Dispositions: Real-Time Active Practice

This longitudinal case study followed new teachers from one small undergraduate pre-service program into the first years of teaching. The researcher’s initial study (Hughes, 2014) examined dispositional awareness and development of participants using personal interview data from program graduates, interview data from program faculty, and archived course artifacts. The current study extends the research and shines a light on dispositional development from pre-service through the fourth year of teaching. Using personal interviews, a focus group meeting, and archived course artifacts, the study affirms the significance of dispositions in pre-service preparation and professional practice. The study validates that participants carry dispositional awareness into the fourth year of teaching and also reveals a variety of strategies that new teachers use to grow dispositions. Of significance is the finding that new teachers require a set of dispositional practices for career longevity. This finding exposes the need for increased professional development opportunities related to dispositions during and beyond the first years of teaching

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

Can Resilience Be Our Teacher Super-power?

Teaching is courageous work. Today\u27s teachers face heavy workloads and growing emotional responsibilities as K-12 students and families face complicated hurdles and issues such as mental health issues, immigration, and natural disasters. This essay names resilience, grit, and perseverance as essential dispositions needed to tackle the daily hurdles and unexpected circumstances found in the classroom and pre-service teacher preparation. The author’s reflections lead to practical recommendations with the intention to nurture and cultivate resilience in teachers and school communities

Student experiences of technology integration in school subjects: A comparison across four middle schools

This research examined student perspectives on their in-school, subject specific, technology use in four U.S. public schools. Considering students’ perspectives may provide a significant reframing of adult-created rhetoric of the utopian power of digital technologies for changing teaching and learning. A survey and focus group interviews were administered to 6th and 7th students (n=1,544) in four public middle schools, with varying demographics, that rely on local funding. These four schools revealed moderate use of many well-established digital technologies, such as word processing, presentation software, and quiz games. Students voiced outright hatred for teacher-directed PowerPoint-supported lectures, the most prominent technology activity students experienced, yet reported enjoying creation activities. The students in the rural school with a Hispanic-majority and high economically disadvantaged population reported much lower technology use. Discussion frame the digital inequities in the four schools and emphasizes the need for awareness and inclusion of students’ digital experiences to form any trajectory toward establishing digital equity and learning in schools

Grandmothering in Remission

Xander, your Grandma is really sorry, but right now I can’t concentrate on this upcoming milestone in your life, your first birthday, because today I’m having my two year scans. In this personal narrative I explore grandmothering from a position of uncertainty— in this case cancer in remission. Using the framework of letters to my young grandson, I unpack my expectations for and experiences of the role of grandmothering, contextualized by my simultaneous effort to understand myself as a cancer survivorand the liminality of that particular status. How do I develop a relationship with my grandchild when he may not even have the memories of our interactions? How do I grandmother authentically while masking the health worries that sometimes threaten to consume me? How do I care for my daughter who has become a mother from a position of strength and confidence when the very ground I walk on feels unsettled and the future unclear? Considering issues of temporality, relationship directionality, caregiving, and authenticity, I place my musings as a grandmother and cancer survivor from my cancer journal, half-written letters, poetry, and reflective narrative into interaction

One Pre-Service Program\u27s Dispositional Efforts Revealed

This case study examined the pre-service teacher’s dispositional development in one small, undergraduate preparation program. The author conducted personal interviews with four former students and two faculty members, and analyzed and triangulated the data with archived artifacts. The study revealed four distinct expressions for dispositional development in the pre-service program: an early and sustained focus on dispositions, modeling by faculty, as well as embedded coursework and multiple practice contexts, with particular emphasis on clinical experience contexts. The four expressions functioned in tandem to foster dispositional development in the pre-service teacher. The research revealed that because the dispositional focus was embedded and integrated throughout the program, the pre-service teacher appeared to carry the dispositional awareness into the first professional teaching position. This conclusion validated the increasing burden and responsibility for pre-service programs to prepare highly qualified teachers with dispositions or heart for career longevity. Of particular significance, faculty and student participants acknowledged the unique link between the program’s dispositions and the college’s faith-based approach. The study affirmed the pre-service program’s efforts to implement a dispositional focus with recommendations to compare programs of similar size, as well as conduct follow up interviews with participants in a longitudinal study to trace the program’s dispositional efforts

Restoration: Emerging with Courage

This essay, first presented at the conference (name has been changed) as a talk at anonymous university, examines one pre-service faculty’s scholarly journey. Written during the Covid-19 pandemic, the author highlights research about professional teaching dispositions specifically exploring the disposition of courage. The essay reveals how the author’s research and scholarship became life-giving during a challenging season. The author encourages colleagues to cultivate space to reflect, summon courage and consider where they can seek and find restoration in their work and scholarship. The author concludes that seeking restoration is a life-giving practice that reminds educators of our faith and calling––and why we chose to teach