Restructuring Pre-Service Teacher Preparation Programs for the Urban School Context (original) (raw)
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Research highlights the challenges of teacher preparation programs in adequately preparing teachers to meet the needs of diverse students often served in high-needs urban schools. Teacher preparation programs that include culturally relevant pedagogy, coursework specifically related to school-community interaction, and most importantly, internships with mentorship in urban schools, have demonstrated that teachers specifically trained to teach in urban schools are better prepared and stay in teaching longer. This study examined the perceptions of 11 clinical supervising teachers and nine pre-service teachers that received flexible University mentoring supports during student teaching in two high-need, urban schools. The findings illustrate that urban student teaching experiences, when supported by additional collaborative mentorship, have the potential to improve experiences for both pre-service teachers and supervising teachers. Further, collaboration with schools to link teacher preparation program course content to urban teaching experiences can improve the theory-to-practice gap.
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Given the crucial issues of disproportionality and the growing diversity of our K-12 student population it is imperative that today's classroom teachers be prepared to critically examine, reflect on and respond to practices for learners with diverse needs and from diverse backgrounds. While effective teachers are the key to meeting the needs of diverse learners and critical in preparing these learners for the twenty-first century, teacher preparation programs must examine how equipped they are in modeling and teaching culturally responsive practices. For one teacher preparation program in the western United States, integrating culturally responsive content and learning experiences into course and field work meant that every aspect of the urban, elementary and secondary and special education programs warranted attention. Informed by an external evaluation of their program that highlighted: a near absence of community-based learning experiences for teacher candidates, a glaring concern regarding our limited conceptualization of social justice and diversity, and a need for enhanced efforts at recruitment of diverse teacher candidates, faculty first began by increasing their own knowledge about culturally responsive teaching. The authors describe how professional development was designed and implemented and ensuing programmatic changes.
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The purpose of this study was to document ways that Urban Teachers’ candidates enact culturally responsive teaching practices in an effort to combat the opportunity gaps in education and increase students’ achievement rate. This study focused on documenting responses to the questions: How do Urban Teachers enact culturally responsive teaching practices in their classrooms? How do teachers in the Urban Teachers program describe overcoming perceived barriers to implementing culturally responsive teaching in an urban school district? The problem of the study was a lack of evaluation of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices of those Urban Teachers once they entered the classroom. Teachers’ responses were described within the Culturally Responsive Teaching framework authored by Muniz and the organization New America. The research was conducted as a pilot case study. There were five participants who volunteered. Out of those five participants, three also completed both surveys an...
Preservice teachers' learning about cultural and racial diversity Implications for urban education
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Several essential interactions or experiences that had an influence on preservice teachers' learning and understanding about urban education and diversity are described and discussed. In particular, the author introduces a developmental typology that was used to analyze the preservice teachers' learning and understanding as a result of a course designed to help preservice teachers develop the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and attitudes necessary to teach in highly diverse and urban school contexts. These developmental interactions that made a critical difference in the preservice teachers' learning included cultural and racial awareness and insight, critical reflection, and a bridge between theory and practice. Understanding the influence of courses in teacher education that endeavor to provide learning spaces for preservice teachers is especially important as we document the most salient ways to provide all prospective teachers with what they need to make meaningful and significant differences in P-12 urban classrooms.
