Lynnette B. Erickson

Teaching with a peer: a comparison of two models of student teaching

Abstract Two models of student teaching were compared: the traditional model of placing one student teacher with a mentor teacher and a peer teaching model, where two student teachers worked with one mentor. While the peer teaching model involved some trade-offs, the model was found to have a positive impact on children and to offer several important advantages for student teachers including increased support, the opportunity for on-going conversation about teaching, and experience in learning how to collaborate to improve practice. Mentor teachers found much of value in the model and support its continued use.

Rethinking Field Experience: Partnership Teaching Versus Single-Placement Teaching

Three types of data were gathered on a partnership and a single-placement model of early field experience. Data came from mentor and preservice teacher interviews, preservice teacher time logs, and transcripts of planning sessions. Although all mentors and preservice teachers found value in their experience, data indicate that those who participated in partnership placements had a very different experience. Preservice teachers in partner-placements felt better supported and were able to engage in greater instructional risks within the classroom. Children in classrooms where partners were placed were reportedly better served. Mentors in partnership placements were more flexible in planning with preservice teachers and appeared to be more trusting. The authors conclude that partnership placement holds promise for providing richer, more interesting, and more educative early field experience for elementary preservice teachers than traditional practice allows.

Novice teacher growth and personal models of mentoring: choosing compassion over inquiry

This article presents a model of mentoring which may be used as an analytic tool for reflecting on practices commonly employed in supporting beginning teachers. Eighteen mentors and 36 intern teachers whom they mentored were participants in the study. Analysis of data revealed three general patterns of mentoring—responsive, interactive, and directive—and eight dimensions of mentoring related to: (a) emotional availability; (b) levels of engagement; (c) degree of investment in mentoring relationships; and (d) the capacity for criticalness in their mentoring. Variability among mentors in their ways of enacting the three general mentoring patterns was accounted for by their individual preferences in the eight dimensions of mentoring. Cases representing each general pattern of mentoring are presented, and instances reflecting shifts in general mentoring patterns are explored. Implications for teacher educators who select, prepare, support, or serve as mentors are discussed.

Paradise Unrealized: Teacher Educators and the Costs and Benefits of School/University Partnerships:

Considering progress in establishing partnership or professional development schools, Goodlad (1994) wrote that reports of success tend to be of paradise envisioned, not gained (p. 218). The partnership literature is filled with positive statements written during the formative stages of partnership development, but scholars have begun to take a more sobering view (see Abdul-Haqq, 1998) as the complexity of the undertaking has become more fully appreciated. Labaree (1995) argues that educational reform runs in cycles and that enthusiasm wanes over time. Getting a partnership off the ground engenders commitment. The program energizes faculty. But over time, disquieting and unexpected problems emerge: teachers and faculty tire; a new phase in partnership follows as teachers and university teacher education faculty reconsider their initial commitment. We believe a real danger exists that this reform effort will go the way of other reforms that ... have failed to take root. Most remain just interesting ideas (Pogrow, 1996, p. 657). Paradise envisioned is seldom paradise realized. Creating a genuine partnership between universities and schools demands a fundamental reconsideration of the roles and functions provided by all organizations that have an interest in and responsibility for teacher development (Robinson & Darling-Hammond, 1994, p. 204). This is a daunting challenge. For 15 years, faculty at Brigham Young University (BYU) have striven to meet it. In so doing, faculty roles have changed. A critical juncture has been reached, a point where hardheaded realism has replaced initial enthusiasm. Faculty are asking critical questions: What are the costs and benefits of the program? What is needed to sustain it over the long haul? In posing these questions, the faculty have no intention to back away from partnerships. Indeed, it is the current strength of the partnership and faculty commitment that enables them to ask cost questions openly. In this article, we forthrightly air problems in the belief that doing so will assist us and others in the effort to form sustainable partnerships. This is a study of partnership development after initial enthusiasm fades. We explore the benefits, but mostly seek to locate the costs of partnership for university faculty. We do so in the hope of more successfully ameliorating those costs. In addition to its openly critical tone, this study is unique in at least three ways. First, program costs and benefits are linked--but not causally--to specific contextual and program elements. This linkage enables a sharper analysis than is commonly presented in partnership studies. Second, the BYU partnership effort is massive, representing the efforts of a teacher education program annually graduating 360 elementary teacher candidates and involving 46 elementary schools. Much of the research on professional development schools or partnerships reports on relatively small programs. Third, we assessed personal and family impact. University based teacher education faculty spouses completed surveys in which they described the impact of the 1994 program changes on their spouses and family life. The research team decided to survey spouses when they realized that the cost of changing professional roles to family and personal life may not be readily apparent even to faculty members. Positive or negative program impact on a family likely influences long-term program viability as well as the quality of ones professional and personal life. Background Partner schools are schools engaged simultaneously and jointly with colleges and universities in the renewal of both themselves and the educator preparation programs of which they are an integral part (Osguthorpe, Harris, Harris, & Black, 1995, p. xii). The initial drive toward partnership at BYU reflected Goodlads (1993) belief stated that the bumping together of university and school cultures would have a positive effect on both institutions (p. …

