Teacher Residency Program Research Articles

When Whiteness Clouds Mindfulness: Using Critical Theories to Examine Mindfulness Trainings for Educators in Urban Schools

ABSTRACT This article describes results from a critical co-ethnography focused on a mindfulness training for educators in an urban school district in the southeastern region of the U.S. Working across racial difference, and utilizing critical race theory and critical whiteness studies as lenses, the co-ethnographers identified individualism that subverted systemic levels of oppression, race neutral ideologies, and ways the curricula and facilitation of this mindfulness training may have missed opportunities for racial equity work. Additionally, ideologies of whiteness were present in the training despite being situated in a larger teacher residency program with a mission centered on the realization of equity and racial justice in schools. Implications for mindfulness programs and urban teacher residency models are explored.

Using multiple measures of teaching quality to strengthen teacher preparation

We argue that teacher preparation programs considering approaches to assess teaching quality should choose measures that appropriately represent the complexity of teaching, have formative value in supporting teacher candidates develop as highly qualified teachers and consider the context, mission, and people that the program desires to serve. The authors are part of a research team working with an urban teacher residency program housed in a university’s teacher education program. The increased focus on clinical experience and mandated accountability that accompany federal grants created a fertile space to experiment with different types of measures and data collection approaches, well beyond what is typical in traditional teacher education programs. In this essay, we discuss the philosophy and considerations that informed the selection of these measures in the program, and the processes that were followed to use this data in ways that consider the complexity of teaching and honor the value of data as a tool for program improvement.

Through Failure and Reflection: Conceptualizations of a Successful Teacher Residency Experience

ABSTRACT This study explores how the various stakeholders of a teacher residency program define what it means for a teacher resident to be successful during the residency year. Researchers employed a qualitative case study design and conducted interviews with the university faculty, residency program staff, mentor teachers, and graduates of the residency program in order to conceptualize teacher resident success. The findings that emerged emphasized developing an understanding of learning from failure. Second, the arc of a full year of pre-service training gave program participants the opportunity to learn how to effectively establish relationships, develop a teacher presence, and maintain work-life balance. These findings serve as a reminder of the human and interpersonal nature of teaching and learning, and that success is more than some numerical measure of effectiveness. The paper concludes with a call to better inform residency program planning and evaluative documents that can help residents grow based on a qualitatively operationalized definition of success.

Reimagining social justice-oriented teacher preparation in current sociopolitical contexts

In this collaborative autoethnography, written by multiple stakeholders involved in a teacher residency program, we address the complexities of preparing and supporting social justice-oriented teachers. We identify three tensions faced in the design and (re)development of the teacher preparation program. These tensions include preparing teachers to work in a specific context, collaborating with mentor teachers to support social justice-oriented practice, and offering university-based induction to support novice teachers’ work. We describe the ways in which we attempted to navigate these tensions, and we highlight the difficulties and possibilities of the work. We offer implications for the field and, for us, as teacher educators, to continue to grapple with concepts of social justice.

A phenomenological case study of teacher candidate experiences during a yearlong teacher residency program

This phenomenological case study investigated teacher candidates’ experiences in a yearlong undergraduate teacher residency program to identify candidate conceptualizations of the effective design elements of an intentionally created practice-based teacher education program. Such experiences are generally characterized by full-year co-teaching experiences in PK–12 classrooms alongside a mentor teacher within a district whose values closely align with the preparation program, while simultaneously taking relevant coursework with supporting university faculty . Researchers interviewed 16 teacher candidates to develop deeper understandings of the meaningful structures of the residency program as manifested through their experiences. Through an analysis of candidate statements, multiple key design elements and candidates’ perceived impact of the residency were unveiled. Findings demonstrate a paradigmatic challenge to current preparation models, and the potential of practice-base preparation, in particular teacher residency programs.

Developing a Mentoring Framework Through the Examination of Mentoring Paradigms in a Teacher Residency Program

In this paper, we extend on our exploratory study that examined mentors’ conceptualizations and practices of mentoring preservice teachers in a residency program to develop a mentoring framework to guide mentors’ approaches to mentoring preservice teachers in a year-long clinical experience. Our mentoring framework has the potential to make mentors consciously aware of their roles and purposes of mentoring throughout the year and within respective contexts. This metacognitive approach may help them to improve their practice and grow alongside their mentee. The Mentoring Framework for Mentoring is a tool that may be instrumental in developing mentors’ deeper understanding of the roles and purposes of mentoring to promote quality guidance and support for mentees. Our instrument has the potential to inform teacher preparation programs regarding goals and expectations for mentors to develop more formal mentoring guidelines and expectations, to better support the professional development of both preservice teachers and mentors.