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This study investigated whether data collected from coursework and instructor evaluations of student teacher attitude change were adequate measures of change over a semester. Data analysis involved students enrolled in courses taught in fall 2000 at New Jersey City University. Teachers collected students' biographical data and written responses to a case study describing a student teacher's efforts to handle the isolation of three Latina students in her classroom. Students responded to the same case study at the beginning and end of the semester. After the second response, students reviewed their first response and wrote about their initial reactions so that researchers could assess metacognitive change. Course instructors collected data from student journals, papers, written assignments, and class discussions regarding students' attitudes and ideas about culture and race in schooling. Instructors presented their findings at two different intervals. A team analyzed trends and tendencies in development of student thinking across the program. Instructors' predictions of students who would be the most and least changed were confirmed by analyzing responses. Very few students demonstrated much change. Instructors had trouble matching case study responses to students in their courses. Predicting change based on biographical information was difficult. (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
2021
Increasing cultural diversity in American schools has made preparing graduates to work with diverse learners an essential goal of teacher education programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of elementary (K-6) undergraduate preservice teachers (n=36) in a dual certification program regarding their personal and professional readiness for culturally responsive teaching. Data collected using the Cultural Responsive Teaching Readiness Scale (Karatas & Oral, 2017) revealed relatively high mean overall with little variation (M = 4.25, SD = 0.18) with a statistically significant difference (t (33) = 18.65, p < .001) between Personal Readiness (M = 4.46) and Professional Readiness (M = 3.98). Participants seemed to perceive classroom practice as influential in terms of their cultural awareness, thus, indicating the importance of partnerships with area schools and districts to ensure effective field experiences for preparing teachers for sustained employment i...
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A study was conducted of 39 pre-service teachers regarding their level of cultural sensitivity. Participants completed a 26-item inventory adapted from the Cultural Diversity Awareness Inventory created by Henry (1985). The results suggest that a multicultural field experience may have a slight positive effect on the cultural sensitivity of pre-service teachers, however, this effect seems to be limited in degree and specific to certain response types. A general, positive effect on the overall cultural sensitivity of pre-service teachers is not supported in this study. The results of the second part of the study indicate that pre-service teachers today self-report they are more culturally sensitive than their counterparts reported ten years ago.
Urban Teacher Educator Perceptions of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Qualitative Inquiry
Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 2018
Teacher preparation programs (TEPs) are tasked with preparing future teachers to be able to effectively work with diverse learners. For many, a focus on culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) supports this charge, thus an increased understanding of teacher educator perspectives and approaches to this work is necessary. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher educators’ perceptions of CRP and how they engage their pre-service teachers in developing an understanding of the pedagogy. The findings presented here highlight frustrations teacher educators face with CRP as well as their hopes. Implications and recommendations are provided in efforts to help strengthen this area of TEPs.
Developing Culturally Competent Preservice Teachers
Multicultural Perspectives, 2017
An unfortunate, yet persistent, truth in U.S. public schools is the large achievement gap existing between children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and their White, middle-class counterparts. The potential for cultural dissonance between contemporary teachers and their students necessitates that educators must persistently seek culturally responsive practices. Much has been written regarding strategies for culturally responsive pedagogy; therefore, this article moves beyond a review of culturally responsive pedagogy. Rather than providing teacher candidates with more suggestions for culturally responsive teaching activities, the authors provide teacher educators with specific resources for facilitating the development of cultural competence among preservice teachers. In 2013, 50% of the nation's public school students were Hispanic, African American, Native American, Asian, or two or more races (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). In contrast, less than 10% of American teachers are Hispanic, Native American, Asian, or identify as two or more races, and many are from middle class backgrounds (Snyder & Dillow, 2015). In a recent brief published by the National Center for Education Statistics (Kena et al., 2016), public schools have experienced significantly increased enrollment of students who are Hispanic, English Language Learners (ELL), and/or from low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. The potential for cultural dissonance between contemporary teachers and their students necessitates that educators persistently seek culturally responsive practices. Indeed, research supports that teachers need targeted training to impact their perspectives of working with diverse students (e.g., Meaney, Bohler, Kopf, Hernandez, & Scott, 2008; Tinkler & Tinkler, 2013). Much has been written regarding strategies for culturally responsive pedagogy (e.g., Ford, Stuart, & Vakil, 2014; Ukpokodu, 2011; Wiens, 2015; Wyatt, 2014); therefore, the purpose of this article is to move beyond a review of culturally responsive pedagogy. Rather than providing preservice teachers with more suggestions for culturally responsive teaching activities, this article provides teacher educators with specific resources for facilitating the development of cultural competence among preservice teachers.