Abstract
A university near a major city in Georgia and a large, urban school district established a Professional Development School (PDS) in which the majority of junior and senior-level pre-service teacher coursework and fieldwork took place at seven urban, high-needs public schools. The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary feedback to the middle grades teacher preparation program concerning the UE (Urban Education) program in preparation for the second cohort of UE interns and the second year of study with the first cohort. What emerged from the study was evidence that the program, for its participating teacher candidates, leads to commitment, strengthens self-efficacy, and fosters early development of teacher efficacy, but which ultimately evolves into teacher candidate overconfidence. As pressure continues to mount concerning the quality of education in America, teacher preparation programs must improve their programs in order to better prepare teachers for diverse classrooms. This study relates one such effort toward that end.
Highlights
To provide the most effective preparation for future teachers, it is incumbent upon universities to collaborate with school systems when designing and implementing their teacher preparation programs
The following study relates the early findings of the effects on pre-service teachers of a new urban-emphasis teacher preparation program that established a professional development school (PDS) with urban schools in a metropolitan area of Georgia
Conducted during spring 2011, the second semester of the Urban Education (UE) program, the study’s data collection included a focus group interview with six middle grades UE interns; individual interviews with three UE interns, the middle grades liaison and a Pharr University professor who taught this group for two consecutive semesters; a class observation; a panel discussion observation; field notes; quantitative survey results; and researcher-generated documents which contained relevant, background material, clues, and insights into the phenomenon under study and, in some instances, helped to triangulate the findings (Merriam, 2009)
Summary
To provide the most effective preparation for future teachers, it is incumbent upon universities to collaborate with school systems when designing and implementing their teacher preparation programs. The combination of increasingly diverse students populating American schools combined with a teacher workforce consisting primarily of white, female teachers requires institutions of higher education to continually improve and expand their teacher education programs (Wiggins & Follo, 1996; Zeichner, 2003). The challenge for teacher preparation programs is to create programs which bridge the gap between the preservice teachers’ beliefs and their previous school experiences, addressing the reality of the increasingly diverse classroom environments in which they will teach (Bales & Saffold, 2011). For the focus group interview, purposeful sampling was employed. Three participants from the focus group were selected for individual interviews. One participant was selected because she offered negative comments about the operation of the program; another because she was so positive about her experience; and one because she did not seem to be an integral part the group
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