Imagining, Becoming, and Being a Teacher: How professional history mediates teacher educator identity

This is a self-study wherein we, two teacher educators who are both former public school elementary-grade teachers, sought increased understanding of our professional identities as teachers. We asked, “How is the professional identity of teacher educators mediated by their prior experience as teachers?” We independently created retrospective narratives of our teaching histories, recording key events in our development as teachers and teacher educators. We read and reread these narratives, identified categories and perspectives that cut across them, coded the data, and formulated a descriptive picture of our experiences. We also shared our analysis with a critical friend at several stages of the analysis. The process revealed stories of imagining ourselves as teachers, becoming teachers, and being teachers. Our study shows that fundamental aspects of our teacher identities have remained constant as our careers have evolved. Regardless of the setting, the age of our students, or the expanded expectations to engage in research and professional service, we are, first and foremost, teachers.

Teacher Educator Identity: Emerging understandings of person, positioning, roles, and collaborations

In this special issue of Studying Teaching Education: A Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, research in teacher educator identity is moved forward through attention to the complexities of lived experience and theoretical plurality. Articles in this issue provide evidence concerning the process and content of teacher educator identitymaking. This allows us, as editors, to examine and make sense of the lived experience and theoretical frameworks involved in research on teacher educator identity. Concern with teacher identity emerged in the late 1980s (e.g., Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). It has recently re-entered the conversation of research on teaching. Both Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop (2004) and Olsen (2008) proposed that understandings from this research could guide teacher educators in their work with teachers. Almost simultaneously, teacher education researchers began inquiring into teacher educator identity as well (Bullough, 2005; Pinnegar, 2005). This research is complicated by the lived experience of teacher educators who are continually attempting to reconcile their identities as teachers and as teacher educators, all the while seeking to support the identity development of their students. Progress in this research is further confounded by the lack of consensus on the definition of identity and the many theoretical frameworks that guide investigations into identity development across disciplines and approaches. However, complications inherent in investigations into identity can be overcome when researchers consider teacher educator identity in terms of both being and doing (Rice, 2010). In this themed issue, a conception of teacher educator identity as both being a teacher educator and doing teacher education allows us to develop deeper and more nuanced understandings of teacher education and the tensions embedded in the identities of teacher educators. In this editorial we first explore what analysis of the articles in this themed issue collectively reveals about what it means to be a teacher educator and what it means to engage in the practices of teacher education. We then consider the tensions that coexist between the obligations, duties, and responsibilities inherent when teacher educator identity is conceived of as being and doing. Finally, we provide a guide to the organization of this issue. Authors of the articles in this issue occupy a wide range of professional roles, yet they all identify themselves as teacher educators. They also allude to others within their contexts and settings whom they would label in the same way. Thus, as we look at this collection, we see a broad spectrum of individuals who could potentially conceive of themselves as being a teacher educator. Of course this includes those traditionally labeled as teacher educators who belong to faculties of education and teach courses offered within education programs. Other faculty whose academic assignments lie outside of teacher preparation or colleges of education but who teach courses in teacher education programs may be included. This could also be true for faculty members who teach prerequisite general education courses for pre-service teachers, as well as for adjunct faculty who teach

