Article Reviewed:
Ritter, J. K., Powell, D., & Hawley, T. S. (2007). Takin’ it to the streets: A collaborative self-study into social studies field instruction. Social Studies Research and Practice, 2(3), 342-357.
In Takin’ It to the Streets, three novice teacher educators (all second year doctoral students working as Graduate assistants for in a Southeastern US university’s college of education preparatory program) examine the efficacy of their university’s teacher program through a collaborative self-evaluation process. The beginner educators serve as the field contacts for student teachers in participating in the Teacher preparation programs differ across institutions. For many years researchers have attempted to investigate the influence these programs have on student teachers confidence, practices and beliefs about their purpose as educators. Although research conducted by Wilson, Floden, and Ferry Mundy (2001) have identified the clinical experiences during student teaching as the most influential element of teacher preparation others such as Bullough and Gitlin (2001) point out that beginning teachers do not often recognize these experiences as having great impact.
Ritter, Powell, and Hawley sought to evaluate how the flow of their teacher preparation program helps student teachers to align their practice to the rationale for teaching. They also sought to evaluate the efficacy of their individual approaches toward field supervision in regard to fostering the reflective, metacognitive, adaptive thought processes necessary for teachers to be successful in a school setting. This self-study was also designed to improve their own teaching practice because their university practiced the appointment of graduate students to this very important role of mentor without extensive training or preparation for teaching at the teacher educator level.
The subjects of this qualitative research are the very authors themselves. The team of three noted their university’s social studies education program plan has an intensive preadmission series during which the student must complete a capstone assignment that is connected to a field experience. During this time the students develop “defensible: rationale stating their beliefs about teaching social studies. If admitted to the program the students move onto a methodology and curriculum block for 1 year. In the following year the students begin their student teaching internships. While this sounds like a progressive plan the authors note that the manifesto or rationale statement emphasized during the preadmission component of the program is not referenced again during the preparation process. This in their minds is a big deficiency in the program because they miss many opportunities to address the students basic belief system that was declared in their rationale document.
The team chose a self-study methodology because the evaluatory process encourages a mode of awareness that included both actions and context. They felt self study was a promising means for them to improve their own practice and to become a means of informing about preservice education practices in the the field of social studies teacher preparation. The authors kept reflective journals and wrote formal observation after each student teacher meeting. Each worked with 15 students and conducted 4 observations per student. From these documents the team created narrative summaries after each observation round and the identified themes in their analysis by using Polkinghorne's (1995) paradigmatic analysis of narrative data.
The findings were arranged into categories that answered 3 questions in three areas. The first examined how the individual researchers approaches affect their work as teacher educators. They found that focus on worth of content for students learners and the nature of each lessons goals was more beneficial than focusing teachers on creating the all important hook for student engagement. By connecting discussions about the student teachers rationale for wanting to teach social studies, even though they had difficulty purposely identifying connections between actual practice and beliefs, many teachers were able to defend their practices through their rationale in discussion. The researchers felt this practice carried tremendous potential for improving practice and providing research based reform at their institution.
The second point of their findings addressed the role that the teacher educators should play as field instructors. It was the general consensus that they should work as mentors supporting improved teaching practices rather than by in to the programs missions that often cause stress. Once the novice teachers have confidence to teach the development of the required e-portfolio would have more meaning and purpose. The program as it stood put great emphasis on the portfolio so many students developed lessons to include in the e-document rather than to support development of sound teaching practices.
The third area of findings that were revealed through the narrative/ theme identification process addressed challenges of promoting practices based on their manifest rationale. The biggest obstacle to this was the prior absence of discussion about the rationale itself. Many preservice teachers in the program did not value the document because it was relatively untouched since its development. Instead of focusing on the rationale the researchers turned their focus to aiding in the recognition and beliefs underlying the rationale. This supported metagognitive processes that paired action to beliefs and if beliefs needed to be amended they were able to see the justifications for the call.
Ritter, Powell and Hawley’s observations can be applied to many teacher education programs regardless of sequence structure. Belief systems discretely meld behavior regardless of sequence. By having students identify their beliefs before student begin student teachings they can develop a better understanding of how these beliefs influence their actual practice.
This research is important for teacher educators across disciplines not just social studies teacher educators. There has been research related to science education which reflect demonstrate the influence of belief systems developed prior to methodologies courses or student teaching experiences (Yimaz-Tusin, 2008). It would be interesting to see a cross disciplinary investigation from science, math, social studies, reading and Englishand A comparison of preservice belief systems influence on actual applications in the classroom would reveal the many pedagogical similarities these fields share. This would close the discipline gap that so many professionals hide behind when researching their “own” discipline.
Additional References
Bullough, R.V. & Gitlin, A.D. (2001) becoming a student of teaching: Linking knowledge production and practice. (2nd edition), New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
Polkinghorne, D.E. (1995) Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. In J.A. Hatch & R.
Wisniewski (Eds.), Life history and narrative (pp.5-23). London: Falmer Press.
Wilson, S.M., Floden, R.E., & Ferrinin-Mundi, J. (2001) Teacher preparation research: Knowledge, gaps, and recommendations. An executive summary of the research report prepared for the U.S. Department of Education and the Office for Educational Research and Improvement. University of Washington, Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy. www.ctp.org
Yilmaz-Tuzin, O. (2008). Preservice elementary teachers' beliefs about science teaching. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 19(2), 183-204.
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