Strange bedfellows in science teacher preparation: conflicting perspectives on social justice presented in a Teach For America—university partnership

McNew-Birren, Jill; Hildebrand, Tyra; Belknap, Gabrielle

doi:10.1007/s11422-016-9791-z

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Despite this lack of opportunity to both process and practice, CMs start teaching full time at the beginning of the school year. Meanwhile, as a result of mandates in some states, many CMs are concurrently required to take certification courses in a university-based program (McNew-Birren et al, 2018). In the case of Greenwood University, the context for this research, CMs were expected to take two graduate-level courses per semester during their two-year commitment to TFA.…”

Section: Teach For Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that CMs experienced a disconnect between the rhetoric of TFA and that of their instructors, or that tensions threatened to derail the partnership (Crawford-Garrett, 2013). In an analogous example (McNew et al, 2018), CMs in the Midwest experienced "cognitive dissonance" (p. 2) between the "overlapping but conflicting understandings of education" (p. 5) they learned and experienced in their coursework and those espoused by TFA. This also caused their university instructors to question whether the timing and arrangement of science education coursework was actually detrimental to the CMs' development as teachers.…”

Section: Framing the Synchronous-service Teachermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

Thomas

Lefebvre

2020

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context Teachers enrolled in alternative training and licensure programs may have experiences that lie outside what is considered typical for both preservice teachers and in-service teachers. This article explores the experiences of a growing cadre of “synchronous-service teachers”—including, but not limited to, Teach For America (TFA) corps members— who are teaching full time while also completing coursework in teacher preparation programs. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study This study considers how synchronous-service teachers perceived the education and training they received while enrolled in traditional teacher education coursework, as well as how they interpreted their broader interactions with the teaching profession and teacher education writ large. Research Setting and Participants This research was conducted in the Midwestern United States in a major metropolitan area with a TFA regional presence. Thirty-six corps members who completed coursework at a traditional teacher education institution opted to participate in this study. They were primarily White and female, and most entered TFA immediately following completion of their undergraduate degrees. The majority had little previous exposure to the education discipline. Research Design The thirty-six corps members were interviewed about their experiences while participating in TFA, teaching at their schools, and, especially pertinent to this article, learning at a partner university where TFA corps members in the region completed teacher education coursework. Findings/Results The findings suggest that corps members held primarily negative views about the teacher education coursework they experienced. They complained that the teacher education programming failed to provide immediately applicable insights and lacked rigor and relevance. Yet they also maintained paradoxical expectations about what teacher education, particularly for synchronous-service teachers, should or should not entail. Conclusions/Recommendations The article concludes by suggesting the potential utility of synchronous-service teachers as a conceptual category, noting that these teachers should be considered distinct from others. As such, providing synchronous-service teachers with teacher education programming designed for either preservice or in-service teachers may lead to missed opportunities in terms of professional learning and exacerbate negative sentiments about teacher education. The experiences and opinions of synchronous-service teachers can have considerable significance, particularly when these teachers go on to affect education leadership and policy. In sum, teacher education institutions are at a critical crossroads concerning how and whether to proceed with similar partnerships, especially as alternative recruitment and training programs continue to grow in the United States and beyond.

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Section: Teach For Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Framing the Synchronous-service Teachermentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

Thomas

Lefebvre

2020

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…Jiné studie by měly k postižení více míst sice potenciál, zůstávají však na půli cesty, když se zaměřují na zkušenost studentů a studentek z různých programů učitelského vzdělávání (např. McNew-Birren et al, 2017) nebo praxí v cizí zemi (např. Parr & Chan, 2015;Turner, 2013), aniž by byla provedena analýza dat srovnatelného rozsahu a hloubky z obou prostředí.…”

Section: Zahraniční Výzkumy Etnografie Diverzity V Pregraduální Učiteunclassified

Přísliby a výzvy vícemístné etnografie ve výzkumu diverzity v pregraduální učitelské přípravě

Obrovská¹,

Tůma²

2020

Studia paedagogica

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Cílem předkládané teoreticko-metodologické studie je 1) představit základní charakteristiky školní etnografie a její aplikace v českém pedagogickém výzkumu; 2) shrnout teoretická východiska a analyzovat přístupy k výzkumu diverzity v pregraduální učitelské přípravě; 3) diskutovat o potenciálu tzv. vícemístné etnografie. Vyvozujeme, že vícemístná etnografie představuje vhodný výzkumný design pro zkoumání diverzity v pregraduální učitelské přípravě, protože zdůrazňuje potřebu propojení a kontrastování poznatků z různých zkoumaných prostředí. Je tedy možné integrovat poznatky jak z prostředí vysokoškolské výuky, kde jsou studenti a studentky učitelství připravováni, tak z prostředí škol, kam jsou umisťováni na praxe. Studie tak přispívá k teoretické a metodologické diskusi v pedagogice.

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“…A growing body of research has also critiqued the TFA model and its impact on schools and districts serving marginalized students. Some find evidence of conflicts between TFA’s training model and equity-oriented teaching and school management (McNew-Birren, Hildebrand, & Belknap, 2018; Trujillo, Scott, & Rivera, 2017). Others argue that TFA misplacement within schools and subjects contributes to higher turnover among TFA corps members than other new teachers (Donaldson & Johnson, 2010).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teach For America and Teacher Quality: Increasing Achievement Over Time

Penner

2019

Educational Policy

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Teach For America (TFA), a prominent alternative teacher certification program, has evolved substantially since it began in 1989. However, most studies ignore this potential variation when evaluating TFA’s effects on student outcomes. Using 12 years of administrative data, I test whether TFA’s effects on achievement differ over time, focusing on a major reform introduced in 2005 and testing for changes in the qualifications of TFA corps members recruited before and after this reform. I find that TFA’s effects on achievement increased over time in some subjects and grade levels. However, these changes do not occur immediately following the reforms, nor are they explained by most observable teacher quality indicators. Instead, results indicate gradual improvement over time in many subjects. These results help explain divergent findings in previous research from different periods and underscore the importance of understanding the continuing evolution of alternative teacher certification programs.

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Strange bedfellows in science teacher preparation: conflicting perspectives on social justice presented in a Teach For America—university partnership

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

Teaching Synchronous-Service Teachers: Traditional Teacher Education at a Crossroads

Přísliby a výzvy vícemístné etnografie ve výzkumu diverzity v pregraduální učitelské přípravě

Teach For America and Teacher Quality: Increasing Achievement Over Time

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