Browsing by Subject "Preservice teachers"
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Item "Economics is political" : Preservice teachers, purpose, and the challenges of critical economics pedagogy(2018-05-02) Shanks, Neil Graham; Salinas, Cinthia; Brown, Anthony; Payne, Katherina; De Lissovoy, Noah; Blevins, BrookeEconomics education is an understudied discipline within social studies, yet the discipline of economics holds an outsize import in political decisions. Teachers are largely ill-prepared to teach economics as part of social studies, and students of economics report feeling disconnected from the traditional economic content. This qualitative case study explored the way that preservice teachers in an Urban Teaching program conceptualized the purpose of economics within social studies education, its role as part of their purpose for teaching, and how they implemented their understanding of the function of economics into their instructional decisions. Using a theoretical lens that merged critical pedagogy and transformative purpose within the disciplinary confines of economics, this study demonstrates several significant disjunctures between how economics is perceived to function and critical approaches to teaching and teaching social studies. In particular, economics was perceived to function in the present and for the purpose of social analysis, yet teaching was about social analysis, transformative classroom management, and praxis; and teaching social studies was about understanding the past, social analysis in the present and critical action for the future. However, the study also revealed the potential of economics as part of a transformative purpose for teaching.Item Power and caring embodied through bilingual preservice teachers' choice of participant structures(2016-05) Wall, Dorothy Jeanne; Palmer, Deborah K., 1969-; Rodríguez, Haydeé M; Callahan, Rebecca M; Martínez, Ramón A; Menchaca, MarthaPower and Caring Embodied through Bilingual Preservice Teachers’ Choice of Participant Structures is a qualitative multicase study about the ways in which three Mexican-origin preservice teachers drew from their pedagogical philosophies of authentic cariño to make sense of their choice of participant structures in bilingual student teaching contexts. This dissertation project drew from a larger study investigating seven Latin@ preservice teachers’ choice of participant structures in one-way and two-way dual language pre-kinder and kindergarten classrooms from the same bilingual education cohort at a large public Texas university in a medium-sized city. Guided by a critical framework that weaves together sociocultural literature on multilingual learning environments, LatCrit theory, and pedagogy as authentic cariño viewed through a lens of power as caring relations, the goals of this project were two-fold: 1) to explore the types of participant structures that bilingual preservice teachers were implementing during their student teaching semester and 2) to investigate their sensemaking process around those decisions of which participant structures to implement. Findings revealed that the three maestr@s implemented a variety of participant structures in their one-way dual language student teaching placements, and that they made sense of these choices guided by their pedagogical philosophies of authentic cariño that they had constructed through their life experiences. Additionally, their mentor teachers’ choice of participant structures and degree of alignment with the maestr@s’ philosophies, the supportive space of the post-observation conference, and the maestr@s’ perceived competencies with classroom management intersected with the participant structures that they chose. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of factors that bilingual preservice teachers consider when selecting the ways that their students may actively participate during a lesson, but also that their identities, past experiences, and pedagogical philosophies really do matter. This work has important implications for teacher preparation in bilingual and ESL contexts, teaching, and policy in supporting the use of empowering participant structures for emergent bilingual students.Item Preservice teacher preparation for managing problem behaviors : an interpretive qualitative analysis of the classroom management course(2009-12) Dunn, Sandra Hall; Field, Sherry L.This dissertation examines the content of a required classroom management course to determine how preservice teachers are prepared for managing problem behaviors. Qualitative content analysis of interviews with four adjunct classroom management course instructors, their course syllabi, textbooks, assignments and projects, ancillary course materials, fieldwork, and formative assessment revealed how the topic of problem behaviors is incorporated and implemented in the design of the course and how the topic is addressed in the textbooks and other course materials selected for the course. The complexities of scholarly research, individual course instructors’ personal beliefs about classroom and behavior management and problem behaviors, and the implications of those personal beliefs upon text selection and course content that guide the preservice teacher’s developing philosophies to meet the challenges of today’s diverse