Restructuring Teacher Education Research Articles

The Possibility of Reform: Micropolitics in Higher Education

The purpose of this case study was to examine the restructuring of an institution of higher education's teacher preparation program and to assess the possibility for systemic reform. Although teacher education represents a vital link in not only the educational system but in curricular reform, the increased expectations for educational reform made this institution unavoidably more political. These conditions meant that the study of micropolitics was critical to understanding how organizations change or fail to initiate change. Any effort to reform an organization requires examination of the reform effort's underlying assumptions, social and historical context for the reform, and how reform is congruent with the values, ideologies, and goals of the constituents. This case will serve those critiquing reform and also takes the extant K-12 micropolitical research into the heretofore unstudied realm of higher education therefore impacting reform at the post secondary level. Schools are vulnerable to a host of powerful external and internal forces. They exist in a vortex of government mandates, social and economic pressures, and conflicting ideologies associated with administrators, faculty, and students. Efforts to reform school are confounded by competing political agendas. At the very least, reform is an opportunity for political action by people in power. While literature regarding effective schools touts strong leadership and shared values, accomplishing school reform continues to remain problematic. Despite the widespread interest and infusion of resources for restructuring teacher education, the history of educational reform shows that initiatives have often failed. The study began with the micropolitical hypothesis that the educational system comprises diverse constituencies with differing ideologies regarding schooling. Qualitative methodology was employed to portray intra-organizational processes, to provide concrete depiction of detail, and to study social change. Micropolitics and symbolic interactionism, the theoretical frameworks for the study, influenced the design and production of research and functioned as the interpretive focus. The study followed a multi method approach to understand meanings in context and to interpret these patterns in light of broader contexts. We employed the following multiple methods to generate a credible account of constituent ideologies: 23 semi-structured interviews, document review, and observational data. Data reveal fundamental differences in the images of five constituencies in these areas: curriculum, teachers, pupils, and teacher education and support the micropolitical assertion that systemic reform is unobtainable.

“My Eyes have been Opened”

A life history approach was used to examine the narratives of 6 White teachers of racially diverse classrooms who had been nominated as being “aware of race and racism” by a diverse panel of experts. The teachers’ responses to race were examined by semistructured interviews, a drawing of their racial identity, and a classroom visit that examined classroom artifacts and teacher-student interactions. Narrative analysis revealed that teachers’ perceptions of racial awareness were influenced by (a) perceived identity as “outsiders,” due to class background or sexual orientation, that enabled them to disidentify with the White mainstream; (b) living and working with individuals of other races in relationships that approximated “equal status” and exposed them to “insider” perspectives on race and racism; and (c) personal religious/philosophical beliefs that emphasized equality and social justice concerns. Implications for restructuring teacher education programs include revising candidate selection criteria, increasing the racial diversity of students and faculty, experiencing “immersion” in communities of color, and using autobiographical narrative as a pedagogical tool.

Redesigning Teacher Education as a Shared Responsibility of Schools and Universities

