01.01.70
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Collective efficacy reveals how well group members relate to one another while working toward common goals. It also reveals group resilience and the willingness of group members to continue working through difficult situations. The purpose of this study is to explore collective efficacy at the classroom level, using Vygotsky’s view of individual and collective development to examine how it could be developed and facilitated by fifth-grade classroom participants. By examining collective efficacy in this way, the authors offer a sense of what teachers can do to promote collective classroom efficacy through their instructional practice. Results indicate that the sense of collective classroom efficacy developed by the fifth graders was initiated and nurtured by the teacher in the role of classroom community organizer.
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Starting from the assertion that traditional and reform mathematics pedagogy constitute two distinct figured worlds of teaching and learning, the authors explore the initiation of prospective teachers into the figured world of reform mathematics pedagogy. To become successful teachers in reform-oriented classrooms, prospective teachers must learn more than pedagogical tools and moves: They must understand what it is to participate in the figured world of reform pedagogy, develop models of identities for participants in this world, and negotiate new constructions of mathematics. In this article the authors present three episodes from an elementary mathematics teacher education class where positions of "teacher" and "child" were offered by instructors in activities designed to approximate practice in the reform figured world. Students negotiated new models of identity and conceptions of mathematics as they took up these positions in varying ways.
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This study explores 16 novice, urban-trained teachers’ evaluations of their current schools. Findings suggest that teachers used the perceived behaviors, values, and beliefs of students to measure how urban a student was and, therefore, to guide their expectations and satisfaction of their placements. The less urban the students were perceived to be, the more likely these teachers were to have positive expectations about their students and their schools. Conversely, the more urban the students were perceived to be, the more likely these teachers were to have negative expectations. Importantly, these terms, urban and suburban, were tied to beliefs about race and, to a lesser degree, class.
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Seeking to deepen our understandings of the ways international study abroad programs may enhance efforts to prepare culturally responsive teachers, the purpose of this case study was to explore a preservice teacher’s intercultural development during a semester-long teacher education program in London, England. Such study abroad teacher education programs are offered as an innovative means to promote preservice teachers’ intercultural development, providing unique opportunities for these students to confront their ethnocentric worldviews and begin to consider the ways culture influences teaching and learning. Findings from this study reveal that participation in the program positively influenced intercultural development. Themes that illuminate aspects of the participant’s study abroad experience that both challenged and supported intercultural development included immersion within both a culture and school along with the essential role of an intercultural guide who promoted reflective practices around issues of culture and self. Implications for preservice teacher education program design are addressed.
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As a comparative analysis of teacher preparation in its sociohistorical contexts, this study examines the official educational aims and curricula of 49 mathematics teacher preparation programs in South Korea and the United States, where substantial differences have been observed in both student achievement and teacher knowledge. Overall, the findings from this study suggest that transnational commonalities and national differences exist simultaneously in social expectations for teacher knowledge. The authors argue that attending to both culturally contextualized and semantically decontextualized dimensions helps us have a more balanced comparative perspective from which we can better assess current conditions of teacher education. Constructive international dialogue can be facilitated by such a balanced perspective that may further enrich teacher education without ignoring either profound differences in sociohistorical contexts or important commonalities in epistemic models of teacher education across countries.
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This qualitative study explores a cohort professional development experience that brought new teachers together every few weeks from across an urban school district. Observation data were analyzed through Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice social learning framework. The purpose was to examine how a cohort can be a valuable resource of new teacher support, particularly in areas where novices, who are being prepared largely through alternative routes, start their careers in some of the most challenging teaching assignments. Key theoretical insights resulting from the analysis include (a) the importance of interactivity of the Wenger elements, (b) the centrality of the community component, and (c) the implications of what legitimate peripheral participation looks like for a solely novice community of practice. Implications of these theoretical considerations are discussed and then linked to possibilities for practice and research to supplement current, traditional induction and mentoring practices.