educational settings provide the foundation for this interpretive analysis. Findings suggest that, regardless of the documented need for additional preservice teacher preparation in managing student behavior in general and problem behavior specifically, course content on problem behaviors in the classroom management course depends upon the course instructors’ personal beliefs about classroom and behavior management that developed through their personal knowledge, experience, and preferences. Academic freedom serves as a centerpiece of university professor and student rights. Academic freedom must support academic responsibility in the design, implementation, and evaluation of curriculum, preparation of course materials, complementary course offerings, and a competent and judicious treatment of the subject. Findings of this study reveal that the university’s academic responsibility for providing a “competent and judicious treatment of the subject” relies upon the personal beliefs of the individual course instructor.Item Preservice teachers’ digital literacy in educator preparation programs : a literature review(2023-08) Lim, Mihyun; Hughes, Joan E.As technology’s potential to transform teaching and learning became clear, shared standards and expectations emerged for teachers to integrate in K-12 classrooms. However, despite the massive influx of classroom technology, there were few noticeable changes to the pedagogical development or curricular sequences. The purpose of this report is to provide a review of literature that explores how preservice teachers learn to conceptualize their own digital literacy during their teacher preparation. More specifically, this review investigates preservice teachers’ learning about digital literacy conceptions in relation to how their learning experiences are embedded in and situated as part of learning activities and teaching practices with technology in teacher education coursework. The results of the literature review provide insight as to what learning opportunities teacher educators can provide when preservice teachers need to be prepared to understand and practice with technology for specific purposes and contexts in classrooms.Item Promoting critical multicultural citizenship : a case study of preparing social studies teachers(2009-05) Castro, Antonio Jamie; Salinas, Cinthia; Brown, Anthony L. (Associate professor)Given the growing cultural and economic diversity of today’s students, this qualitative case study investigates how 4 social studies preservice teachers taught for critical multicultural citizenship during their student teaching semester. The tenets of critical citizenship emerge out of the intersection of critical pedagogy and multicultural education. These tenets for critical multicultural citizenship education include seeking out and challenging gaps in democracy, promoting critical reflection and consciousness, and advocating for collective action to transform institutional injustices. This case study traced perspectives held by participants about the nature of democracy and citizenship and explored how these preservice teachers enacted these views in their classroom teaching. Data collection measures included five observations, reflective journals, three interviews, and other assignments related to the participant’s student teaching coursework. Findings suggest that these participants, all preservice teachers of color, adopted views and teaching practices that aligned with critical multicultural citizenship; however, participants struggled to overcome constraints in their student teaching contexts in order to teach for this kind of citizenship.Item Situating Korean EFL teacher education in a CMC environment : online exchanges between preservice English teachers and elementary school students(2011-12) Chun, Sun Young, 1976-; Schallert, Diane L.; Horwitz, Elaine K.; Palmer, Deborah K.; Wilson, Jennifer C.; Svinicki, Marilla D.; French, Karen D.The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the characteristics of student-teacher interactions between Korean EFL preservice teachers and elementary school students during online exchanges and of the preservice teachers’ overall impressions and perceptions of teaching English to elementary school students and interacting with them online. The participants in this study were 31 Korean preservice elementary school teachers and 10 Korean elementary school students who were learning English as a foreign language. Ten groups with an average of three preservice teachers were paired with one child partner per group and engaged in one-on-one email exchanges, mostly using English, in discussing English books. Data came from multiple sources, including transcripts of the online exchanges between the preservice teachers and the child partner, preservice teachers’ collaborative dialogue scripts, their responses to questionnaires, their group reflection journals, individual final reflection papers, and researcher field notes. These data were analyzed using a combination of inductive and deductive data analysis methods. Through inductive analysis using the constant comparative analysis method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Lincoln & Guba, 1985), I derived themes that captured the experience of online interactions and the strategies that the preservice