Gina Anderson

Discussions in a Socrates Café: Implications for Critical Thinking in Teacher Education

The purpose of this study was to benchmark the types of Socratic questioning that were occurring in a Socrates Café, an online discussion forum, in a graduate-level diversity course in teacher education. The Universal Intellectual Standards were used to analyze Socratic questioning. Results suggested that the nine Universal Intellectual Standards provided an exceptional deductive framework for understanding the types and frequencies of Socratic questioning occurring in the Socrates Café. The benefits of using a Socrates Cafe discussion for instruction to scaffold critical thinking are discussed and implications for teacher education are considered.

Quality and Early Field Experiences: Partnering with Junior Achievement

This study explored the perceptions of preservice teacher candidates who participated in a pilot partnership between a public teacher education preparation program and Junior Achievement (JA). The partnership was grounded in the premise that providing early field experiences to preservice teacher candidates was a necessary requirement of quality teacher education. In an introductory pedagogy course, preservice teacher candidates in their junior year participated in a five-week field experience where they taught JA lessons in partnership schools. The results suggested that preservice teacher candidates perceived an expanded sense of comfort with teaching strategies, classroom management, and diversity during the actual teaching of the lessons in the field experience. Additionally, participants reported increased confidence levels with their own preparation to teach. The partnership with JA that provided a quality, early field experience may have enhanced the general pedagogical proficiencies needed for preservice teachers to succeed as practicing educators. Suggestions for creating a partnership with JA are provided.

Managing the paradoxes of discussion pedagogy

Abstract Discussion pedagogy is part of a larger curricular goal that intersects the two aspirations of diversity of perspectives and democratic inquiry in that it challenges stereotypes and assumptions through student discourse. Yet, teaching with discussion is a complex and sometimes ambiguous endeavor that leaves instructors feeling pulled between desirable, but seemingly contradictory, goals. This article discusses these paradoxes of instructional choices and student outcomes that instructors may negotiate through polarity management, a theoretical framework that focuses on values that are diametrically opposed, yet interdependent upon each other. Implications of polarity management for discussion pedagogy are highlighted.