Urban-Focused and Community-Based Teacher Preparation

Existing challenges in many urban schools have led to an increased emphasis on urban-focused teacher preparation. While this work can be demanding and complex, many Christian teacher education programs desire to engage in this work as part of their efforts to prepare their teacher candidates to teach all students and to promote more equitable educational opportunities in urban communities. In this article, the author reviews the literature on effective urban teacher preparation and then discusses the potential for collaboration with local schools and communities to support this work in Christian teacher education programs. The author argues that authentic engagement with urban schools and communities is necessary to provide teacher candidates with the understandings, frameworks, and experiences needed to flourish in their work and to develop meaningful relationships with students, families, and community members

Working to Recover the Essence of Education for the Sake of Teaching and Teacher Education: Towards a Phenomenological Understanding of the Forgotten, Ontological Aspects of Learning

The current definition of a good teacher is grounded in sets of pre-determined competencies established and imposed upon schools by bureaucratic organizations that are, proximally and for the most part, removed from the foundational elements of education, namely, the existential, embodied conscious experience of teaching and learning as it unfolds in the lived world of schools and universities. As Pinar (2004) observes, contemporary American education is deterministic, and in its press for efficiency and standardization,\u27 has the effect of reducing teachers to automata (p. 28). Thus, the subject-hood, or authentic identity, of both teachers and students is not of their own free construction, both run the risk of becoming mechanized and depersonalized because education has lost sight of, or obscured, what it means to be human in the first instance, which is an autonomous Being-in-the-world with others. Teachers are increasingly becoming alienated from the curriculum (educational content and pedagogy), their students, and themselves with dire consequences to the overall view to authentic subject-hood and real education

Mighty Teacher Mentors

Teaching is about cultivating curiosity, fostering a love for course content, and making connections with students. Educators who serve as mentors and pass on their passions for the profession and a love for sharing their craft can thoughtfully encourage prospective teachers into the field. This article captures and links one educator’s journey with the teaching mentors that encouraged a contagious love for teaching and learning in her. The article provides encouragement and practical suggestions for educators that desire to learn from authentic mentors and pay it forward with others in the faith. The article is adapted from a chapel talk given at Westmont College by the author on February 24, 2014

More Efficient High Schools in Maine: Emerging Student-Centered Learning Communities

American K-12 public education all across the nation is at a difficult and critical crossroads. We are at a time when keen global competition underscores the need for exceptional performance in our primary and secondary schools. Yet, state and federal governments face unprecedented budget deficits and limited resources for the foreseeable future. Additionally, our schools are being called upon to do an even better job of preparing students for the 21st century. There is growing evidence that success in the 21st Century requires more than what has traditionally been the content of schooling. It requires more and different types of knowledge, skills, and learning. To help students acquire this knowledge base and skills, many educators and leaders are calling for transformative changes in our schools and changes in how we help students learn. This transformative change is called by many names: performance-based learning, standards-based learning, and student-centered learning. The Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) describes this transformation to more student-centered learning as the need for:... growing a greater variety of higher quality educational opportunities that enable all learners -- especially and essentially underserved learners -- to obtain the skills, knowledge and supports necessary to become civically engaged, economically self-sufficient lifelong learners. (2011) Can our schools be transformed to meet these challenges? More importantly, can they be high performing, efficient, and student-centered at the same time? To explore these questions, the Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation at the University of Southern Maine conducted a study in 2010-2011 of a sample of Maine high schools. Funded in part by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the study examined the degree to which these More Efficient high schools were also student-centered. In 2010, NMEF identified some of the key principles and attributes of studentcentered learning. The principles are that: Student-centered education systems provide all students equal access to the skills and knowledge needed for college and career readiness in today's world. Student-centered education systems align with current research on the learning process and motivation. Student-centered education systems focus on mastery of skills and knowledge. Student-centered education systems build student's identities through a positive culture with a foundation of strong relationships and high expectations. Student-centered education systems empower and support parents, teachers, administrators, and other community members to encourage and guide learners through their educational journey. The key attributes are that: Curriculum, instruction and assessment embrace the skills and knowledge needed for success. Community assets are harnessed to support and deepen learning experiences. Time is used flexibly and includes learning opportunities outside the traditional school day and year. Mastery-based strategies are employed to allow for pacing based on proficiency in skills and knowledge. The goal of the study reported here was to determine to what extent these principles and attributes may be found in the high schools. To that end, once a sample of More Efficient high schools was identified, the beliefs, strategies, and practices found in these schools were examined in light of the 2010 NMEF key principles and attributes

Learning science: Sociocultural Dimensions of Intellectual Engagement

This paper takes a sociocultural perspective as it addresses the problem of engaging all students in learning science, in contrast to a companion (ASERA ’02) paper where I address the issue in relation to psychological issues, both papers arising from the same set of research studies in science education. In both cases I am asserting that the interaction between the teacher and student is critical in either engaging or alienating students, and, in this paper will address the language aspects of the relationship. Seen in the light of sociocultural, including sociolinguistic, theories, my research findings imply that `science literacy’ could usefully be reconceptualised as the learning of a discourse, or as the learning of a literacy or language—as literacy or language teachers might define these. This paper addresses the development of science literacy as a process of situated learning within a meaningful social context, what Lemke (1995) called an "ecosocial system". From this perspective, learning science is the learning of a discourse. This includes becoming familiar with genres but not in isolation from meaningful community practice. I conclude that if science is seen as a distinct discourse practice, then this has implications for the learning and teaching of science and for teacher education

Engagement in Authentic Geoscience Research: Evaluation of Research Experiences of Undergraduates and Secondary Teachers

This article examines the effects of a program involving authentic research on the participants' interest in research, career plans, and attitudes on science. The findings are from the first year of a three-year program funded by the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. In three out of four projects, participants increased their interest in research, with two-thirds planning to change career plans to become more research-oriented. The implications of these findings for providing authentic research opportunities are discussed. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Ethical and Political Implications of Reflective Practice among Preservice Teachers

This study investigates the ethical and political implications of reflective practice among preservice teachers. The author reviewed previous research which suggests the need for a more critical analysis of teacher education programs to implement more intensive reflective methodologies that foster authentic, caring, dispositional development as a moral obligation toward socially just practice rather than mere audited compliance with standards-based technical training. This position paper then analyzes preservice teacher education as an interdependent process of methodological development, perceptive development, and cognitive/affective development. Finally, the author makes recommendations for program modification to better prepare preservice teachers to conceptualize their transformative role in society

From profiles to rich tasks : the situated nature of \u27authenticity\u27 in the context of reforming curriculum and assessment practices

Outcome based education that has dominated Australian education in the 1990s is under review in the early years of the twenty first century. The available historical \u27texts\u27 produced during the first half of the 1990s, which include the national Statements and Profiles, and the state Curriculum and Standards Frameworks, provide us with documents that we can engage with not simply for \u27history\u27s sake\u27, but with an opportunity to, in the words of the feminist author Dorothy Smith, \u27displace[s] the analysis from the text as originating in writer or thinker, to the discourse itself as an ongoing intertextual process\u27 bringing into view the social relations in which texts are embedded and which they organise\u27 (1990, p. 161-2). Most Australian states and territories have now commenced significant situated, local curriculum renewal and reform. This renewed interest in curriculum offers insights into the character of recent assessment practices in Australia, recognising the tensions inherent in assessment practices and authentic assessment models. This paper explores, by way of an overview of the broad curriculum and assessment practices adopted in Australia over the past twenty-five years, the situated nature of \u27authenticity\u27 in the context of curriculum and assessment practices and how as teacher educators we are responding through our everyday work. <br /