The impetus for school and university collaboration began in the mid-1990s with the Carnegie Forum (1986) and Holmes Group (1986) recommending the establishment of school-university partnerships to improve teaching and learning. The Carnegie report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century (1986), proposed that the best learning environment for teacher preparation was a clinical school linking school and university faculty. The Holmes Group recommended the establishment of professional development schools (PDSs) in which practicing teachers and administrators would work in partnership with university faculty to improve both schools and the preparation of teachers. Winitzky, Stoddart, and O'Keefe (1992) describe this relationship: A program of teacher education cannot be excellent without an excellent school in which to place student teachers. A school cannot be excellent without teachers graduated from excellent programs (p. 5). School and university systems are dependent upon each other for excellence, simultaneously facilitating renewal and change. Despite these efforts, little has changed in the last decade in K-12 schools and the preparation of teachers (Goodlad, 1990; Grant, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1995). The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (1996) found that although the quality of teaching significantly affects student learning and educational reform, the teaching profession has suffered from decades of neglect (Darling-Hammond, 1996). Like the Carnegie Forum and Holmes Group a decade earlier, the commission has called for major restructuring of teacher education and professional development (Darling-Hammond, 1996) and emphasized the importance of school-university partnerships in improving student learning and teaching. Many believe restructuring teacher education programs is long overdue (Fullan, 1994; Metcalf-Turner & Fischetti, 1996; Rigden, 1996). In California, a study of the major teacher training institutions (Hart & Burr, 1996) revealed a number of concerns in teacher education including disconnection between universities and K-12 school districts, poor quality of student teaching experiences, weak links between schools of education and liberal studies, and limited early clinical experiences. As a result of state and national research findings and a series of meetings held by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing for educators and community members on teacher education, Senate Bill 1422 was recently approved in California to restructure teacher education. This bill recommends that teacher education create shared responsibilities through K-12 and university partnerships, support faculty work with K-12 schools, build on preservice and induction experiences, and expand and enrich clinical experiences. Mounting pressure for institutions of higher education to assume a major role in serving the larger community is contributing to the movement toward school-university partnerships. Universities across the country are developing central missions emphasizing engagement in society, integrating community service in the academic curricula, and encouraging faculty to address important problems in the larger community (Rice, 1996). The role and reward structure of university faculty is beginning to change with a shift toward collaborative faculty work contributing to the central mission of the university and responding to community needs (Boyer, 1990; Rice, 1996). Although many universities are involved in reform efforts with school partners, much of their work has little effect on the redesign of teacher preparation. Some programs increase clinical preparation but maintain much of the traditional preparation program. Others develop collaborative courses but continue to implement an existing credential program. Still others offer collaborative programs but involve few tenureline faculty. Although these partnerships may improve aspects of teacher preparation programs, they generally result in existing program modifications or are tangential to business as usual at universities. …

An analysis framework for reflective writing

An analysis framework for reflective writing

Teaching as a profession and as a career: Minority candidates' perspectives

A case study of teacher candidates from three ethnic groups—Asian American, African-American, and Hispanic—in a state university in the U.S. reveal both similarities and differences in views on teaching as a profession and as a career between these students and their mainstream—white/Caucasian—peers. While the majority of the candidates under the study are proud of becoming members of the teaching profession, only one third of them plan to take teaching as a lifelong career. Emotional aspects (stress, frustration) appear to be the major cause for white teachers to leave the profession whereas the minority candidates are more likely to leave teaching when there are opportunities for them to do something else more rewarding. Although all the prospective teachers entered teaching for traditional altruistic reasons, the minority candidates were also motivated by their awareness of the inequalities in the existing educational and social establishments. Therefore, many minority candidates have clear and strong visions for social justice and for their own roles as change agents in the schools and society. Most of the white students, on the other hand, do not have these visions largely because of their optimal prior schooling experiences. It is argued that the minority candidates should be considered as the most important resource in restructuring teacher education programs and that efforts should be made to recruit and retain more qualified minority teachers in the teaching profession.

Creating and Using a Multiparadigmatic Knowledge Base for Restructuring Teacher Education in Special Education: Technical and Philosophical Issues

Important challenges that researchers face in the creation and use of a knowledge base for restructuring teacher education in the field of special education are reviewed and analyzed. Such challenges arise both from the changing intellectual context within which research operates and from the fundamental reform efforts currently underway throughout the educational community. Promising avenues for research to meet these challenges are delineated and the critical roles of multiparadigmatic research communities are highlighted. Mechanisms for the development, maintenance, and on-going operations of such communities are suggested, and potential caveats and pitfalls to their success are described.

Restructuring Teacher Education, the National Interest and Globalisation

Abstract This paper argues that the repositioning of Asian countries as new ‘centres’ for world trade and commerce and the transformation of Australian society and economy to accord with this global consolidation, includes a general restructuring of all levels of Australia's ‘education industry’ and specifically the (re)forming of its initial teacher and professional‐education programmes. The need for such reformation arises in part from the restructuring of the work of teaching based on a broader definition of the people and educational settings that are involved in the teaching/learning process, a reworking of this teaching/learning process, the higher status given to certain substantive areas of study, such as languages other than English, and the management of education along corporatist lines. This paper suggests further that teacher‐education programmes should also provide students with the resources to critically analyse these changes, giving consideration to issues such as identity, the impact of ...

