Tag Archives: teaching

Reflections on a Teacher Education Program with a First Nations Focus

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I (Clare) am currently teaching a graduate course Current Issues in Teacher Education. The first assignment asks students to:

Write a reflection paper on your experiences in a professional program (teacher education, Teaching English as a Second Language ….). Provide a very brief description of the program. Some questions to consider are: What were the strengths/weaknesses of the program? How well did the program prepare you to assume the duties of a teacher? What were the limitations of the program? Have your views of the program changed since graduation? How could the program have been improved? Did the program prepare you to assume the duties of a teacher (or other position)? Do NOT respond to all of these questions. Select one or two and respond to them. In the fourth class of the course, you will work in small groups and share your paper with your fellow students.

Since all of the students in the course are teachers they have a good perspective on their program. Their assignments were so stellar I felt these would be of great value to share with other teacher educators. Over the next few weeks I will be sharing these papers. I learned much and I suspect you will too. I have changed the name of the university so that no school of education is identified.

My teacher education program was at University XXX, where I was part of the primary/junior cohort (K-grade 6) cohort in the year of 2013-2014. The cohort had a First Nations focus. There were about sixty students from various places, with vast variety of experiences, knowledge, interests and skills. My teacher education program consisted of many strengths and areas of improvement. Due to the areas of improvement, I feel that my teacher education program could have prepared me better.

During my teacher education program at University XXX, I had witnessed many strengths and weaknesses of the program. I will start off by addressing the strengths and then the weaknesses. To begin with, coming to class at XXX everyday was the highlight of my day, as the program culture was very supportive, caring and one that respected diversity. I found all my professors to be extremely genuine and caring, as they treated every single student teacher as a whole (emotionally, physically and mentally). The student teachers in my class were a pleasure to learn with, as we provided one another with assistance with course assignments, we had lunches together in big groups, and we also made time to socialize after class by going to a near by pub. A quote from the article titled Teacher Education at the University of Virginia: A Study of English and Mathematics, that resonated with my experience at XXX, “There, she says, professors worked to create a strong, caring community that respected diversity…. being a part of a strong, supportive community was a key experience” (Merseth & Koppich, p.75). This quotation resonated with my experience at XXX, as I felt part of a community of educators who learned together by supporting one another. However, half way through the program, many students started getting in arguments with one another and complaining how they were not getting a lot out of their teacher education program. My cohort coordinators dealt with the situation in a very positive manner. My coordinators split the class in half, and we had a community circle where a talking stick was used, and everyone had the opportunity to say what was on their mind. Soon enough, the conflict was resolved and strategies were put in place for improvements. In addition to this, another strength of my teacher education program was during my practicum experience at YYY Public School in a grade 4 classroom. One and a half weeks in to my practicum, my associate teacher had been going through a great deal of back pain, to a point where she had to take a couple weeks off and had back surgery. I was in her classroom with a Long Term Occasion (LTO) teacher (supply/substitute teacher), whom I did not get along with as she did not let me teach a single lesson. I gave the LTO teacher a couple of days to settle in, in the hopes of her providing me with a chance to teach my lessons that I had prepared. I felt like a volunteer in her class, and the way she dealt with the students did not fit my teaching philosophy. I remember coming home and crying and making a connection of my experience with the LTO teacher to the song ‘Wrecking Ball’ by Miley Cyrus. Although I did have three other student teachers from my class at the same practicum school, I felt like I needed more support. I contacted my practicum coordinator and expressed my concerns with the LTO teacher. My practicum coordinator was very helpful and quick in dealing with the situation, as she had arrived at my practicum school the very next day, and had my placement changed with another associate teacher in the school. I was very impressed with the quick change.

