Policy Reservations: Early Childhood Workforce Registries and Alternative Pedagogy Teacher Preparation

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Education, 2015Due to narrowly defined quality measures, teacher preparation in Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio and LifeWays pedagogies is not recognized in many state ECE professional development systems. The problem is compounded by Quality Rating and Improvement System’s child care program ratings, which rely on teacher qualifications as a component of program ratings. Limitations, due to philosophical dissimilarities pertaining to the spirit of the child, ill-fitting measurements of quality, and policy exclusion make it difficult for alternative pedagogy communities to meet qualifications or to obtain scores that count. This is exacerbated by narrow definitions regarding national versus regional accreditation in teacher preparation programs.Using a transformative, mixed-methods approach, this study asks, “What is the role and relevance of alternative pedagogy teacher preparation to the professional development system, and where does it fit in the current policy landscape nationwide?” As a follow up question, the study seeks to answer, “What is the process for change?” Through the use of surveys, interviews, and a cultural context model, a way forward is mapped. Registry policy makers in 28 states and 46 teacher preparation directors, across three types of alternative-pedagogy teacher preparation programs, assisted in data collection, resulting in a recognition baseline. Public sources were used to triangulate a composite snapshot of this national policy situation, demonstrating appropriate policy inclusion in six out of 17 states’ career pathways and/or data collection in ECE workforce registries. Cumulative data revealed alternative pedagogy teacher recognition levels across the country and revealed how relevant policies evolved to become system inclusive. The study concludes by inviting community representatives to respond and to share their experiences and thoughts. Actionable study outcomes, community-developed recommendations, and an advocacy map were circulated in three of four alternative pedagogy communities. Using a cultural equity paradigm, the study elucidates power relationships between alternative pedagogy teacher preparation and national/state efforts towards ECE professional development and quality improvement policy systems, illuminating where federal and state policy/initiatives are shaping, responding to, and limiting the alternative-pedagogy teacher preparation pipeline in the United States. Recommended courses of action encourage policy collaboration and a cultural shift from policy power over, to power with policy

Alternative Pedagogy Approaches in Physical Education and Health Education

This study aims to develop alternative pedagogical approaches to Physical Education and Health Education. The development of the alternative pedagogical approaches is based on 21st-century learning, Constructivism Theory, Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), and Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. The research design used the pre-experimental one-shot case study method A sample of 65 Physical Education teachers was obtained through purposive sampling. The data were analyzed descriptively using mean and percentage. Subsequently, the effectiveness of the alternative pedagogical approaches and the interobserver agreement was evaluated using a questionnaire. The 8 alternative pedagogical approaches that have been developed include Music (95%), Commentary Review (85%), Plotter Sketch (95%), Body Metaphor (85%), Ideaspora (90%), Extrapolation (85%), Stage Play (85%), and Skimps (95%). The percentage of an interobserver agreement to use the alternative pedagogical approaches developed exceeds 70% agreement between the testers, and the value shows that it can be used. Overall, the developed alternative pedagogy approaches can be used as a guide for teachers to choose appropriate teaching methods during the teaching and learning process

The Socratic Method in the Introductory PR Course: An Alternative Pedagogy

In the recent past several educators and practitioners have advocated the use of a Socratic dialogue or case method to teach public relations principles. Reported here are the results of an empirical study comparing student reactions to and perceptions of learning in introductory public relations courses using a traditional lecture format and a Socratic approach. The independent variables in this study are lecture and Socratic teaching methods. It was hypothesized that compared to students in a traditional course, students in the Socratic course would: (1) retain more factual information about public relations, (2) feel more confident in their knowledge and skills needed to work in public relations, (3) report more opportunity to practice critical thinking, (4) report more opportunity to practice problem solving skills, (5) report greater aspiration to work in public relations, and (6) report higher levels of course satisfaction. For four of the six research questions examined, there were small differences between students who received traditional and Socratic instruction. These differences were in the direction expected but were not statistically significant. There were significant differences in the two groups showing that students who received the Socratic instruction reported more opportunities in practicing their critical thinking ability, and ability to solve practical public relations problems

