Practicum assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse early childhood pre-service teachers

Abstract

Refugees, 2004) although a thorough review of this literature is beyond the scope of this paper. This study draws primarily on initial teacher education literature about the need for teacher education programs to prepare culturally sensitive and competent pre-service teachers (Allard & Santoro, 2004; Ball, 2000; Milner, 2003). This overview reveals there is little research about the cultural competence of teacher educators, including teachers in early childhood services who play a significant role in the supervision of pre-service teachers during the practicum. The research that has been done reveals an "unrecognised and unconscious ethnocentrism" (Han, 2006, p.28) in communicating with CALD pre-service teachers (Hatton, 1996) and the lack of cultural sensitivity on the part of supervising teachers (Cruickshank, 2004). As researchers and teacher educators, we are not immune from these criticisms and Ortlipp's previous research (Ortlipp, 2005) questioned how equitable the practicum assessment process is for CALD early childhood pre-service teachers. Given the need to increase and retain the numbers of CALD pre-service teachers (Hartsuyker, 2007; Prime, 2001), teacher education programs need to review policies and practices to identify the barriers and supports for CALD pre-service teachers to achieve success (Hobson-Horton & Owens, 2004). Although the present study focuses on early childhood pre-service teachers, it has the potential to contribute insights into practicum supervision and assessment for all pre-service teachers. Previous explorations of the experiences of CALD pre-service teachers With the exception of Ortlipp (2005) and Heald (2006), we were unable to identify empirical studies about CALD early childhood pre-service teachers in Australia or New Zealand. This is despite the small but significant number of pre-service teachers in Australia who do not speak English at home, many from neighbouring Asian countries (Santoro, 1999; Han, 2006). Some authors have expressed concerns about the retention rates for these pre-service teachers and the difficulties they face achieving success (Cruickshank, 2004; Clark & Flores, 2001; Han, 2006). Santoro's (1999) case study of the experiences of two Chinese-born-and-educated pre-service Accepted for publication in the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal in 2012 3 teachers on the practicum in Australian secondary schools suggests that racist discourses in schools impact negatively on student teachers' practicum experience. In one case, it was clear that the preservice teacher's ethnicity impinged negatively on the supervising teacher's assessment. Similarly, Ortlipp (2005) reported on incidents involving early childhood pre-service teachers from CALD backgrounds that highlighted the "potential equity issue of assessors basing their judgments of a student's competence against practicum assessment criteria on their own (often unconscious and unacknowledged) culturally based values" (p.45). Dubetz, Turley, and Erickson's (1997) analysis of their own ref...

The Complexity of Practicum Assessment in Teacher Education: An Examination of Four New Zealand Case Studies.

“…The research of Ortlipp (2003) and Nuttall and Ortlipp (2012) establishes the potential for 'silence' within the practicum assessment, in which participants feel that they cannot, or should not, share all that they would wish to in the assessment process. To explore this issue, each participant was directly asked if they felt that they were openly able to share their point of view within the assessment meetings.…”

Authoring Professional Identities: Immigrant and Refugee Women's Experiences in an Early Childhood Teacher Education Program

“…Not surprisingly, by the end of the program most of the students purged any of their cultural practices and beliefs that competed with the notion of the "good" early childhood educator, retaining only superficial signifiers of their cultural identities in practice. In Australia, Nuttall and Ortlipp (2012) interviewed culturally and linguistically diverse students after their field placements. Positioned by her supervisor within a discourse of "difference as deficit," one student commented that she needed to "become someone she would not be 'in real life'" in order to pass her placement (p. 57).…”

“…Immigrant and refugee women may experience an especially profound dissonance between the Euro-North-American content and expectations of the program and their own cultural beliefs, knowledges, experiences, and values (Gupta, 2006). Previous research has suggested that these women feel compelled to adopt program expectations at the expense of their own beliefs (Moles, 2014;Nuttall & Ortlipp, 2012).…”

Preparing culturally and linguistically diverse preservice Early Childhood teachers for field experience

“…Rehearsal was a targeted skill set given that it is a salient theme in the literature. CALD students' preference on field experience is to observe, rather than to participate (Iyer & Reese, 2013;Nuttall & Ortlipp, 2012;Spooner-Lane et al, 2009). That is, they tend towards "peripheral participation" rather than participation (Iyer & Reese, 2013, p. 34).…”

“…Increasing diversity in student populations requires attention to culturally responsive teaching and learning, and considerations of student experiences of coursework and field placements within degree programs (Harrison & Ip, 2013;Mak & Barker, 2013). For students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, research indicates that field placements in particular can produce unique challenges, including communication and language barriers, unfamiliarity with the Australian context and colloquialisms, interpreting how field supervisors define success, and assessment by way of western standards of graduate proficiency (Nuttall & Ortlipp, 2012;Ortlipp & Nuttall, 2011;Spooner-Lane, Tangen, & Campbell, 2009). For both university staff and field supervisors, there are additional cognitive and affective demands of intercultural competence necessary for effective approaches to teaching and learning and the supervision of CALD students in the field.…”