Browsing by Subject "Teacher education"

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Becoming a teacher educator: a journey
(2014-05) Hoyt, Daniel Dexter Jr.
This dissertation is about a journey, a journey of becoming a teacher educator. Although, I argue that this journey is one that is never truly completed, I focus on the journey's beginning--a beginning that starts with enrolling in graduate school in pursuit of a doctoral degree in Curriculum and Instruction. It is a deeply personal journey and one that I began almost ten years ago. My journey as both the researcher and participant in this study are central components of this dissertation. The research questions I ask are tied to the personal and professional experiences of graduate students who are living the process of becoming a teacher educator and how they can be supported in a more intentional manner. This work takes a human sciences approach guided by a theoretical framework heavily influenced by Hans-Georg Gadamer's notion of shifting horizons. The work of Parker Palmer and Jennifer Crawford have also provided direction. Both Palmer and Crawford have helped me view the journey of becoming a teacher educator holistically, breaking down the arbitrary walls our culture has built to separate the personal and professional elements of our lives. I use constructivist grounded theory as described by Charmaz (2006) as my research method. My findings are tied to the different types of movement we experience as we live out the process of becoming a teacher educator and point to a need for great intentionality in the form of communal support to help make meaning of the different types of movement one makes as individuals and as a community as we live out the journey of becoming a teacher educators.
Content area reading instruction for secondary teacher candidates: a case study of a state-required online content area reading course
(2014-01) Biggs, Brad Alan
This dissertation examined in a state-required, online preservice teacher course in content area reading instruction (CARI) at a large land-grant university in Minnesota. Few studies have been published to date on revitalized literacy teacher preparation efforts in CARI (See Vagle, Dillon, Davison-Jenkins, & LaDuca, 2005; Dillon, O'Brien, Sato, & Kelly, 2011). Analysis of implementation of the revised online course Reading in the Content Areas for Initial Licensure Candidates afforded an opportunity to study 1) an online CARI course for PTS, and 2) a revised CARI course occasioned by new state teacher CARI standards (Minnesota Board of Teaching, 2012; Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, 2010). Results of this study fill a gap in the reading education literature at a time when improved teacher preparation for instruction in reading comprehension in all subject areas is vital for our students, and CARI teacher preparation that offers flexible implementation formats is a goal for postsecondary educators. This research used Yin's approach to case study (Yin, 2008) to construct a qualitative description of the revised online course design and of PT experiences of the course. Analysis of the description provides data that can inform course design of online CARI PT courses as well as new directions for CARI research. Course design and components as well as PT-produced artifacts were investigated in order to understand 1) dispositions and knowledges of PTs regarding CARI before participation in the online course, 2) how course components were they designed to effectively prepare secondary school PTs in CARI, and 3) How course components and online learning environment impact PTs' disposition and knowledge of CARI. Analysis of course components and analysis of artifacts constructed by PTs from eight different content area PT preparation programs indicated that 1) dispositions and knowledges of PTs regarding CARI before participation in the online course, 2) how course components were they designed to effectively prepare secondary school PTs in CARI, and 3) How course components and online learning environment impact PTs' disposition and knowledge of CARI.
A descriptive study of pre-service science teachers' conceptual understanding of scientific inquiry using concept maps
(2013-05) Zak, Kevin M.
Future science teachers serve a critical role in creating a scientifically literate citizenry. Their knowledge and understanding of the process by which science works, scientific inquiry, is fundamental to this goal of science education. This descriptive research study investigated pre-service secondary science teachers' conceptual understanding of scientific inquiry using concept maps. Thirty participants constructed concept maps describing the interrelationships among twelve scientific inquiry concepts. The concept maps were analyzed to determine how participants structured, organized, associated, and described the relationships between these concepts. The majority of participants did organize and associate a chain of inquiry concepts with one another into a scientific method series. Participants displayed an overall low number of associations between the twelve inquiry concepts. Of the concept pairs that were associated with one another, there was a lack of consistency in the linking words used to describe the relationship between them. Implications for science educators in the development and design of teaching about inquiry in pre-service teacher education programs and professional development opportunities are examined. Recommendations for further study into the conceptual understanding of beginning science teachers are also discussed.
From white supremacy to solidarity: a pedagogy of anti-capitalist antiracism
(2013-05) Casey, Zachary A.
