The Intersection of Theory and Practice in Teacher Preparation Courses (original) (raw)
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Learning to Teach: Practice-Based Preparation in Teacher Education. Special Issues Brief
2016
Learning to teach is not easy. Effective teachers have knowledge and skill sets that less effective teachers do not. This type of instructional expertise does not come from engaging in observation of teaching or from reading about the philosophy of teaching alone. It is developed through careful practice coupled with constructive feedback. For teacher candidates to learn to be effective, they need high-quality opportunities to practice. These opportunities, although informed by research, are often difficult to integrate due to intensive emphasis on coursework and challenges with finding highquality placements in the field. Educator preparation programs (EPPs), their faculty, and the local districts can work collaboratively to incorporate the essential features of practice-based opportunities within and across EPPs to structure coursework and field experiences that cultivate the skills that candidates need as beginning teachers. EPPs and their faculty work with local districts to fully incorporate effective, deliberate, practice-based opportunities within both campusbased coursework and field experiences that encompass the features of deliberate practice: practice that is sequenced, coherent, and scaffolded over time and coupled with coaching, feedback, and reflection. This Special Issues Brief from the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEDAR Center) and the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) outlines essential features for providing high-quality, structured, and sequenced opportunities to practice within teacher preparation programs. This brief is intended to support states, districts, and EPPs that are striving to prepare and support excellent teachers by: ¡ Showcasing several teacher preparation programs wherein faculty have enacted innovative strategies to embed practice-based opportunities into existing coursework and field experiences that more closely connect with the realistic demands of today's classrooms. ¡ Strengthening understanding of several practice-based approaches, informed by the science of learning, which have been found to increase beginning teacher candidates' capacity for teaching. ¡ Identifying potential action steps that EPPs, districts, and states can take to improve candidates' opportunities to practice. The brief is intended for use by EPPs, districts, and state education agencies (SEAs). The information and considerations presented will be especially useful for EPP faculty engaged in transforming programs and for state policymakers in rethinking program approval requirements.
Innovative Practices in Teacher Preparation and Graduate-Level Teacher Education Programs
This chapter illustrates the complex web of increasingly authentic experiences in a teacher preparation program. In particular, the chapter focuses on how guiding design principles inform signature pedagogies that extend teacher candidates' experiences beyond the coursework and fieldwork experiences in which pre-service candidates typically engage. These signature pedagogies-disciplinary practices, video club, rehearsals, live actor simulations, and residencies-are shaped by the guiding principles of attention to a novice teacher developmental trajectory, commitments to learning in and through practice, and attention to equity and access to learning opportunities in educational contexts. The chapter
The Professional Educator, 2015
Recent calls for a shift to clinically-based models of teacher preparation prompt a research focus on the quality of classroom experiences in which pre-service teachers engage and the level to which theory and practice connect to inform those experiences. Developing a theoretical framework to conceptualize an approach to this work is an essential step in teacher preparation reform. Linking Dewey's (1933, 1938) work on reflection with empirical studies on pre-service teachers' reflection practices, and with Vygotsky's notion of a "knowledgeable other," we propose an approach to conducting clinical practice through a theoretical framework. Based on these frames, we argue that the role of the university "supervisor" must shift from one of observation and immediate feedback to one of deep analysis and coaching within the frame of the content being taught. From this, we offer insight on how to further develop both theory and practice within the teacher preparation reform movement and support preservice teachers as they develop "warranted assertabilities" from their practice. "What does having an experience amount to unless, as it ceases to exist, it leaves behind an increment of meaning, a better understanding of something, a clearer future plan and purpose of action: in short, an idea?" (Dewey, 1933, p. 154) Teacher education is in the midst of a monumental pedagogical shift that disconnects teacher preparation from its history of isolated instruction of theory and pedagogy to embedded preparation for use of theory in real-world contexts (NCATE, 2010). This shift is essential given the increasingly complex and diverse nature of K-12 classrooms and is due in part to the recent release of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Report of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Learning (2010). In it, teacher educators are urged to turn teacher preparation "upside down and shift away from a norm which emphasizes academic preparation and course work loosely linked to school based experiences…[and] move to programs that are fully grown in clinical practice and interwoven with academic content and professional courses" (p. ii). The emphasis on increasing opportunities for high-quality clinical preparation is tied to educators' attempts to parallel the field of medicine, thus recognizing teaching as an academically taught clinical practice profession requiring the same theory to practice connections needed in preparing doctors (AACTE, 2010). It is
2001
This paper addresses the relationship between theory and practice in preservice teacher education. Using distinction between a "pedagogy of theory" and a "pedagogy of theorizing", it explores the difference between prospective teachers learning about education in teacher preparation courses and learning from it by critically reading the educative process in their own preservice education classrooms. Challenging the idea that preservice education is merely preparation for a practicum conducted elsewhere and in the future, this paper proposes that teacher education classrooms become practicum environment in-and-of-themselves, where practice gets theorized and theory is not only considered for practice but is indeed practiced as it interrogates practice.
