were placed into transdisciplinary teams and assigned to one of two community-based early childhood programs to administer a universal screening tool that assessed young children in several domains. The project was in its sixth year when the country stood still because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project was re-envisioned, mid-course, to provide an equitable …

Making The Transition To Virtual Methods In The Literacy Classroom: Reframing Teacher Education Practices, Lindsay Stoetzel, Stephanie Shedrow

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

In response to the COVID 19 pandemic universities and colleges abruptly closed and teacher educators had little time to move instruction from face-to-face classrooms to digital learning environments. This sudden shift created a myriad of obstacles as instructors worked to retain pedagogically sound and effective instruction digitally—while also preparing novice teachers to teach online themselves. Adding another layer of complexity was prospective teachers’ lack of knowledge and hesitation regarding technology tools, as well as how to meaningfully integrate the tools into their teaching. Facing these challenges, we as literacy teacher educators drew upon effective methods of teacher education, literacy practices …

Teacher Educators Learning With Prospective Teachers: Finding Relevant Mathematics In Our (Their) Lives, Lindsay M. Keazer, Eryn M. Mather

Education Faculty Publications

Two mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) discuss the mathematical contexts generated by prospective teachers (PTs) when pushed to look for relevant mathematics in their lives and communities. Through collaborative teacher action research focused on iterations of collecting, categorizing, and discussing PTs’ mathematical contexts, and posing selected examples for PTs’ own examination, layers of learning occurred for both PTs and MTEs. PTs began to craft more personalized, story-like contexts, seemingly noticing more mathematics in their lives. MTEs were unexpectedly pushed to clarify their thinking about what it means to develop contexts that are authentic and relevant, and to contemplate how their actions …