Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Academic Exchange Quarterly

Service-learning feedback to teacher candidates.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Teaching preparation increasingly requires teacher candidates to conduct service-learning that most often occurs in schools. Some scholars suggest this might be more effective when conducted in community-based settings. Limited literature exists examining the type of feedback teaching candidates receive upon conducting service learning in community-based settings. Three teaching candidates received feedback from university and community-based agency personnel. In general, the university supervisor focused on technical aspects of teaching while the program director focused on the tone and types of interactions that occurred with the youth.

Introduction

Service learning (SL) is a pedagogical strategy that combines community service with academic learning. Teacher education programs are increasingly including service learning components as part of their structure (Erickson & Anderson, 1997). In part, this is because SL is considered effective toward helping teaching candidates develop certain dispositions and skills relevant to effective teaching, such as cultivating a sensitivity to issues of diversity, race, culture (Boyle-Baise, 1998; O'Grady & Chappell, 2000), and compassion for others (Pothoff, Dinsmore, Walsh, Ziebarth, & Eifler, 2000). While limited literature exists addressing teacher education SL, evidence has emerged supporting its positive impact on teaching candidates' teaching skills (LaMaster, 2001), preparation for teaching within increasingly diverse schools (Watson, Crandall, Hueglin & Eisenman, 2002), and awareness of students' positive characteristics and needs as well as commitment to teaching (Root, Callahan & Sepanski, 2002a).

While most teacher preparation programs use school-based sites for SL experiences, community-based organizations (CBO's), particularly those whose focus or operation is situated in diverse neighborhoods, offer a viable, perhaps better alternative toward fostering the intended outcomes within the participating teacher candidates (Mahan, Fortney & Garcia, 1983). As suggested by Zeichner & Melnick (1996), school-based SL may not offer teaching candidates the opportunity to contend with issues of diversity and advocacy because the schools themselves do not have structures in place to do so. Further, it is well documented that teaching candidates enter teaching preparation programs with stable beliefs about teaching given the extensive "apprenticeship of observation" they have experienced during their K-12 years (Lortie, 1975). These beliefs have a great impact on their teaching conduct because, for one, they underlie the degree to which they feel their students have the capacity to learn. To alter deep set beliefs that might not lead to effectively serving the students they will come to teach, Root et al. (2002b) suggests that teacher education programs use community-based sites to complete teaching preparation SL experiences. The use of these types of sites can help teaching candidates...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!