|
Article Excerpt
The power of student teaching is legend. Teachers often proclaim it as the most valuable aspect of their preservice programs, yet ironically, teacher educators often decry it as problematic and cooperating teachers lament that student teachers are not prepared for the realities of schools and classrooms (Borko & Mayfield, 1995; Darling-Hammond, Pacheco, Michelli, LePage, & Hammemess, 2005; Zeichner & Gore, 1990). Discrepant views of the student teaching experience such as these led to Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann's (1985) notion of the two-worlds pitfall--the clash between goals and visions of learning to teach developed at the university and in the field. In some ways, these dichotomous views of student teaching present rather simple, even if difficult, challenges for productive student teaching. Beyond these tensions are others, involving other actors and other influences that ultimately determine the quality and power of the student teaching experience.
Student teachers' work is done in complex settings where an array of people with varied histories, understandings, beliefs, and perspectives on instruction and curriculum interact. As Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998) suggested, "What we learn from studying the process of learning to teach depends on whose voices are being heard" (p. 156). Yet there are many, and sometimes conflicting, voices. What is needed, they claimed, is an ecological approach to research on learning to teach in which the interrelatedness of the pieces in the system are considered in context. At a time when student teaching continues to be a mainstay of teacher education programs, we need to better understand the complex interactions of the key triad members (student teacher, cooperating teacher, and university supervisor) as well as other forces that interact to create or constrain opportunities for preservice teachers to learn. In this article, we report on a study in which we examined the multiple interactions and activity settings in which student teachers learn to teach language arts and discuss implications for teacher learning.
Research on Student Teaching
Since 1990, several reviews of student teaching have revealed a growing body of research and calls for new approaches to inquiry. In the first Handbook of Research on Teacher Education, Guyton and McIntyre (1990) concluded there were few structures to support cooperation among supervisors, teachers, and student teachers and little connection between the goals of teacher education programs and the student teaching experience. Following that, in the second Handbook, McIntyre, Byrd, and Foxx (1996) documented progress in establishing unifying goals for field experiences and coursework. Bolstered by emerging qualitative research methods, these authors found evidence of deeper understandings about the attitudes, behaviors, and characteristics of preservice teachers. However, they also called for a more contextual approach to research that would shed light on the complexity of teaching and how student teaching behaviors are shaped. Just 2 years later, Wideen et al.'s (1998) critical review of research on student teaching continued to find a gap between the change agenda of teacher educators and the survival goal of preservice teachers. Moreover, it called for a broader perspective on research that would attend to other actors as well as contextual factors that influence student teaching. Most recently, Cliff and Brady (2005) concluded that recent studies had indeed begun to examine the influence of individual, instructional, and contextual factors on preservice teachers' development. Still, they urged researchers to move toward a more complex conceptualization of the interactive and social nature of developing practice.
Even with this evolution in research frameworks and a growing literature, much of the research on student teaching has continued to examine the experience from the perspective of one, or maybe two, of the triad members, rather than from the interactions among the players situated in a particular context. In part, this may be due to a lack of clarity of roles and communication problems among triad members (Bullough & Draper, 2004; Koehler, 1988; Slick, 1997). This has led some to suggest that triadic relationships are difficult, if not impossible, to sustain. In fact, Simmel (as cited in Veal & Rikard, 1998) suggested that triads are really dyads plus one, whereas Veal and Rikard (1998) suggested that two different, and shifting, hierarchical triads coexist during student teaching, often leaving student teachers in the role of mediating these relationships. Nevertheless, even if these shifting triads or dyads plus one exist, the reality is that all the participants interact indirectly or directly to create opportunities for student teachers to learn their craft. To fully understand these interactions, an ecological, systems-based approach to studying the complexities and interrelations of individuals, institutions, programs, and ideas in context is required.
Among the few researchers who have examined the interplay of triad members within specific student teaching contexts, most find the dynamics to be complicated and challenging, resulting in disappointing professional development for preservice teachers (Borko & Mayfield, 1995; Bullough & Draper, 2004; Newell, Gingrich, & Johnson, 2001; Slick, 1997, 1998a, 1998b). For example, Borko and Mayfield (1995) investigated the influence of guided-teaching relationships between four student teachers in middle school math classes and their cooperating teachers, as well as their university supervisors. They concluded that although all members of the triad were generally satisfied with the relationships, the university supervisors and cooperating teachers had limited influence on student teachers' knowledge, teaching strategies, and beliefs about teaching. Borko and Mayfield called for clarification of the roles these mentors play along with additional support and preparation for these roles. Bullough and Draper (2004) also noted difficulties in the triad relationship as they examined the tension between a cooperating teacher and a university supervisor who had different views about how one student teacher should teach algebra. Caught in the middle, the student teacher ultimately aligned with the cooperating teacher, and the university supervisor stepped back. The result was a "failed triad" in which the cooperating teacher viewed the supervisor as out of touch with schools and the supervisor viewed the cooperating teacher as resistant to change. Along similar lines, Slick (1997, 1998a, 1998b) conducted three case studies of the multiple roles and tensions experienced by supervisors through their interactions and relationships with student teachers and cooperating teachers. As with other studies that explored the dynamics of the triad, Slick called for redefinition of triad members' roles. Newell et al. (2001) went a step further in their study of student teachers in middle school language arts, suggesting that there must be alignment, not simply redefinition, of roles between the student teaching placement and university coursework if student teachers are to appropriate tools learned at the university and develop reflective practice.