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After certification, teachers do not often receive systematic support in their learning and hence mainly depend on informal learning opportunities at work. The present study addresses the question of if and how supervision makes a difference to teacher learning. In a longitudinal mixed-method study, the learning of one teacher is documented in a year in which she had no systematic support but had to adjust herself to an educational innovation. The authors also studied this teacher in a consecutive year in which she did receive individual supervision. During supervision, the teacher became aware of beliefs and patterns that had previously inhibited her from change. This awareness precipitated significant changes in her beliefs and classroom behavior as well as the way she learned. The findings suggest that professional learning will take place only if a teacher is supported in learning how to deal effectively with personal factors involved in the learning process.
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Collective efficacy reveals how well group members relate to one another while working toward common goals. It also reveals group resilience and the willingness of group members to continue working through difficult situations. The purpose of this study is to explore collective efficacy at the classroom level, using Vygotsky’s view of individual and collective development to examine how it could be developed and facilitated by fifth-grade classroom participants. By examining collective efficacy in this way, the authors offer a sense of what teachers can do to promote collective classroom efficacy through their instructional practice. Results indicate that the sense of collective classroom efficacy developed by the fifth graders was initiated and nurtured by the teacher in the role of classroom community organizer.
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Many individuals who attempt to enter teacher education programs are precluded from doing so because of an inability to pass basic skills tests. The authors examine whether these tests are simply a gate that needs to be passed through or whether they provide useful early information about how individuals are likely to perform on subsequent licensure tests. By examining a pool of individuals who took both basic skills and licensure tests, the authors contrast the likelihood of passing licensure tests given how well individuals performed on the basic skills test. The results support the hypothesis that basic skills tests are measuring cognitive skills important to the learning of material required for success in attaining teacher licensure and are not simply a bureaucratic hurdle.
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This article presents findings from a qualitative study of first-year elementary teachers who assessed the strengths and weaknesses of their preservice student teaching experiences vis-à-vis their inservice realities. Specifically, the study explores opportunities to learn across student teaching placements and analyzes the degree to which placements present participants with equitable opportunities to build a specialized view of professional practice—one that can support them to enact in urban, high-needs schools the kind of practices that research suggests are crucial to the academic success of historically underserved students. Findings highlight the importance of providing preservice teachers with examples of "what’s possible" in the face of tightly regulated, accountability-driven policies. The authors conclude with suggestions for teacher educators concerning the reorganization of student teaching and the strategic mediation of preservice teachers’ learning to ensure that all preservice teachers receive equitable opportunities to learn in and through their placements in the field.
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Partnerships between schools and universities in England use course handbooks to guide student teacher learning during long field experiences. Using data from a yearlong ethnographic study of a postgraduate certificate of education programme in one English university, the function of course handbooks in mediating learning in two high school subject departments (history and modern foreign languages) is analyzed. Informed by Cultural Historical Activity Theory, the analysis focuses on the handbooks as mediating tools in the school-based teacher education activity systems. Qualitative differences in the mediating functions of the handbooks-in-use are examined and this leads to a consideration of the potential of such tools for teacher learning in school–university partnerships. Following Zeichner’s call for rethinking the relationships between schools and universities, the article argues that strong structural connections between different institutional sites do not necessarily enhance student teacher learning.
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This mixed-methods study examined the use of web-based portfolios for developing preservice teachers’ reflective skills. Building on the work of previous research, the authors proposed a set of reflection-based tasks to enrich preservice teachers’ internship experiences. Their purpose was to identify (a) whether preservice teachers demonstrated evidence of reflective thinking throughout a semester and, if so, the types of reflective thinking indicators; (b) whether there was an increase in the number of high-level reflective indicators over time; and (c) the role of the web-based portfolio construction, as perceived by the participants, in developing reflective skills. The findings suggested that preservice teachers demonstrated high- and low-level reflective skills throughout a semester. There was a statistically significant improvement in the number of high-level reflective indicators in the second reflection task compared with the first. In addition, the web-based platform was perceived by participants as a medium that enabled easy access and the development of better portfolio artifacts.