The Role of New Technology in Teacher Education: A case study of hypertext in a PGCE course

Although the use of new technology in initial teacher education is widespread, its ro le is open to discussion and debate. Some key questions are: Should it be used mainly to introduce teachers to the technology they will meet in their future teaching? Should it play a part in the 'delivery' of teacher education? Can it be used to 'do teacher education differently' and even radically to re-structure teacher education programmes? The aim of this paper is to examine some of these questions in the light of the use of hypertext in one teacher education course and to consider the general issues which it illuminates.

Restructuring Teacher Education

As part of the process of developing a four year Bachelor of Education in September 1994, Edith Cowan University conducted a public seminar entitled ''Restructuring Teacher Education". The invited speakers were Dr Shirley Grundy (Murdoch University), Professor Bob Meyenn (Charles Sturt University), Sandra Milligan (Ashenden Milligan Pty Ltd), Professor Paige Porter (University of Western Australia), Greg Robson (Education Department of Western Australia and Professor Gordon Stanley (Education Policy and Coordination Bureau). Two of the presentations are published here to inform others engaged in the tasks of restructuring teacher education.

Knowing What Counts: Sacred Stories of Teacher Education

Lortie's (1975) concern that most of what is learned during teacher education disappears when education students enter the teaching profession seems true today. Our foci on curricula and program planning traditionally ignore the ways in which individuals construct and reconstruct knowledge of teaching and learning as they experience teacher education programs. Yarger and Smith (1990) note that the black mentality of antecedent-outcome severely limits the ability of researchers to understand the richness of teacher education programs (p. 39). In my work (Olson, 1993), I have tried to enter the black box through collaborative narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) to explore the ways in which Zach and Susan used their personal practical knowledge to construct and reconstruct meaning about teaching and learning in the contexts of their teacher education programs. By sharing my story of how Zach and Susan came to know what counts in their teacher education programs, we see how the professional knowledge of teacher education curricula is mediated through the personal practical knowledge of the individuals involved. Without paying close attention to the personal practical knowledge of the individuals involved, restructuring teacher education will continue to have little practical or theoretical relevance to the knowledge constructed and reconstructed by pre-service teacher education students. Through many audio-taped with Susan and Zach, we shared stories of our experiences in various teacher education contexts. These research conversations occurred between May, 1991 and December, 1992 — the year in which they participated in university-based courses and school-based practicum experiences. During this time I explored ways in which the personal practical knowledge Zach and Susan had constructed from previous experience shaped and was reshaped by their experiences in their teacher education programs. Here, I focus on the tensions they experienced between their personal practical knowledge and the professional knowledge presented to them in their courses.

Restructuring Teacher Education in Australia

Abstract Debate on teacher quality and quality in teaching and teacher education has been as vigorous in Australia as it has been in the UK and the USA. In Australia, however, reform in teacher education has been subsumed within a national metapolicy of corporate federalism which is an amalgam of beliefs or discourses including neo‐corporatism, economic rationalism, corporate managerialism and human capital. The paper analyses the most recent document on reform of teacher education in Australia (the Ebbeck Report) and shows how its policy formulation is influenced by the discourse of corporate federalism. It also shows how micro‐economic reform in this sector is related to reforms in other sectors of education.

The Ethic of Caring in Teacher Education

Interviews from an ethnographic study of elementary school teachers and students are cited to support the conclusion that an ethic of caring is essential to the definition of effective teaching. A process for restructuring teacher education programs on the basis of an ethic of caring is described. Seven characteristics of a teacher education program designed to promote the development of an ethic of caring are described: curriculum construction, modeling, dialogue, reflection, confirmation, practice, and continuity.