The study we report here adds to this emerging body of ecological research on the student teaching experience as an opportunity to learn. We seek to understand the context of student teaching--the complex interactions and how they shape learning to teach. Our study gives voice to many of the players--university supervisors, cooperating teachers, and student teachers themselves--and to the demands, desires, and beliefs of each. We draw upon sociocultural and, more specifically, activity and activity systems theory (Cole, 1996; Engestrom, Miettinen, & Punamaki, 1999; Wertsch, 1981) because they allow us to go beyond the two-worlds pitfall and various dyadic relationships that make up the complex settings in which student teachers learn. All the members of the triad are not, we will argue, operating in a single world or even two worlds but instead are coping simultaneously with multiple worlds and the demands of each--a difficult task for even the most experienced educator.
Theoretical Framework
Activity theory provides a way to think about the situative nature of teacher development (Grossman, Smagorinsky, & Valencia, 1999). In general, activity theory asserts that a person's framework for thinking is developed through participation and problem solving in specific environments that are themselves shaped by both present and historical contexts. Engestrom et al. (1999) expanded this notion to include the activity system--an "object-oriented, collective, and culturally mediated human activity" (p. 9). The student teaching experience is a "collective" activity because it involves not just the student teacher but also the cooperating teacher and the students in the classroom in which student teaching occurs, as well as the supervisor and other members of the university community with whom the student teacher has been involved and to whom the supervisor and student teacher are responsible. The ultimate "object," or goal, of student teaching is for student teachers to successfully learn to teach and eventually become independent and autonomous teachers in their own classrooms. Yet the student teaching experience is "culturally mediated" by the visions, expectations, cultural histories, past experiences, tools, and settings constructed and negotiated among all those involved, which complicates the setting even further. As Engestrom et al. argued, the entire activity system must be the unit of analysis. This framework is useful to research in teacher education and teachers' thinking, in general (cf. Grossman et al., 1999, 2000; Johnson, Smagorinsky, Thompson, & Fry, 2003; Smagorinsky, Lakly, & Johnson, 2002) and particularly to our work here as we seek to understand how actions and interactions in the activity system contribute to student teachers' developing knowledge and practice of teaching language arts.
Activity theory also calls attention to the tensions and discontinuities that exist among settings (Engestrom et al., 1999). For example, all the participants in our study would agree that they are collectively involved in promoting effective language arts instruction. Although this broad goal creates a common set of expectations, the variety of demands, goals, and tasks embedded in the various activity settings complicates achieving the shared goal in several ways. First, definitions of what constitutes effective language arts instruction differ across settings. Second, different participants in this activity have different primary goals (e.g., practicing new instructional strategies, getting a good grade, covering required curriculum, communicating with parents, evaluating performance, etc.). In addition to this mix of wide-ranging goals and tasks, activity theory posits that each role, each person, comes to the setting with past experiences, beliefs, and knowledge. Thus, understanding the confluence of demands, histories, and expectations (both explicit and implicit) at work in the student teaching experience is essential to understanding the challenges inherent in student teaching. Furthermore, activity theory is instrumental in understanding how teacher identity is developed as student teachers define and solve problems in interaction with others, many of whom hold power over them (Britzman, 1991; Smagorinsky, Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004). Insights from the pioneering work of Erving Goffman (1959) also help us understand how individuals perform identities in different settings when power and performance are central to success. As student teachers mediate their roles and responsibilities according to expectations defined by different audiences, they are essentially engaged in a variety of what Goffman termed command performances (p. 328) in which they perform identities that are in harmony with the various, and sometimes discordant, situations.
Research Design and Method
This study is part of a 4-year longitudinal study of beginning language arts teachers in which we followed teachers from their last year of teacher education into their first 3 years of full-time teaching (see Grossman et al., 2000; Valencia, Place, Martin, & Grossman, 2006). The analysis reported here focuses directly on the student teaching experience.
The Program
Preservice teachers were enrolled in a five-quarter master's-level teacher education program at a Research-1 university. After experimenting for several years with professional development schools (PDS) (Darling-Hammond, 1994) and finding the model too labor- and resource-intensive, the program was restructured, integrating some of the PDS work into a new partner school model. Several student teachers were placed in the same school or department. Efforts were made to build connections between the university and field, although university faculty and supervisors were not directly involved in collaborative work at the school sites. The restructured program was also designed to provide students with a core focus on pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) and reflective practice (LaBoskey, 1994; Schon, 1987; Zeichner & Liston, 1996). Coursework included lectures, small group activities, planning lessons and practice teaching in class, and coordinated field-based teaching assignments that were guided and evaluated by course professors. Reflective practice was supported through a seminar in which students discussed connections between coursework and field work each quarter they were on campus and as part of coursework itself; course instructors often asked students to explore how lessons might be adapted or changed to be more successful or to fit different situations. Although these activities did not extend into student teaching, the protocol used by university supervisors required students to set goals for lessons that were observed and to reflect on these as part of each debriefing.
Clinical field experiences occurred throughout the program, beginning with a 2-week observation during the first quarter and increasing in time and responsibility until students began a full-time, 12-week student teaching placement in the fourth quarter. During student teaching, interns were expected to take responsibility for planning and teaching for most of...
|