This dissertation focuses on a pedagogical analysis of the intersections of white racial identity, nationalism, and neoliberalism as they manifest and impact teachers and teacher education. After first detailing how my own family became white, I discuss my method in this work in two ways: first, as a form of Freirean Critical Study (an elaboration of Freire, 2006); and secondly, through an overview of Marxism, Marx's importance for working against neoliberalism, and the anti-capitalist foundations of the work. Next, I provide a conceptual history of white racial identity in the United States focusing on the ways in which whiteness is invented and imagined out of blackness and how this "inventing" functions to secure the material interests of the (white) owners of the means of production. I work to show how whiteness and white supremacy work to normalize and maintain capitalism through a logic of racial hierarchy and exclusion. Using this historical analysis, I shift to a critique of two of the dominant forms of contemporary whiteness studies: "White Privilege" and "Race Treason." I show the ways in which our present dominant (hegemonic) conception of white antiracist action and pedagogy, white privilege discourse, fails to mobilize white people for material action to work against systemic racism by overemphasizing a critical flaw: white privilege is an effect of systemic oppression, not the cause, and thus a focus solely on privilege without a critical interrogation of oppression functions to maintain the status quo. I extend this analysis into the role of nationalism in white supremacy through examining the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, the formation and activism of the Tea Party, and the writing of Pat Buchanan to show the ways in which whiteness is made further complex, in the context of the United States especially, through its entanglement with nationalism. Finally, I shift to the application of the above theorizations in teaching and teacher education. I demonstrate the ways in which the "professionalization" of teaching and other neoliberal reform efforts undermine critical, culturally relevant, and socially just approaches to pedagogy both in the classroom and at the programmatic level. I then provide the basis for an "anti-capitalist antiracist pedagogy;" first in the classroom, and lastly as a programmatic vision for teacher education. I conclude that such work is necessary, and inherently possible, as we imagine ways to combat the onslaught of white supremacist-nationalist-neoliberal logics that threaten the very existence of teaching for social justice and emancipation in our oppressive social order.
An Investigation into Three Core Practices in a Standards-Based Elementary Mathematics Methods Class: The Case of Six Preservice Teachers
(2016-05) Tackie, Nii
Abstract Over the past several years, the field of teacher education has faced the perennial problem of identifying productive ways to prepare teachers to meet the realistic work of teaching. As a result, the field is still undergoing several transitions in teacher preparation programs. There has been a shift from an era where teacher educators and researchers focused on detailing the knowledge base teachers needed for teaching toward teaching practices that entail knowledge and enactment (McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013). Preparing preservice teachers to teach using the concept of "core practices" (Ball & Forzani, 2009) is an attempt to centralize preservice teachers' learning to teach directly the practical work of teaching. Although the concept of core practices for teacher preparation seems promising, not much is known about how preservice teachers learn to enact these practices as they engage in lesson planning and teaching. The purpose of the study was to describe the learning goals that are set by preservice teachers, the learning tasks they design to help students meet the learning goals, and their implementation of Stein et al’s., (2008) five practices of orchestrating whole-class discussion around the learning tasks. The researcher also explored the factors that influence preservice teachers as they learn to enact these practices. A multiple-case design (Yin, 2014) with six preservice teachers was used in this study. The preservice teachers were enrolled in a standards-based elementary mathematics methods class. Data were analyzed using an inductive-deductive method. The results revealed that in designing learning tasks, preservice teachers used their understandings from the mathematics methods class to design low- and high-level cognitive demand tasks that engaged students in using multiple modes of representations in inquiry-based learning settings to support students’ learning. Although preservice teachers setting of learning goals were influenced by their understandings from the mathematics methods class, they were highly influenced by their practicing schools’ mathematics curricula and their cooperating teachers. The preservice teachers had varying experiences and levels of success in implementing the five practices for orchestrating whole-class discussion discussed in Stein et al. (2008).
Learning to teach a foreign language: a student teacher's role identity negotiation
(2013-05) Martel, Jason Peter
Traditional foreign language remains a conservative and underdeveloped subject. Change-promoting efforts like ACTFL’s National Standards have had a limited impact on teachers’ pedagogies (Glisan, 2012), and program-exiting student proficiency levels remain relatively low (CASLS, 2010). Given the reciprocal shaping relationship between identities and classroom practices (Kanno & Stuart, 2011), documenting the ways in which budding teachers construct their identities may help in supporting the implementation of much needed educational innovations. Using symbolic interactionism (Reynolds & Herman-Kinney, 2003) and teacher socialization (Zeichner & Gore, 1990) as complimentary theoretical lenses, the present study adds to the paltry amount we know about foreign language teachers’ identity development. It employs ethnographic methods associated with qualitative case study to deeply explore the identity construction processes of a student teacher seeking Spanish licensure in a preparation program that emphasizes content-based instruction (CBI). Data sources include interviews, classroom observations, digital journal reflections, documents, and post-observation conference recordings. Findings show that the participant negotiated her identity at the interface of competing messages from significant others (e.g., students, university supervisors, mentor teachers) in her preparation program and student teaching placements and that she demonstrated agency in appropriating or rejecting these messages. She grappled with two principal “designated” (Sfard & Prusak, 2005) identities encoded in these messages: (a) provider of target language input and (b) enactor of a particular approach to foreign language teaching. It also surfaced that she left the program with a weaker Spanish teacher role identity than when she started, which may be attributed to concerns she had with her Spanish proficiency, a strained connection with her secondary-level students, and the lack of opportunities for validating her Spanish teacher role identity—i.e., for inhabiting the role in a comfortable fashion that reinforced a positive sense of self. Important discussion topics for foreign language teacher educators stem from these findings concerning student teaching placement timing, mentor choice, and opportunities for developing language skills. Above all, they call us to ponder the following question: How can we as teacher educators support student teachers in constructing the identities they want to have for themselves as new foreign language teachers, all while encouraging them to acquire identity positions that improve the state of foreign language teaching?