teachers used to maintain the exchange. Through deductive analysis, I identified groups that were more and less successful and described their experiences. Results indicated that the online exchanges with elementary students provided Korean EFL preservice teachers opportunities to practice teaching skills, as well as to develop close personal and social relationships with their child partners. Also, how the preservice teachers approached the exchanges and their specific online “actions” seemed to make a difference in their child partners’ responses, thereby yielding results in which some groups were more successful and others less successful. The preservice teachers reported that their participation in the project was beneficial for them as future elementary teachers of English and that they enjoyed interacting with their child partners online. Finally, the participation in the project appeared to have many benefits for the preservice teachers’ professional development, including newly-gained insights into the benefits of using technology as a valuable instructional tool in their future teaching practices as well as an increase in their confidence in using English to teach English to elementary students.Item Special education preservice teachers' changes in self-efficacy to serve culturally and linguistically diverse students while completing their first field experience(2015-05) Ostendorf, Raymond Joseph; Sorrells, Audrey McCray; Bryant, Brian R; Linan-Thompson, Sylvia; Salinas, Cinthia S; Tackett, Kathryn KIn this non-experimental, mixed methods dissertation study, a cohort of special education preservice teachers (N = 24) from a university-based teacher preparation program in Central Texas completed a modified version of the Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy scale (Siwatu, 2007) before and after they had completed their first field experiences. The researcher who conducted this dissertation sought to find whether the respondents had experienced any changes in their self-efficacy beliefs to capably meet the learning needs of their students with and without disabilities, from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds. The researcher also collected qualitative data (e.g., lesson plans) and conducted individual interviews with a stratified random sample from the cohort (n = 5) to gather background information about the participants' prior engagements with members of CLD communities and to discover how they explained their changes in self-efficacy to capably serve CLD students with and without disabilities. Results indicated that the first field experience likely impacted the special education preservice teachers' self-efficacy beliefs to capably serve students with and without disabilities from CLD backgrounds. The majority of the participants (n = 13) expressed individual cumulative increases in their self-efficacy scores at the end of their first internship, and also expressed the higher levels of confidence to serve diverse students without disabilities than to serve diverse students with disabilities. Members of the stratified random sample who reported a decrease in their individual cumulative selfefficacy scores (n = 2), tended to express a more thorough understanding of the complex responsibilities, demands, and expectations that are placed on teachers.Item The complex nature of equitable STEM instruction : emotion, cognition, and constraints(2019-08-19) Welch-Ptak, Jasmine Joy; Callahan, Rebecca M.; Riegle-Crumb, Catherine; Keating, Xiaofen; Sampson, Victor; Treisman, UriEquitable STEM instruction aims to alleviate the perpetual achievement gap by ensuring students have access to multiple opportunities to engage in rich inquiry-based activities and content-specific discourse practices. The three studies in this dissertation explore the complexity inherent to the implementation of such equitable practices in the current high-stakes accountability context. With the first analytic chapter, I seek to draw attention to the negative emotions that emerge during open-ended activity, and the need to identify specific pedagogical practices that can normalize difficulty and persistence as a necessary part of learning. I suggest interested practitioners integrate the straightforward approach I highlight in this chapter into any instructional innovation. However, in my second analytic chapter I present a multi-site case study of the challenges teachers at two distinct school sites report to impede their implementation of curricular innovations. Although the two sites look very different in terms of student and teacher demographics, teachers at both sites report similar challenges to implementation. The third and final, analytic chapter is a quantitative survey analysis I conducted that examines one of the key challenges reported: teacher efficacy. Specifically, my study explores differences in preservice teachers’ teaching efficacy for culturally and linguistically diverse students in STEM contexts based on their pedagogical preparation and personal linguistic background. Findings from the three studies have potential implications for education policy, practice, teacher preparation, and researchItem The influence of alternative field based experiences on preservice teachers’ perceptions of assessment in physical education : an