A Matter of Perspectives: Studying the Persistence of Fourth-Year Urban Teachers From Two Preparation Programs

Recognizing the pressing problem of low teacher retention in urban schools, this qualitative study explores how two post-baccalaureate teacher education programs at the same university prepare candidates to persist in the profession. Through data analysis, it became clear that graduates of the Urban Teacher Residency program approached their students with an asset-based perspective, whereas graduates of the Master’s of Science in Teaching program often used deficit language to describe their students. We explore potential reasons for these varying approaches and consider how these perceptions relate to persistence. We conclude with recommendations for program design and delivery that emphasize asset-based approaches.

Urban Residents’ Place-Based Funds of Knowledge: An Untapped Resource in Urban Teacher Residencies

Teachers who attended urban schools as students are uniquely positioned to understand both the structural context that urban schools operate within and the many funds of knowledge that urban students bring to school. The purpose of this study is to examine the funds of knowledge that individuals who have been students in urban schools and now wish to teach in a particular city in the northeastern United States bring to an urban teacher residency program. In this article, we describe these urban residents’ funds of knowledge, and argue that residents describe an emerging place-based pedagogical content knowledge.

Acknowledging Potential in Preservice Teachers’ Collaborative Practices

ABSTRACTWhen the research team began its qualitative exploration of what and how a cohort of preservice elementary/early childhood teachers’ in the University of California, Los Angeles' IMPACT Urban Teacher Residency Program learned, the 12-member team did not anticipate the degree to which preservice teachers would credit peers in their learning. On the urging of participants, the team began to systematically consider peer interactions. Curious about coherence in teacher education experiences, the team also attended to the program’s promotion of collaborative approaches. This article details ways that preservice teachers collaborated, inside the classroom and beyond, to support their learning and teaching. It also explores university features that supported collaboration including curricular inclusions, cohort models, student-centered seminars, mentor relationships, consistent modeling and feedback, and placement swaps. Findings suggest that peer relationships may be especially important to preservice teachers’ learning and also that university messages can reinforce the value and practices of collaboration.

Characterizing mentoring capital in a residency program through mentor’s voices

The purpose of our study was to examine mentors’ conceptualizations of mentoring residents (preservice teachers) in a teacher residency program. Understanding the nuances of mentoring in a year-long placement in a mentor’s classroom may further illuminate mentoring in this context. In this qualitative, longitudinal study, we used constant comparative analysis to allow the data to drive recurring patterns and ideas linked to real-life situations and values coding to examine mentors’ conceptualizations of mentoring in a residency program. Residents enrolled in the federally-funded Teaching Residency Program for Critical Shortage Areas program were placed in a high-need urban secondary school for a year-long clinical experience to work alongside mentors, who had a non-evaluative role. By examining mentors’ conceptualizations of mentoring in this particular context, our data reveal aspects of their agency that reflected three main themes: (a) professional altruism, (b) extant knowledge, and (c) resident as stimulus. Our findings add to the research on mentoring by illuminating the voices of mentors to describe how they conceptualized mentoring and to further examine their motivations for mentoring, contributions to the mentee, and professional gains.

Curriculum, Social Justice, and Inquiry in the Field: Investigating Retention in an Urban Teacher Residency

ABSTRACTThis qualitative study analyzes the retention data of an urban teacher residency program, a recent approach to developing quality teachers. The authors identify patterns of movers, leavers, and stayers and draw on interview data to better understand residents’ (program graduates) perspectives on ways the program informs their practice after graduation. Using the university conceptual framework of curriculum, inquiry, and social justice, the authors examine how residents might demonstrate retention and practice of key concepts and principles that undergirded their residency program. This study furthers our understanding of how residencies support the preparation of new teachers in high-needs schools and shortage areas.

Inquiry in the Round? Education Rounds in an Teacher Residency Program

ABSTRACTIn education, the Rounds model provides opportunities for engaging educators as communities of learners who examine instructional issues for purposes of understanding and improving them. Over the past 10 years, Rounds have been implemented in school-based experiences in teacher preparation programs across the nation. Yet despite recent interest, there is little description of the opportunities and challenges of implementing the Rounds in teacher preparation. The purpose of this article is to describe Education Rounds implemented in one urban teacher residency program. To do so, we explore the emerging literature on Rounds and the residency program’s process of implementing Rounds. We present examples of residents’ experiences with Rounds, and we discuss tensions that arise when implementing Rounds as an innovative pedagogical approach in teacher preparation.