Listening in context: incorporating strategy instruction in L2 listening practice
(MinneTESOL - Minnesota Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 2015) LaScotte, Darren K.
Open educational resources: new technologies and new ways of learning
(MinneTESOL - Minnesota Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 2014) Vanek, Jenifer B.
Preservice teacher talk surrounding gender
(2012-09) Engebretson, Kathryn Ellerhoff
This dissertation examines the discourses around gender present among a cohort of preservice secondary social studies teachers (n=25) and how gender discourses manifested throughout their preparatory year with particular interest paid to their thoughts about curricula, schools, and students. Using ethnographic study design, the author presents three significant moments that occurred throughout their preparatory year, and, for three focal students, interviews which occurred in their first year of teaching. Data include transcripts of three class sessions, completed assignments, reflective journals, and interviews. Building upon Thornton's (1991) work on teachers as "curricular-instructional gatekeepers," the author explores what guided the curricular decision making for the participants and, for the focal students, what discourses they decided to make space for in their first classrooms. Because gender is socially constructed, it is important for future teachers to examine what has contributed to the construction of their own gendered identities in order for them to be able to see how they as individuals and as members of a larger group contribute to the greater society. Through feminist poststructural discourse analysis, the author finds multiple and competing discourses around the gendered topics of sexual violence and how the students expressed their own genders as connected to culture. Intersections of race and social class with gender and the presence of emotion were important in how the students talked about gender. Also found was the uneven follow-through of implementing practices learned in their teacher education coursework in their first classrooms, and the reluctance of two focal students to include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) topics in their first classrooms. Additionally, the role of context is considered as essential to the students' decision whether to self-censor.
Senior science teachers' experience of teaching in a changing multicultural classroom: A case study
(2012-09) Ryan, Mark
Demographic changes within the US are bringing significant changes in the cultural make-up of the classrooms in our schools. Results from national and state assessments indicate a growing achievement gap between the science scores of white students and students from minority communities. This gap indicates a disconnect somewhere in the science classrooms. This study examines the teacher's perspective of the changing learning environment. The study focuses on senior teachers with traditional Midwestern backgrounds and little multicultural experience assuming these teachers had little or no education in multicultural education. Senior teachers are also more likely to have completed their science education within a traditional Universalist perspective of science and likewise have little or no education in multicultural science. The research method was comparative case studies of a purposeful sample of nine science teachers within a community experiencing significant demographic change, seven core senior teachers and two frame of reference teachers. The interviews examined the teachers' awareness of their own cultural beliefs and the impact of those beliefs on classroom practices, the teachers' understanding of cultural influences on the students' academic performance, and the relationships between the teachers' understanding of the cultural aspects of the nature of science and their classroom practices. Analysis of the interview data revealed that the teachers maintain a strong, traditional Midwestern worldview for classroom expectations and they are generally unaware of the impact of those standards on the classroom environment. The teachers were supportive of minority students within their classroom, changing several practices to accommodate student needs, but they were unaware of the broader cultural influences on student learning. The teachers had a poor understanding of the nature of science and none of them recognized a cultural element of NOS. They maintained a Universalist perspective of science with a strong commitment to the philosophy of scientism which left no room for a multicultural view of science. These results have implications for the broad science community with respect to the philosophy and nature of science. There are also implications in pre- and in-service teacher education and professional development aimed at raising cultural awareness of science teachers and providing a broader understanding of NOS. The problems raised by this research appear to be systemic requiring a commitment beyond the level of the individual teacher to implement a multicultural education that matches the composition of our classrooms.
Teachers learning together to enact culturally relevant pedagogy for English learners: a call to reclaim PLCs
(MinneTESOL - Minnesota Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 2014) Benegas, Michelle
Unsettling Narratives: Teaching and Learning About Genocide in a Settler Space
(2022-12) Dalbo, George
This research study examined how students and I navigated learning and teaching about genocide and mass violence in the context of a semester-long high school comparative genocide and human rights elective course at DeWitt Junior-Senior High School in rural south-central Wisconsin. Specifically, the study examined how students individually and collectively navigated the “difficult knowledge” (Pitt & Britzman, 2003) of learning about settler colonialism (Tuck & Yang, 2012), the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the United States during the nineteenth century, the legacies of genocide and mass violence at the intersections of U.S. and Indigenous societies during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014), and the enduring legacies of white supremacy and settlerness. Additionally, this study sought to understand how I, a white social studies teacher, navigated teaching about settler colonialism and the genocide of Indigenous peoples in a settler space (Dalbo, 2021). Through examining one specific semester-long elective class during the 2021-2022 academic year, this research grew out of my and my students’ struggles and success in teaching and learning about genocide and mass violence over the past fifteen years that I have been engaged in social studies teaching and research. This qualitative study (Patton, 2015) brought together aspects of case study (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2011), and practitioner research, specifically self-study (Loughran & Northfield, 1998; Zeichner, 1999) methodologies and methods.

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Browsing by Subject "Teacher education"