occupational socialization inquiry(2020-03-25) Stephenson, Rachyl Jane; Keating, Xiaofen; Brown, Christopher; Harrison, Louis; Starck, JennaThere have been recent developments of new approaches to assessment in physical education (PE), but due to an extensive history of assessment in PE as being an area of concern, there is still a high demand for research on the topic. The profession of PE needs to gain insight on how to better prepare assessment literate preservice teachers. This study employed Occupational Socialization Theory as a conceptual framework to explore three preservice PE teachers’ perceptions of assessment during an alternative based field experience. The aims of the study were to investigate how the alternative based field experiences, along with how their socialization experiences, influenced their assessment perceptions. A qualitative, phenomenological research design was utilized to gain an understanding of the participants lived experience of an alternative field based setting within a methods course. The participants were recruited through their course as a convenience sample. All data were qualitative and collected through autobiographies, lesson plans, video recordings of teaches, and 3 rounds of interviews per participant. The data were examined with a collaborative qualitative analysis approach. The findings from the study were described thematically. Results were categorized into three major themes: (a) out of sight out of mind: assessment disappears in actual teaching practices, (b) preservice teachers cognitively valued assessment, and (c) professional socialization impact PPETs assessment implementation in alternative field experiences. Within the first main theme there was one subtheme – disconnect from planning to implementation with four sub-subthemes. The second main was comprised of two subthemes: (a) value assessment to promote learning (two sub-subthemes), and (b) recognized the potential impact of assessment on student learning as a motivator or demotivator (one sub-subtheme). The third main theme had three subthemes that emerged: (a) recognition of assessment importance throughout PETE programming, (b) faculty and staff had negative and positive influences on PPETs’ assessment perceptions, and (c) absence of assessment exposure and modeling. The results suggest that preservice PE teachers value assessment, and there are socialization factors that influence their perceptions. However, even with supports that existed at the alternative field based setting, there was still a lack of implementation of assessmentItem Writing as a tool for healing : exploring preservice teachers’ writing related to trauma and healing(2023-04-21) Adair, Laura Van Dike; Kim, Grace MyHyun; Flores, Tracey T; Gainer, Jesse S; Skerrett, AllisonThe purpose of this study was to better understand how writing experiences related to trauma and healing shaped preservice teachers’ identities and understandings of trauma in addition to informing their writing pedagogies. Building on Dutro’s (2019) notions of trauma-centered writing and critical witnessing practices, I used a multiple case studies design to study how six preservice teachers engaged in writing related to trauma and healing within an Adolescent Literacy course. In addition to written artifact, my data included interviews and class Zoom recordings. To frame my exploration of preservice teachers’ experiences writing, sharing, and/or witnessing trauma and healing-centered writing and how they conceptualized these experiences in relation to their own teaching, I drew on Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (2001) “figured worlds,” Wissman and Wiseman’s (2011) “narrative control,” and Dutro’s (2019) “critical witnessing.” The following research questions guided this study: (1) How do writing experiences related to trauma and healing shape preservice teachers’ personal identity development? (2) How do writing experiences related to trauma and healing shape preservice teachers’ understanding of traumatic experiences? (3) How do writing experiences related to trauma and healing inform preservice teachers’ writing pedagogies? The data indicated that writing related to trauma and healing increased agency, empathy, and authenticity among both writers and witnesses. Whereas trauma was a disruptive experience (LaCapra, 2001) that fractured and dysregulated the self (Camangian, 2010; Mutch & Latai, 2019), the act of putting words to their experiences moved preservice teachers towards whole-person integration (MacCurdy, 2007), authentic self-representation (Bradshaw, 2005; Brown, 2010, 2015), and empathetic unsettlement (LaCapra, 2001). Data also showed that through processes of naming, organizing, restorying, and sharing traumatic experiences, healing was possible. Preservice teachers gained control over their traumatic memories, a process that facilitated both individual and collective healing. These open-ended writing invitations and critical witnessing postures created sacred truth spaces (San Pedro, 2017) that preservice teachers planned to emulate in their own writing pedagogies. Overall, this study contributes to understandings of humanizing and healing literacy experiences within teacher education and the potential for these experiences to inform preservice teachers’ work in classroom settings.