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In recent years, Teach for America (TFA) has placed thousands of high-achieving college graduates in hard-to-staff schools, and its popularity continues to grow. TFA thus represents an anomaly: it attracts higher education’s top students to primary and secondary education’s least desired jobs. This article reviews the current explanations for TFA’s success and draws from credentialism theory to explain how these theories overlook a key characteristic differentiating TFA from other programs, and how this difference limits TFA’s generalizability. Using credentialism theory, previous research, and official recruitment messages, this article delineates TFA’s use and exchange values and finds that TFA, by recruiting noneducation majors from prestigious universities, remaining selective, embedding members in a resource-rich social network, and increasing access and reducing the costs for its members to connect to nonteaching career ladders, has increased its credential’s exchange value relative to other preparation programs. The research and policy implications of TFA’s high exchange value are discussed.
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In the United States, about one third of new teachers being hired are drawn from alternative certification programs. One way to address controversy about the differences among the training experiences of teachers in traditional certification programs, fast-track alternative programs, and residency alternative programs is to examine teacher reports of how well prepared they felt in their 1st year of teaching. Using data from the 2003-2004 Schools and Staffing Survey, this study addresses questions about 1st-year teachers’ backgrounds and about their feelings of preparedness. Alternatively certified teachers are found to feel somewhat less well prepared than traditionally certified teachers. Results also show that 1st-year teachers who have fewer types of education coursework and shorter field experiences feel less well prepared than teachers whose pedagogical preparation is more complete. Finally, this study suggests important implications for program administration and policy and for methodologies used in teacher education research.
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The implementation of teaching performance assessments has prompted a range of concerns. Some educators question whether these assessments provide information beyond what university supervisors gain through their formative evaluations and classroom observations of candidates. This research examines the relationship between supervisors’ predictions and candidates’ performance on a summative assessment based on a capstone teaching event, the Performance Assessment for California Teachers. The study, based on records for 337 teacher candidates over a 2-year period, specifically addresses the following questions: To what extent do university supervisors predict candidates’ total scores? On which questions and categories of the assessment do supervisors most accurately predict their candidates’ scores? Do supervisors predict scores more accurately for high- and low-performing candidates? The findings indicate that university supervisors’ perspectives did not always correspond with outcomes on the performance assessment, particularly for high and low performers.
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The United States is a society that is simultaneously consumed and repulsed by the body; a society where obsession over a constructed "obesity" epidemic runs alongside obsession over thinness; a society where advertisers manipulate digital images of bodies to present two-dimensional versions of ideal male and female physiques, and plastic surgeons cut, suck, tuck, and fill three-dimensional fleshed versions of those digital images. In this article, the authors articulate a theory of a critical body pedagogy that can contribute to a larger justice-oriented project. This project is one of shaping young women and men who are more comfortable in their bodies, who will engage in critical readings of body-related texts, and—perhaps—can one day help future early childhood and elementary students construct healthier relationships with their bodies and the larger world through a justice-oriented pedagogy.
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This study used text-related, video-based case materials to assess teacher candidates’ readiness to communicate with families. Participants (N = 141) rated their efficacy for home–school communication and then responded to a description of a classroom-based challenge regarding one student’s behavioral and academic performance. Next, they evaluated two videos, each capturing how a teacher addressed the challenge in a parent–teacher conference. Cases offered contrasting models of communication effectiveness along two dimensions: structuring and responsiveness. Finally, candidates chose which model did the better job and justified their choice. Findings revealed that candidates had high self-efficacy for communicating with families but generated a small number and range of strategies for dealing with the situation; could discriminate between the models’ effectiveness; and their reasons for choosing one model as best centered on their valuing of structuring or responsiveness and their conceptions of partnership. Content validity and reliability assessments of the research materials are described.
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For several historical and cultural reasons, the United States has long pursued a strategy of improving teaching by improving teachers. The rarely questioned logic underlying this choice says that by improving the right characteristics of teachers, they will teach more effectively. The authors expose the assumptions on which this logic is built, propose an alternative approach to improving teaching that engages teachers (and researchers) directly in the work of improving teaching, present some indirect evidence to support this approach, and examine the cultural traditions and beliefs that have kept the conventional approach in place for so long.
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