Sense of Place in the Anthropocene: A students-teaching-students course

Contemporary environmental education is tasked with the acknowledgement of the Anthropocene - an informal but ubiquitous term for the current geological epoch which arose from anthropogenic changes to the Earth system - and its accompanying socio-ecological implications. Sense of Place can be a hybridized tool of personal agency and global awareness for this task. Through the creation, execution and reflection of a 14-student students-teaching-students (STS) course at the University of Vermont in the Spring of 2019, Giannina Gaspero-Beckstrom and Ella Mighell aimed to facilitate a peer-to-peer learning environment that addressed sense of place, social justice and community engagement. The students-teaching-students framework is an alternative educational approach that supports the values and practices of the University of Vermont’s Environmental Program, as well as an intentional breakdown of the hierarchical knowledge paradigm. Using alternative pedagogies (predominately critical and place-based), we attempted to facilitate meaningful learning through creative expression, experiential education, community dialogue and personal reflection. Our intention with this was to encourage awareness and action

Widening the Angle: Film as Alternative Pedagogy For Wellness In Indigenous Youth

Indigenous youth face numerous challenges in terms of their well-being. Colonization enforced land and cultural loss, fractured relationships, and restricted the use of the imagination and agentic capacity (Colonial policies, structures, and approaches in education have been detrimental to Indigenous youth (Nardozi, 2013). Many First Nations leaders, community members, and youth have expressed a need for a wider range of activities that move beyond Western models of knowledge and learning (Goulet & Goulet, 2015). School curricula in Indigenous communities are incorporating alternative pedagogical tools, such as the arts, that not only allow youth to explore and express their realities and interests but that also offer them holistic ways of learning and knowing (Yuen et al., 2013). This article describes a participatory arts research project which featured film production and was delivered in the context of a grade 10 Communications Media course. The research took place at a First Nations high school in a Neehithuw (Woodland Cree) community in northern Saskatchewan. This article highlights the content of the films produced, the benefits of the filmmaking experience, and the challenges faced by the teacher and students during the process

The Myth of the Unteachable: Youth, Race and the Capacity of Alternative Pedagogy

My research consisted of three years of qualitative inquiry, including 62 interviews with members of the Department of Education, school administrators, teachers and students, as well as a yearlong ethnography at a transfer school that I chose because of its history of success with the city\u27s hardest- to-reach youth. To my knowledge, mine is the first formal study of New York City transfer schools. Transfer schools are New York City\u27s public alternative schools, which serve over-age, under- credited high school students (i.e. students who are behind in school). These students experience many challenges and interruptions to their education, including homelessness, incarceration, immigration, financial hardship (that can require students to work during school hours), being (teen) parents, drug addiction, and having to care for sick or dying family members, to name a few. There are presently 44 transfer schools in the city, and the overwhelming majority of students who attend them are poor youth of color. I engage existing scholarship on education policy, social reproduction, and critical race theory, and prioritize the voices of students and teachers in my analysis. In The Myth of the Unteachable: Youth, Race and the Capacity of Alternative Pedagogy, I make three main arguments. First, I describe how schools contribute to the reproduction of race and class inequalities. However, my data show that when economically disadvantaged students of color are instructed to locate their own academic failures in the historical context of an education system that has consistently produced unequal outcomes, those students can learn to see the difference between their personal failures, and the failures of the school system, and this helps them to regain the self-esteem necessary to make significant educational progress. Second, I show how accountability-era (2001-present) education policies like the Bush administration\u27s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Obama administration\u27s Race to the Top (RTT) undermine public education and especially frustrate the work of transfer schools that serve at-risk youth. Contributing the case of transfer schools to extant scholarship on the more general harms of NCLB and RTT, I follow education policy from the national to the local level, describing how policies trickle down to affect individual transfer schools, teachers and students in damaging and destructive ways. Lastly, using psychoanalytic theory, I apply the concept of working alliance to student-teacher relationships, articulating how these relationships affect student outcomes. In educational contexts, working alliance refers to generative and productive relationships between teachers and students. The development of a working alliance entails achieving consensus about what school is for, and how learning occurs. This requires agreement about goals and tasks, and is especially strengthened by the development of interpersonal bonds between students and teachers. I describe how working alliances can be achieved, and illustrate how the development of these alliances increased student retention and achievement