 

Although my teacher education program had many strengths, through a critical lens, I found there to be a couple of weaknesses/areas of improvement in the program. To begin with, there were sixty student teachers in the class; I feel that class sizes should be smaller; about thirty to forty students maximum. Small class sizes allow for a lot more individual attention, and more critical questioning. Although my cohort had a First Nations focus, I felt that there was not enough infusion. Although we used a talking stick and were exposed to and provided with a certain level of knowledge, we were not provided with First Nation resources such as books, videos or lesson plans to use in class. I would have liked to receive a ‘First Nations Resource Tool Kit’ that had a package of important rituals, resources and activities to do with the students as a starting guide to educating students about First Nations. In addition to this, I did not gain much knowledge from one of my foundations courses. My professor was not an effective educator on this particular subject. I am not even sure up to this date, what I was suppose to learn from that class. My professor was of First Nation descent, which I really valued because I gained an immense amount of knowledge regarding First Nations, however I did not gain an efficient amount of knowledge dealing with the subject I was suppose to be taught. A quote that resonates with this experience is from the article titled How Teachers Learn and Develop, “Teachers are even more important than the material they use because the ways in which they present material highly influence how they are viewed by students” (Hammerness, Darling-Hammond, Bransford, et al. p. 384). Another weakness I found in the program was not enough class time; especially in math seeing as how numeracy is really big within school boards and it is the number one subject students struggle with. I found my math class to be very engaging as we had our ‘math tool kit’ that included a variety of manipulatives, however the learning was rush and clustered together due to time constraints.

My teacher education program could have prepared me to fulfill my duties as a teacher more effectively. My teacher education program did not introduce us to the report card system, how to provide students with final grades or about the types of comments one should include in report cards. In addition it would have been beneficial for student teachers to know about specific buzzwords and interview questions that could be asked during school interviews. I would have felt better prepared if my teacher education program provided us assistance and guidance with job search. However, due to the competitive teaching market, my teacher education could have provided us with suggestions of what else we can do with our degree, other than just teaching in a classroom. I also believe that the program could have prepared me better by making the teacher education program for 2-3 years, instead of 1 year. A longer teacher education program would be able to provide students with more practicum experiences, critical thinking, learner- centered teaching, community based activities among diverse groups, and an increased and effective amount of content knowledge that covers all core subject areas. An example of an effective teacher education program is the Curry School of Education, which is a 5 year BA/MT program in Virginia. As stated in the article, by the end of this program “Somebody who comes out of the Curry School is going to be able to walk into a classroom prepared for almost anything. They’ll be knowledgeable in the subject area, knowledgeable in a variety of strategies of teaching methods, of classroom procedures and discipline” ( Merseth & Koppich, p. 64). This is the type of framework and actions that University XXX needs to implement for a more effective and improved teacher education program.

 

This reflection paper has really provided me with some in-depth insight about my teacher education program. From an overall stance, I had only considered the strengths for the program. Through this paper, I was able to critically assess my teacher education program and what could be done to improve the program for future student teachers.

Some questions that still arise about teacher education programs are: When choosing placements for students, I am aware that the University has relationships among specific schools and teachers that have acted as associate teachers in prior years. Is the health and well being of those associate teachers checked each year? Or are student teachers just paired up with those teachers, because that particular teacher was used in the past? Another question I still have is, when preparing and improving teacher education programs, who has the say and input of what should be improved? How is this determined? Do student teachers have a voice in this? Are their opinions and advice considered for improvements of the teacher education program?

 

 

 

Works Cited

Darling-Hammond.L. (Ed). (2000). Studies of excellence in Teacher Education: Preparation in a five year program. New York: AACTE Publishers. ISBN NO: 0-9654535-5-3

 

Darling-Hammond, L. & Bransford, J. (Eds.) (2005). Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do. Jossey Bass.

Secret Teacher

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The Guardian has an ongoing column titled Secret Teacher. It is a series of blogs by anonymous teacher-insiders revealing what really goes on in schools. This week the anonymous contributor wrote a short yet powerful piece on returning to the classroom after years in administration and remembering how tough  teaching is. An excerpt from the essay on the contributor’s move from admin back into the classroom:

I was certain that my move would buy me more time; no more endless piles of admin, no more mind-numbing meetings until 7pm, no more grim governors’ reports to write, no more dour disciplinary panels to attend. But I had forgotten that the windows in the ivory tower are obscured by pot plants so tall that you can’t see the stressed faces of the teachers as they race past. If you do chance to look up from your paperwork, your rose-tinted glasses made their lives look quite romantic. Oh, how the students adored them! How much fun they had together in their teams! I remembered those days …