Coherence, dissonance, and personal style in learning to teach

Concern that practical realities in classrooms will ‘trump’ theories has led some universities to design residency teacher education programs that maximize coherence between university coursework and field experiences. Yet, some research suggests that student teachers can learn from dissonance. This qualitative case study of one cohort in an urban teacher residency program that sought to maximize coherence asks how the apprentice teachers experienced connections between the university and the field. Although apprentices experienced dissonance, they nonetheless expressed coherent philosophies aligned with university values. Coherence was something that individual apprentices constructed for themselves as they developed a personal ‘style’ or way of teaching in a program that welcomed their prior identities. Coherence was achieved through early development of a personal professional identity, not perfect alignment between field and university.

Freezing Out Injustice: Using ICE to Foster Democratic Inquiry

In an urban teacher residency program, preservice science teachers experience what it's like to teach for social justice through the use of a democratic inquiry stance, thus moving toward an understanding of teaching for social justice as larger than one individual teacher in a classroom.

Is Experience the Best Teacher? Extensive Clinical Practice and Mentor Teachers’ Perspectives on Effective Teaching

This article presents a study of mentor teachers who work with residents in an urban teacher residency program in New York City. Forty-six mentor teachers (i.e., cooperating teachers) were asked to describe moments of effective mentoring, as well as their own strengths, weaknesses, and goals as mentors. Implicit in mentor teachers’ descriptions of effective mentoring were their perspectives on effective teaching. These perspectives offer much insight into the challenges of clinically rich teacher preparation for a particular urban context, raising several dilemmas that should be considered amid the calls for teacher preparation that is deeply rooted in field practice.

“Context-Specific” Teacher Preparation for New York City

In this article, we examine a residency program that was developed to prepare teachers specifically for New York City schools—the Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching Urban Teacher Residency program. This focused preparation on the particular urban context of New York City provides us with a unique opportunity to examine the nature of preparation—how such targeted preparation is conceptualized and organized, what it offers, and what might be missing and need to be strengthened. We also describe the development of a yearlong course aimed at preparing teachers for New York, which emerged from this study.

“Teachers are works in progress”: A mixed methods study of teaching residents’ beliefs and articulations of teaching for social justice

Teacher candidates’ beliefs about teaching for social justice affect the ways in which they act with students, schools, and communities. There is a growing body of research on teacher candidates’ beliefs of teaching for social justice, however there is limited research on larger samples over the course of teacher preparation. This mixed method study examines the beliefs and articulations of teaching for social justice of two cohorts of teaching residents who completed an urban teacher residency program. Findings suggest that residents developed nuanced ways of articulating and generally left the program endorsing ideas related to teaching for social justice.

Exploring Inquiry in the Third Space: Case Studies of a Year in an Urban Teacher-Residency Program

ABSTRACTUsing case studies, we describe what happens from novice to apprentice when preservice teachers learn to teach in an urban teacher-residency (UTR) program with a focus on inquiry. Our UTR operates within a “third space” in teacher education, seeking to realign traditional power relationships and to create an alternate arena where the roles of the university, school, teacher candidate, and community can be reimagined. This third space encourages preservice teachers to be inquirers themselves in order for them to support their students as inquirers.

A teacher residency melds classroom theory with clinical practice

The University of South Florida has designed and initiated a two-year teacher residency program that intends to meld classroom preservice teacher instruction with work in classrooms with children from low-income and urban backgrounds. The Urban Teacher Residency Partnership Program is a joint effort between the University of South Florida and Hillsborough County Public Schools. Six elementary schools are part of the program. Clinical preparation is central to the program. So is collaboration between USF faculty and the Hillsborough school district. The author calls for more study and research into the residency model for preparing preservice teachers.

Support and assist: approaches to mentoring in a yearlong teacher residency

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine mentor teachers’ approaches to mentoring preservice teachers in a yearlong teacher residency program (TRP).Design/methodology/approach– This multiple-methods study examined 15 mentor teachers’ approaches over the course of a year in an urban TRP through the lens of Wang and Odell’s (2002) framework for mentoring. Data sources included mentors’ self-assessments over three points in time across one academic year. These self-assessments included numerical ratings of practice (quantitative) as well as open-ended rationales and goal setting (qualitative).Findings– Mentors predominately provided support and technical assistance to the residents learning to teach, drawing on humanistic, and situated apprentice perspectives on mentoring. They worked to develop residents’ self-confidence and exposed residents to a range of practices and school contexts. Glimmers of a more critical constructive approach were apparent in some mentors’ discussions of reflection and collaboration.Research limitations/implications– This study informs the work of teacher education programs as they develop mentoring structures that align with program visions, expand notions of mentoring, and consider the many roles of a mentor teacher.Originality/value– Increased emphasis on clinical experiences for preservice teachers highlights the need to attend to the practices of the mentor teachers with whom they work. These mentors, as field-based teacher educators, play a critical role in teacher education, and teacher education programs need to support their professional development as mentors. Understanding mentors’ approaches to mentoring is necessary in order to provide this support.