Education Commons^™

Examining Culturally Responsive Understandings Within An Undergraduate Teacher Education Program, Kelly M. Gomez Johnson, Anne E. Karabon, Derrick A. Nero

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

This article examines how a group of elementary and secondary preservice teachers engaged in understanding “culture” and culturally responsive teaching while enrolled in an early program course. We analyze how culturally-related experiences, emotions, and perspectives contribute to the overall understanding of cultural competency training in teacher education. Preservice teachers varied in their use of individual- and structural-orientations, in isolation and in combination, as they developed and progressed as socially just teachers. These findings reveal that despite attempts to develop and shift toward asset-based perspectives, far more culturally embedded coursework and practicum experiences are necessary. This paper includes a reflection on …

The Role Of The Clinical Educator In Teacher Preparation: An Exploratory Study Of Perceptions Of Preparedness, Kristen M. Driskill

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

As the demands on P-12 teachers increase, so do the demands on teacher preparation programs. In higher education institutions across the country, coursework is regularly updated to reflect changing academic standards, increasing diversity in classrooms, rigorous certification exams, etc. In addition, accreditation standards have been updated to reflect the need for P-12 partnerships in best preparing teacher candidates. As a result, clinical practice has come under focus. Yet the role of the clinical educator remains unclear. There is a gap in the literature regarding the preparedness and support of clinical educators, particularly addressing their role in developing teacher candidates along …

The Complexity Of Learning To Teach News Media In Social Studies Education, Mardi Schmeichel, Jim Garrett, Rachel Ranschaert, Joseph Mcanulty, Shannon Thompson, Sonia Janis, Christopher Clark, Stephanie Yagata, Briana Bivens

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This research reports on data generated through an initial teacher certification program for secondary social studies teachers that introduced a specific and program-spanning focus on news media literacy. Growing out of the urgent need for pedagogies that address and promote critical engagement with the kinds of news media sources upon which civic decisions are made, our project follows teacher candidates from their initial certification coursework through the culminating student teaching semester. Our work with teacher candidates over this time was explicitly intended to intervene in and develop teacher candidates’ understandings of news media literacy, its place in social studies education, …

Holding Onto Dread And Hope: The Need For Critical Whiteness Studies In Education As Resistance In The Trump Era, Brittany A. Aronson, Kyle Ashlee

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

The purpose of this article is to critically examine how white higher education instructors work through the tensions of dread and hope while supporting and preparing educators during the Trump Administration. Dread is a result of the permanence of racism while hope seeps through a collective effort and commitment to dismantling white supremacy. Aronson is racialized as a white, ethnically Latina female teacher educator who educates predominantly white female pre-service teachers and Ashlee is a white male doctoral candidate who teaches master’s level student affairs courses to predominantly white students. Using critical autoethnographic narratives, they reflect on their experiences using …

Una Destinatio, Viae Diversae – One Destination, Many Paths: An Invitation To Design Curriculum, Aviva B. Dorfman

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

One goal of early childhood teacher educators is to teach in ways that model teaching young children. What better way to study curriculum than to design it? This article describes a graduate early childhood curriculum course in which the students participate in the process of designing the syllabus. They receive a syllabus empty of topics, schedule, and readings. Together, we design the course according to their interests and needs. By semester’s end there is a full reading list and schedule. The invitation to co-design curriculum provides opportunities for investigation, representation and reflection as does constructivist teaching for children, and demonstrates …

Reading Researchers In Search Of Common Ground: The Expert Study Revisited, Tiffany A. Flowers

Journal of Research Initiatives

The purpose of this book review was to analyze the main arguments regarding literacy instruction from various paradigms of research. The Foreword of this text was written by Dr. Patricia Edwards the Past President of the Literacy Research Association. As Dr. Edwards pointedly reveals in her endorsement of this text, “Reading researchers must find some common ground in order to provide teachers with the necessary strategies to teach children reading." Dr. Edwards takes a strong stance on the reading wars debate. This foreword leaves readers with key questions that are answered throughout the reading of this text such as, what …

An Alternative Pathway To Elementary Teaching, Lotta Larson, Tom Vontz

Educational Considerations

This article describes an alternative pathway to elementary teaching through the MAT online program at Kansas State University.

Problem-Based Teacher-Mentor Education: Fostering Literacy Acquisition In Multicultural Classrooms, Pamela Hartman, Corinne Renguette, Mary Theresa Seig

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

We designed a professional development (PD) teacher-mentor program that used problem-based learning (PBL) to accomplish two goals. First, teachers explored how PBL could be used effectively in their classrooms to change the way they think about teaching to include literacy development in content areas. Second, PBL was the basis for PD training to help them improve their own knowledge of PBL, become mentors to other teachers, and implement PBL in their schools across content areas.

Educators in the United States are challenged to teach linguistically and culturally diverse (LCD) students with differing literacy levels. The demographics of U.S. classrooms require …

Creating Multicultural Music Opportunities In Teacher Education: Sharing Diversity Through Songs, Dawn Joseph, Rohan Nethsinghe, Alberto Cabedo Mas

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper contributes to the knowledge base for preparing pre-service teachers (PSTs) for contemporary multicultural classrooms. To do so, we refer to our ongoing project “See, Listen and Share: Exploring intercultural music education in a transnational experience” across three Higher Education sites (Australia and Spain). Drawing on our narrative, and PSTs’ questionnaire data, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to analyze and code the PST data, we report on our initial experience and findings across the three sites and cultural contexts. Generalisations to other institutions cannot be made. We discuss what was taught and how it was taught in our three settings, …

Early Career Teachers’ Knowledge And Practice In Spelling Instruction: Insights For Teacher Educators, Grace Oakley

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Children who cannot spell fluently are likely to encounter difficulty in writing texts across the curriculum. Furthermore, spelling is often a component in high stakes tests, the results of which have significant implications for students and schools. In the context of debates on teacher quality, it is pertinent to examine the views of early career teachers on their preparedness to teach spelling. This article reports on a small scale study on the views, knowledge and practices of early career teachers in relation to the teaching of spelling, and their views on their pre-service teacher preparation. Participants were early career teachers …

Facilitating Discussion Of Theory And Practice In Education Seminars, Bailey Herrmann, Jessica R. Gallo

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

Field experience seminars, discussion-based courses paired with school-based practicum experiences, provide a space for teacher candidates to discuss the theories they study in their university classes and the practices they observe and implement in their school placements. This article describes an action research study that examines teaching techniques that promote discussion in English education seminar courses. The purpose of this research was to collaboratively develop teaching approaches that would help teacher candidates bridge ideas about theory and practice in their development as aspiring teachers. The conversations that challenged the teacher candidates to think critically and theoretically about their classrooms were …

Encouraging Teacher Candidates To Cultivate Habits Of Reflection, Amanda Wall

Becoming: Journal of the Georgia Association for Middle Level Education

The conceptual framework for the College of Education at Georgia Southern University is: Reflective Practitioners for a Diverse World. Three of the five Middle Level Teacher Preparation Standards from the Association of Middle Level Education (AMLE, 2012) also specify reflection as a habit. Standard 5 on Middle Level Professional Roles, for example, states: “Middle level teacher candidates understand, reflect on, and are successful in their unique roles as middle level professionals.” In order for teacher candidates to become reflective, they need multiple opportunities to engage in reflection.