I had forgotten that my multitudinous leadership tasks were generously accommodated by my timetable. Yes, I had a lot to do, but I was given a lot of time to do it. How did I forget that it’s impossible to plan adequate lessons in five non-contact periods a week? How did I forget that as I reluctantly sat in meetings, angry that I had failed to see any daylight for the majority of winter, my main-scale colleagues were marking and planning in their classrooms or at their dining tables? How did I think that I had it harder than them?

To read this essay or others from the Secret Teacher series, click here: http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/oct/17/secret-teacher-school-leaders-quickly-forget-how-tough-teaching-is

Lens Blog and Visual Thinking Strategies

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When developing the photo essay assignment for my course, I came across an excellent resource for teachers and students. The New York Times has started a blog entitled Lens: Photography, Video, and Visual Journalism. The topics covered in  the blog posts touch on several critical issues such as immigration, race, and class. The photos  captured in each of the photo essays serve as a great entry point into rich discussion. When using the Lens Blog in my classroom I find myself drawing on skills I developed during workshops many years ago.

When I was a public school teacher, I participated in a fascinating series of professional development workshops called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). By analyzing carefully selected images, students were able to develop critical literacy skills as well as visual literacy skills. Teachers were facilitators in this process and asked three open-ended questions:

1. What’s going on in this picture?

2. What do you see that makes you say that?

3. What more can we find?

I found myself using the VTS approach when presenting students the photo essays from the Lens blog. Students in my class really engaged with the photos and rich discussion took place as a result. I will definitely be using this blog for years to come in the classroom.

Below are some powerful images from photo essays on  the Lens Blog.

Photo Essay: Garifuna Immigrants in New York
Photo Essay: Garifuna Immigrants in New York
Photo Essay: Connecting with Syrian Refugees
Photo Essay: Connecting with Syrian Refugees
Photo Essay: One Year Later, Remembering Eric Garner
Photo Essay: One Year Later, Remembering Eric Garner

Link to VTS site: http://www.vtshome.org/

Link to NYT Lens: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

Teacher Image in the U.K.

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uk

Gillian Harvey from The Telegraph argues for a shift in how teachers are viewed in the U.K. She argues:“[r]ather than heaping initiative upon initiative or effecting more change on a curriculum that is altered almost before it can be implemented, it would be better to take measures to improve the image of the profession as a whole.”

Harvey claims teachers fall victim to a culture of blame in education. Teachers are blamed for many things ranging from unprepared youth for the work force to a failure to raise standards. However, Harvey points out that the government officials often receive credit for perceived successes in education. She comments: “[y]ou can rest assured that the moment improvements happen, the praise will be placed at the doors of Nicky Morgan and David Cameron.”

In an era of educational reform driven by data, teachers are feeling pressure to do what it takes to have the data reflect their “effective” teaching. However, as result, pupils in the classroom may be suffering. Harvey says, “teachers are spending more and more time on meaningless bureaucracy and less on teaching and learning or interacting with pupils.”

An interesting read! To read the entire article click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11645808/Does-teaching-have-an-image-problem.html

More on Incremental Change in Education

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In January, I (Clive) wrote about Mary Kennedy and her stress on incremental change in education – as opposed to “bold” innovation. Since then, I’ve come across an excellent book that takes a similar stance: Enlightenment 2.0 (HarperCollins, 2014) by Joseph Heath, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto. Though decidedly progressive himself, Heath writes in support of Edmund Burke’s advocacy of cumulative improvement, the rationale for which he paraphrases as follows:

“If everyone insists on reinventing everything, we’ll never get anywhere, simply because no one is smart enough to understand all the variables and grasp all of the reasons that things are done exactly the way they are.” (p. 88)

Hence the title of his book: this is a second take on an “enlightenment” approach to social reform, one that builds on past practice in just the manner Kennedy recommends. But Heath raises a crucial question:

