Building a More Resilient Approach to ELL Field Experience in Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter examines different models of field experiences in a teacher education program designed for resiliency in response to the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the mentoring experiences of preservice teachers in each model. The chapter begins with an introduction to a general impact of the pandemic on teacher education, particularly on its field experience components, and provides a question that guides research reported in this chapter. The introduction is followed by a review of literature on how preservice teachers have been mentored in their field experiences. Then a methodology section describes one teacher education course as a site for data collection and the tools and procedure for data collection and analysis. Next, the research findings are presented in two parts, the survey results on the demography of the participants and their different models of field experience and the results from the follow-up interviews on the participants’ perceptions of their mentoring experiences. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion and implication of the findings for preservice teacher education post-pandemic.