Teachers' Workplace Meets The Professors of Teaching: A Chance Encounter at 30,000 Feet

In Teachers' Workplace, Rosenholtz presents evidence suggesting that teachers' attitudes and behaviors are direct results of the social organization of their workplace. She describes low- consensus schools, where the many uncertainties in classroom teaching lead to isolation and pluralism, and high-consensus schools, where teachers solve problems collaboratively and, in the process, define common goals and desirable teaching methods. In The Professors of Teaching, education faculty emerge as a highly fragmented, pluralistic group, strikingly similar to the teachers Rosenholtz describes in low-consensus schools. Although some degree of pluralism is inherent in the nature of the professoriate, teacher education as a professional field may be unique in its extreme ill-structuredness. Teacher educators, like K-12 teachers in low-consensus schools, may be driven by the uncertainties of their work to the same coping mechanisms: isola tion and self-defensiveness. The task of restructuring teacher education appears to entail trans forming colleges of education into high-consensus schools. The deeply problematic nature of such a transformation is discussed.

Restructuring Teacher Education Programs for Higher-Order Thinking Skills

The rising emphasis in schools on the explicit teaching of higher-level cogni tive skills has important implications for preservice teacher education programs. Action on this topic by teacher educators is important now for establishing a strong theoretical model for cognitive education in preservice programs, facul ty development plans for teacher educa tion faculty, new kinds of collaboration between SCDEs and the schools, coordi nation with arts and sciences faculty, re vision of existing courses in teacher edu cation, and a research agenda to study the relationship between instruction in higher-level thinking skills for future teachers and their implementation of those ideas in the classroom. Models for restructuring the teacher education program to include higher-order think ing skills are presented by Martin.

Teacher Education Reform: Lessons from the Past Half Century

Bush describes several major attempts at reform that have occurred over the past half century. Efforts to restructure teacher education are not new, asserts the author. What we now need is to crit ically examine all of the reports that have been issued and to determine what next steps are warranted based on historical lessons and the current knowledge base.

Coping with Classroom Distractions

Previous articleNext article No AccessCoping with Classroom DistractionsGrant Behnke, Eugene M. Labovitz, Janice Bennett, Cindy Chase, Jane Day, Charlotte Lazar, and David MittleholtzGrant Behnke Search for more articles by this author , Eugene M. Labovitz Search for more articles by this author , Janice Bennett Search for more articles by this author , Cindy Chase Search for more articles by this author , Jane Day Search for more articles by this author , Charlotte Lazar Search for more articles by this author , and David Mittleholtz Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Elementary School Journal Volume 81, Number 3Jan., 1981 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/461217 Views: 70Total views on this site Citations: 7Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1981 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Matti Nelimarkka, Antti Salovaara, Giulio Jacucci Exploring Norm Violations and Norm Management in Collocated Synchronous Communication: Dual-channel Communication as Hybrid Space with Spillover and Asymmetries, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5, no.GROUPGROUP (Jul 2021): 1–24.https://doi.org/10.1145/3463933Qiang Wang, Hong Zhang Promoting teacher autonomy through university–school collaborative action research, Language Teaching Research 18, no.22 (Apr 2014): 222–241.https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168813505942Susan E. Noffke Chapter 6: Professional, Personal, and Political Dimensions of Action Research, Review of Research in Education 22, no.11 (Jun 2016): 305–343.https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X022001305Susan E. Noffke The work and workplace of teachers in action research, Teaching and Teacher Education 8, no.11 (Feb 1992): 15–29.https://doi.org/10.1016/0742-051X(92)90037-4Renée Clift, Mary Lou Veal, Marlene Johnson, Patricia Holland Restructuring Teacher Education Through Collaborative Action Research, Journal of Teacher Education 41, no.22 (Mar 1990): 52–62.https://doi.org/10.1177/002248719004100207Gary A. Griffin Why Use Research in Preservice Teacher Education? A Proposal, Journal of Teacher Education 35, no.44 (Jul 1984): 36–40.https://doi.org/10.1177/002248718403500408 William J. Tikunoff , and Beatrice A. Ward Collaborative Research on Teaching, The Elementary School Journal 83, no.44 (Oct 2015): 453–468.https://doi.org/10.1086/461326

Basic Issues in Restructuring Teacher Education

Basic Issues in Restructuring Teacher Education

Restructuring Teacher Education to Provide Alternatives

Restructuring Teacher Education to Provide Alternatives