Toward Transparency: Competing discourses of teacher educators and teachers

This self-study emerged within the context of a school-based professional development project that established collaboration between two teacher educators and a group of elementary public school teachers. We launched the Book in a Bag project as a way to promote curriculum integration in classrooms and at the same time to provide a venue for research. Within the two contexts of university and public schools, certain knowledge and practices were privileged, largely as a result of the distinct stewardships each assumes. When tensions arose in the course of the project, we employed self-study methodology. We identified competing discourses of teachers, teacher educators, and partnership, noting paradoxes that focused on discourse-bound knowledge, discourse-driven motivation, and discourse-limited aspirations. Self-study served to deepen our understanding of our own practices and ourselves as teacher educators with an eye to future relationships with teachers.

Life on the Borderlands: Action Research and Clinical Teacher Education Faculty.

Abstract Seeking to soften the gap between clinical and tenure-track teacher education faculty, a year-long action research seminar was conducted. Using data from observation notes, interviews and a taped seminar session, the authors explore the seminar from its very rocky beginning to its conclusion. Drawing on the concept of ‘communities of practice’, the authors explore reasons for the hesitancy of the clinical faculty to share the results of their studies and their struggle to find legitimacy within the university.

Consequences of Personal Teaching Metaphors for Teacher Identity and Practice.

Abstract Past research has clearly indicated that teachers’ metaphors can serve as a framework that moves our understanding of teaching forward by making more explicit the intuitive knowledge teachers hold about themselves, their classrooms, and their practice. Making explicit how metaphors uncover the understandings that guide the practices of in-service teachers, individually and collectively, can provide insight into the assumptions they hold about teaching and teaching practice. The purpose of this study was to explore how in-service teachers’ self-constructed metaphors revealed their perceptions of their roles, obligations, and assumptions about teaching and learning, and consider the implications of such exploration for teacher education and development. The four experienced teachers who participated in this study constructed personal teaching metaphors for which they provided an explanation. Analysis of the metaphors using positioning theory provided evidence that teaching metaphors capture the individual identity and specify the plotlines of teaching and the obligations, duties, and responsibilities of the teacher as well as the role of the teacher and others in the teacher’s practice. We found that each metaphor brought elements of identity and teaching practice together in unique and divergent ways. A subsequent cross-case analysis revealed common discourses of teaching: responsibility, nurturing, and caring, and teacher and student learning. Both the individual and cross-case analysis suggest the potential value of metaphor work for informing teacher education and professional development to advise teachers, teacher educators, school leaders, and policy makers.

Social studies teacher educators as curriculum makers: engaging teacher candidates in democratic practices

Purpose – This narrative inquiry chronicles our experiences in a social studies methods course and the understandings we gained as we engaged alongside our teacher candidates in democratic practices. Approach – Our narrative inquiry began as we wondered whether modeling democratic practices and establishing democratic classrooms in our social studies methods courses would enable future teachers to construct democratic classrooms. Through analysis of our field notes from several semesters, we captured and examined our process of curriculum making with our teacher candidates. Findings – Through recounting and unpacking four stories of our curriculum making, we demonstrate that to prepare future teachers to prepare their students as citizens, teacher educators must do more than merely model democratic practices. While modeling, they must explicitly teach the concepts behind the practices and attend to nondemocratic and missed opportunities for engaging in democratic practices. They must create opportunities for teacher candidates to plan, practice, observe, and critique democratic practices. Value – To many, social studies is limited to the study and memorization of facts about history and geography. However, the primary purpose of the K-12 social studies is citizenship education (NCSS, 1994). Social studies teacher educators are responsible to prepare future teachers to meet this purpose through social studies methods courses where democratic practices are modeled and explicitly taught, and where teacher candidates are given opportunities to engage in democratic classrooms.