Hilary G. Conklin

Methods and the Middle: Elementary and Secondary Preservice Teachers’ Views on Their Preparation for Teaching Middle School Social Studies

Abstract The majority of middle school teachers are prepared in either generalist elementary programs or subject- specific secondary programs, yet researchers and teacher educators have little understanding of the ways in which these divergent pathways prepare teachers for working at the middle school level. In this study, preservice teachers from an elementary and a secondary preparation program were interviewed about their conceptions of teaching social studies at the middle school level. The results indicated that the social studies methods course in each pathway strongly influenced the preservice teachers’ ideas about pedagogical strategies for teaching social studies, but did little to facilitate the preservice teachers’ understanding of teaching young adolescents. These findings draw attention to the need for more research and teacher education focused on teaching at the middle school level.

Company Men: Tracing Learning from Divergent Teacher Education Pathways into Practice in Middle Grades Classrooms.

In this comparative, longitudinal case study, the author investigates the two different pathways that have been most strongly advocated for certifying middle school social studies teachers: the specialized middle school and subject-specific secondary pathways. Drawing on classroom observations, interviews, documents, teacher and student work samples, and surveys, this article compares the learning and practice of 2 seventh-grade social studies teachers across time. Both teachers learned key principles and practices from their respective teacher education programs but ultimately taught in ways that often demanded little of young adolescents intellectually. The findings suggest that teacher educators preparing social studies teachers for the middle grades need to look not only at the opportunities they provide for teachers to learn about young adolescents, social studies teaching purposes, and social studies teaching strategies but also at the implementation and integration of these learning opportunities.

Learning from Young Adolescents: The Use of Structured Teacher Education Coursework to Help Beginning Teachers Investigate Middle School Students' Intellectual Capabilities.

In this article, the authors discuss a case study in which beginning teachers interviewed young adolescents as part of structured teacher education coursework designed to challenge teachers’ low expectations for young adolescents. Based on pre- and postsurveys, pre— and post—focus group interviews, classroom field notes, and teachers’ written analysis papers, the authors’ data suggest that the coursework helped to shape changes in beginning teachers’ views of young adolescents’ analytical capabilities and social studies knowledge. However, these shifts in teachers’ thinking about young adolescents’ capabilities did not translate into shifts in the teachers’ ideas about middle school social studies instruction. The authors argue that carefully structured coursework like this interview project holds promise for helping beginning teachers develop new understandings about learners, but attention to students’ abilities must also be accompanied by attention to teachers’ purposes and pedagogical understandings.

Purposes, Practices, and Sites: A Comparative Case of Two Pathways Into Middle School Teaching:

Drawing on sociological and cognitive psychological perspectives on teacher learning, this comparative case study investigates the myriad influences that shape teachers’ learning in two divergent teacher education pathways. Specifically, this article explores a case of the two most common pathways into middle school teaching—the elementary and secondary pathways—and their contribution to the preparation of middle school social studies teachers. The findings of this study provide important insights into the instructional practices in which teacher education programs engage prospective teachers, the explicit and implicit purposes toward which these practices are directed, and the program opportunities that support those purposes. The author discusses how these findings inform the preparation of middle school teachers specifically and teacher education practice and policy generally.

Practices of compassionate, critical, justice-oriented teacher education

In this cross-institutional, qualitative case study, two teacher educators in urban teacher education programs identify and analyze the components of our teacher education practice in relation to a vision of compassionate, critical, justice-oriented teacher education. Using Grossman et al.’s concepts of preparation for professional practice as an analytic tool, we illuminate some of our teacher education practices that (a) facilitated the development of relationships and community within our classes, (b) honored preservice teachers’ lived experiences and existing attitudes, (c) introduced preservice teachers to multiple perspectives of viewing the world, and (d) provided a vision of equitable, intellectually challenging teaching and learning. Drawing on our data, we offer a pedagogical framework that identifies key features of compassionate, critical, justice-oriented teacher education to inform research and practice. We highlight the contributions of this framework for justice-oriented teacher education and the inherent complexity of attempts to parse such fundamentally messy relational practice.

Preparing Novice Teacher Educators in the Pedagogy of Teacher Education.

In this article, the author provides a conceptual framework to guide the design of coursework to prepare teacher educators. Given the absence of a stronger research base to inform the preparation of novice teacher educators, the author argues that theoretical perspectives focused on K-12 preservice teacher learning can be a useful heuristic for decision making in a course for novice teacher educators. To illustrate the application of this framework, the author provides examples from a course on the pedagogy of teacher education oriented toward critical, social justice–oriented pedagogies that the author created and taught to a group of doctoral students who were learning to become teacher educators. By illustrating how the preservice teacher learning framework she proposes guided her own course decision making, the author aims to provide others with a guiding framework for facilitating the learning of novice teacher educators.

Toward More Joyful Learning: Integrating Play Into Frameworks of Middle Grades Teaching

Recent efforts to define qualities of effective teaching practice have done little to capture the role of play, imagination, and creativity in classroom teaching. Drawing on theories of play and data from a two-year case study that included classroom observations, interviews, artifact collection, and surveys, the author examines the ways in which elements of play were present across the practice of eight novice middle grades teachers. Building on examples of play in these classrooms, the author proposes adding the dimension of play to frameworks of middle grades teaching—a dimension that encompasses young adolescents’ engagement in classroom work that involves choice and self-direction, imaginative creations, and a nonstressed state of interest and joy.

Compassion and Mindfulness in Research among Colleagues.

In this article, I offer a case of the predicaments I encountered in conducting teacher education research at my own institution and re‐examine these predicaments using an ethic of mindfulness and compassion. I explore how this Buddhist perspective might help researchers navigate what can be a lonely, ethically complicated research journey among their own colleagues. Based on this analysis, I propose that an ethic of mindfulness and compassion holds potential for guiding teacher education research and challenging researchers to see differently. I argue that conducting teacher education research using the lenses of mindfulness and compassion might propel social change aimed at increasing educational and social opportunity for all people and, in doing so, further the hope for justice in our relationships, teaching, and research.

Student Learning in the Middle School Social Studies Classroom

In this article, I explore the relationship between teachers’ preparation for the middle grades and their students’ learning opportunities. I draw on data from a longitudinal case study to compare how a specialized middle grades preparation and a secondary social studies preparation relate to middle grades students’ learning opportunities by looking at the classrooms of graduates from each preparation pathway. Informed by a theoretical perspective on authentic intellectual work and the understandings teachers need to have developed in teacher education in order to give students access to such learning, the research suggests that young adolescents in both sets of classrooms were generally engaged, though there was variation in the intellectual quality of student learning opportunities across the classrooms of both sets of graduates. At the same time, the results point to the potential for both programs to bolster their preparations to ultimately facilitate higher quality learning for young adolescents.

Toolboxes for Teaching in the Middle Grades: Opportunities to Learn in Two Preparation Pathways

Abstract This research examines the preparation of middle grades social studies teachers by investigating opportunities for learning in 2 social studies methods courses in distinctive teacher education pathways: a specialized middle grades program and a secondary social studies program. The findings suggest that, although both methods course instructors described their central course goal as one of providing a “toolbox” of strategies for their preservice teachers to use in classrooms, the course curricula, assignments, class texts, and class activities in these 2 social studies methods courses provided quite different opportunities for teachers to acquire the tools for these toolboxes. The comparison we describe points to the importance of teacher education programs attending to how curricular emphases, instructional practices, program purposes, and program contexts come together to form a set of learning opportunities for preservice teachers.