Examining teacher preparation and on-the-job experience: The gap of theory and practice
International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 2020
Teacher education programs are increasingly critiqued for their limited relationship to student teachers' needs and for their limited impact on practice. Many appeals are heard for a radical new and effective pedagogy of teacher education in which theory and practice are linked effectively. Teacher education programs need to bridge the "gap" between coursework and the realities of pre-service fieldwork and in-service teaching. Pre-service teachers need to experience coherence and integration among their courses, and between their coursework and fieldwork. It is more likely that practicing in real classroom settings can play a relatively more important role in helping teachers develop their noticing awareness and skills; certain kinds of their professional identities; and contextually-appropriate classroom management strategies and techniques; and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK).
Toward Teacher Preparation 3.0
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education
Background/Context The literature review (Phelps, this issue) outlines tensions that can come about in partnerships and collaborations between P–12 schools and teacher education. With these challenges as part of the context, the authors of this article describe the particular moves that school-based and community partners working with four teacher education programs made to prepare preservice teachers who are better oriented toward students, their families, and communities as part of a legislative initiative. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article presents three cases of how four teacher education programs, in collaboration with partners, moved toward a more democratic model of teacher education as part of a legislative initiative in Washington state. Aspects of community teaching were central in each of the collaborations. Teacher education programs included in this article saw the moves they were making as working toward what Zeichner refers to as Teacher ...
Journal of Teacher Education, 2002
Education to conduct a review of high-quality research on five questions concerning teacher preparation. As part of that assignment, they were asked to develop a set of defensible criteria for including research in the review. In this article, they summarize what the research says about the five questions posed by their funders, and they discuss the development of the review criteria. The questions included attention to the subject matter and pedagogical preparation of prospective teachers, to the content and character of high-quality field experiences and alternative routes, and to research on the effects of policies on the enhancement of teacher preparation. Commissions and professional societies are issuing an increasing number of recommendations concerning the practices and policies of teacher preparation, and such recommendations are also debated in scholarly circles. Groups as diverse as the National Research Council, the Fordham Foundation, and the American Federation of Teachers have issued reports concerning the future of teacher preparation. Considerable debate has ensued concerning both how much we know and what we should do (e.g., Ballou & Podgursky, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 2000a). The U.S. Department of Education commissioned us to summarize the existing researchempirical studies, conducted with rigor and critically reviewed-on teacher preparation. We recognize, of course, that research is not the only basis on which decisions are made, especially in matters of schooling where the future of U.S. children is at stake, but we agreed to do this review because, as teacher educators and researchers, we felt that it was a helpful exercise to take a step back-as insiders-and look critically-as outsiders-at our own field. Here we highlight some of the report's major findings, encouraging readers to examine the full report on the Web site for the Center for the Study of Teaching & Policy, http://www.ctpweb.org. BACKGROUND The Department of Education asked for a summary of rigorous empirical research on five key questions asked by policy makers, educators, and the public, questions about the effects of major components of teacher preparation, about the effects of teacher education policies, and about alternative routes to teacher certification (see Table 1). We identified candidate studies by searching databases, examining reference lists of reviews and reports, reviewing prominent journals and Web sites, and consulting scholars. The domain of our review was empirical research on U.S. teacher education, published in the past two decades, that was directly relevant to the five key questions. With the assistance of our techni