Collaboration as Professional Development for Preservice Teachers
presentation
AACTE -- February 9, 2008
New Orleans, LA
Section
I: Content
A. Statement of the issue:
Many of our college students preparing to be educators do not understand their own cultures or those of the students they will be teaching. Field experiences in public schools allow our pre-service teachers to gain valuable experiences but the context is always within the “school” culture and may or may not value the diverse cultures of the students in each classroom. Compounding this situation is the complexity of the way culture is connected to language, language learning, and literacy learning. What happens when predominantly white middle-class students are asked to provide literacy instruction within the context of an after school program that places takes them outside their cultural “comfort zones”? How do these pre-service teachers negotiate to get their needs met? Can cultural disequilibrium help to redefine one’s comfort zone?
B. Literature review:
To understand our students, we need to understand ourselves. Florio-Ruane and McVee (2000), underscore this belief as they state, “The work of understanding and describing others’ lives is inevitably mediated by our own autobiographies” (p. 160). It may be that many educators never make the vital connection with their own culture and truly understand what they believe about others different from themselves. While many educators toss the word “diversity” around loosely and all “believe we should” value diversity, the terminology involved in making those statements may or may not ever hold true meaning or definition. In truth, the term “diversity” is now accepted in the literature in a more broad definition than merely race, ethnicity, or culture. Garg (1994) represents this thinking as he defines diversity as “the presence and interweaving of all the complex and varied human and institutional resources” (p. 6).
Any time one person is trying to teach another person something dynamics are involved. These dynamics play themselves out in and through the language we use as well as nonverbal communications. Pre-service teachers in our undergraduate reading methods courses are encouraged to develop community (Vygotsky, 1978) and to provide instruction in such ways as to promote what Nystrand (1992) called “dialogic instruction.” Dialogic instruction is sited as “eliciting, sustaining, and extending student-initiated contributions (p. 6). When working with diverse populations of students these type or rich language experiences value student participation and help build trust in the learning community. Preservice teachers who are allowed to leave the known culture of the school environment and to experience the social and cultural challenge of a setting filled with diversity find themselves in a place where real cultural, personal, and professional growth can occur.
C. Contribution
One way to improve our abilities to serve diverse learners is to recruit more
minority teachers. Another way which we promote in this paper is to ensure that
all teachers regardless of race, ethnicity, or cultural heritage understand
themselves and understand teaching and learning in terms of diversity. We
believe that there are certainly deep learning experiences that all preservice
teachers need that can take place in classroom settings in public and private
schools. We also believe that there are opportunities within many communities,
particularly larger cities, where preservice teachers might be able to go into
settings where they interact with students in settings that allow the minority
culture(s) to set the tone, define the “norms” and establish the language
“rules.” We believe that the model we have established will shed some light on
the value our preservice teachers put on these “diverse” experiences. Notes of
areas to improve, pitfalls, and barriers are also discussed.
D. Relevance
Data gathered from preservice teachers over a three semester period of time
serve as evidence to inform practice. Survey information (pre and post)
along with open-response queries which were coded and analyzed provide
information on what worked, what needs to be addressed, “aah-haa” moments, and
specific attitudinal changes the students experienced based on their
interactions with students in the alternate field placement. In the process of
learning about themselves and their students, preservice teachers also found a
forum by which they could bridge from the theory of the college classroom to the
practice of teaching reading to diverse learners. Preservice teachers in this
setting were able to teach, reflect, re-teach, consult with practitioners, and
construct their own understandings of what works with language and
literacy learning. These experiences allowed for the identification of
successful practices and reinforced classroom instruction.
E. Implication for Action
It is our belief that it is of value to have preservice teachers in alternate
field placement settings to allow them to experience a cultural disequilibrium
and to learn to negotiate a new comfort zone by understanding themselves and
developing a true and honest appreciate of those different from themselves.
Section II: Outcomes
and Methods
A. Learner/participant outcomes:
It is intended the participants who attend this session will
B. Methods:
Participants will be able to view charts, graphs, and quotes from preservice teachers involved in this study. Participants will also be directed to a series of websites developed to explain this culturally-diverse field-based model. A handout with resources and contact information will be available for all attendees. Question and answer periods of time will be designated during the presentation.
References:
Dyson, A. H. (1992). Children’s place in the language arts curriculum: Victims, beneficiaries, and critics. English Education, 24, 3-19.
Garg, R. (1994). Meeting the challenge of multicultural education. Contemporary Women’s Issues Database, 6, p. 6.
Florio-Ruane, S., & McVee, M. (2000). Ethnographic approaches to literacy research. In M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 3, pp. 153-162). Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum.
Nystrand, M. (1992). Dialogic instruction and conceptual change. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman, Eds. And Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1934)