Overcoming acculturation: physical education recruits' experiences of an alternative pedagogical approach to games teaching

© 2015 Association for Physical Education Background: Physical education teacher education (PETE) programmes have been identified as a critical platform to encourage the exploration of alternative teaching approaches by pre-service teachers. However, the socio-cultural constraint of acculturation or past physical education and sporting experiences results in the maintenance of the status quo of a teacher-driven, reproductive paradigm. Previous studies have reported successfully overcoming the powerful influence of acculturation, resulting in a change in PETE students' custodial teaching beliefs and receptiveness to alternative teaching approaches. However, to date, limited information has been reported about how PETE students' acculturation shaped their receptiveness to an alternative teaching approach. This is particularly the case for PETE recruits identified in the literature as most resistant to change. Purpose: To explore the features and experiences of an alternative games teaching approach that appealed to PETE recruits identified as most resistant to change, requiring a specific sample of PETE recruits with strong, custodial, traditional physical education teaching beliefs, and whom are high-achieving sporting products of this traditional culture. The alternative teaching approach explored in this study is the constraints-led approach (CLA), which is similar operationally to Teaching Games for Understanding, but distinguished by a neurobiological theoretical framework (nonlinear pedagogy) that informs learning design. Participants and setting: A purposive sample of 10 Australian PETE students was recruited for the study. All participants initially had strong, custodial, traditional physical education teaching beliefs, and were successful sporting products of this teaching approach. After experiencing the CLA as learners during a games unit, participants demonstrated receptiveness to the alternative pedagogy. Data collection and analysis: Semi-structured interviews and written reflections were sources of data collection. Each participant was interviewed separately, once prior to participation in the games unit to explore their positive physical education experiences, and then again after participation to explore the specific games unit learning experiences that influenced their receptiveness to the alternative pedagogy. Participants completed written reflections about their personal experiences after selected practical sessions. Data were qualitatively analysed using grounded theory. Findings: Thorough examination of the data resulted in establishment of two prominent themes related to the appeal of the CLA for the participants: (i) psychomotor (effective in developing skill) and (ii) inclusivity (included students of varying skill level). The efficacy of the CLA in skill development was clearly an important mediator of receptiveness for highly successful products of a traditional culture. This significant finding could be explained by three key factors: the acculturation of the participants, the motor learning theory underpinning the alternative pedagogy and the unit learning design and delivery. The inclusive nature of the CLA provided a solution to the problem of exclusion, which also made the approach attractive to participants. Conclusions: PETE educators could consider these findings when introducing an alternative pedagogy aimed at challenging PETE recruits' custodial, traditional teaching beliefs. To mediate receptiveness, it is important that the learning theory underpinning the alternative approach is operationalised in a research-informed pedagogical learning design that facilitates students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the approach through experiencing and or observing it working

INNOWIZ: a guided framework for projects in industrial design education

This paper presents the concrete application of the INNOWIZ methodology in a design education context. This methodical philosophy is used as a structural backbone in teaching the product design process to students in industrial product design. Observations and teaching experience concluded that these students need a METHOD to manage their creative processes, INSPIRATION in the form of tools and techniques to reach to the breakthrough ideas and make them more tangible one step at a time, and a PERSONAL APPROACH to tackle any specific situation and to deal with many different design briefs

The Cantos and Pedagogy

The argument of Kindellan and Kotin's essay, ‘The Cantos and Pedagogy’, is that, contrary to the prevailing critical view, The Cantos is not a pedagogical poem. More specifically, they argue that the poem rejects the idea that a methodological approach to knowledge is desirable. The Cantos is obsessed with who we are, not what we can learn. Put otherwise, the horizon of Pound's concern in The Cantos is ontological, not epistemological. Charles Altieri, Alan Golding, Marjorie Perloff, and Steven G. Yao and Michael Coyle challenge this claim. The range of their replies demonstrates the breadth of the problem at hand. They all construe The Cantos as embodying an alternative pedagogy rather than, as Kindellan and Kotin argue, an alternative to pedagogy