“[O]nce we acknowledge this, is the only alternative to fall back into an uncritical acceptance of tradition? Or is it possible to use this insight as the basis for a more successful form of progressive politics?” (p. 83)

I’ll continue to read the book and let you know about Heath’s alternative (that’s a promise!). Meanwhile, one solution that occurs to me in the education field is to give teachers more voice, so they can share their practices and fine-tune them. More opportunities for teacher dialogue are needed: in school settings, during PD events, in university classes, etc. In this way, teachers can help each other tinker with how they do things, rather than having some “expert” come in and tell them they’ve got it all wrong. There’s a place for outside input, but it should be used critically – and incrementally.

Teaching, teacher education, incremental change, Joseph Heath, Enlightenment 2.0.

Educational Research: Small Scale or Large?

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On Monday, Clare and I (Clive) had the privilege of attending an outstanding symposium at Brock University on self-Image Brock Symposiumstudy research on teacher education. It was organized by Tim Fletcher and Deirdre NiChroinin and funded by their respective institutions, Brock University and the University of Limerick. Highlighted speakers were Clare, Julian Kitchen, and Tom Russell. Apart from the local audience, the symposium was streamed live and will be archived for online access at : http://brockvideocentre.brocku.ca/videos/ (Under Self Study Symposium — 01:46:06).

One issue that came up was the validity of self-study inquiry versus research with a larger sample size. It was noted that there is pressure (from tenure and promotion committees as well as policy developers) to conduct research larger in scope than the typical self-study project. Some suggest that to increase the “significance” of self-study research it may be necessary to combine a number of smaller projects.

From the audience, I made a comment that was lost electronically and Tim and Deirdre have asked me to repeat it here. My comment was as follows:

Small scale research by individuals or small groups often provides a depth of understanding not available through large scale research. We must not assume that bigger is better. While large sample research is suitable for certain purposes, often something is lost when we move to a larger sample and have to ask simpler, one-shot questions, where the meaning of the questions and answers is often unclear. The typical self-study project enables us to probe in considerable depth the nature, purpose, and effectiveness of various teaching practices.

Dewey, Schon and, more recently, Zeichner, Cochran-Smith, and Lytle have emphasized how much practitioners learn on the job; and Bryk et al. in their recent book Learning to Improve (Harvard Education Press, 2015) maintain that quantitative researchers must join forces with on-site practitioner-inquirers to build a complex, publically available framework of educational concepts, principles, and practices (somewhat akin to Wikipedia). Both types of research are needed. We must not privilege one over the other.

Seymour: An Introduction

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I (Clare) saw the most amazing movie: Seymour: An Introduction. 11189925_ori

It got rave reviews so Clive and I went to see it. The movie was directed by Ethan Hawke (yes that Ethan Hawke) and talks about Seymour Bernstein — “a beloved pianist, teacher and true inspiration who shares eye-opening insights from an amazing life. Ethan Hawke helms this poignant guide to life.” Bernstein was a world class pianist who gave it all up because of stage fright and stress.”

He teaches piano and is a Master Teacher in NYC. This is a must see for teachers because the way he guides and supports his students is “masterful.” He is caring yet gives specific feedback. He is a master teacher.

During the first 10 –15 minutes of the movie I thought was is going on here? It does not follow a traditional narrative structure but rather jumps around through different parts of his life. (The editing is amazing and the music is gorgeous.) You see him teaching master classes, working with students individually, talking to friends, recalling being a soldier in the Korean war … By the 20th minute I was hooked. I so want to meet Bernstein because he is so wise, caring, compassionate, and interesting. I can truly understand why Ethan Hawke was so inspired by him that he wanted to tell the world about Seymour. Here is the link to the trailer for the movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2219650/?ref_=nv_sr_1

The movie is short – 84 minutes – and if you are like Clive and me, you will not be able to stop thinking and talking about this truly remarkable man.

Who Poses the Questions in Teaching?

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In Ontario at present, “inquiry learning” or “problem-based learning” (including “play-based learning”) is widely advocated. However, while many proponents of the approach maintain that all the questions guiding inquiry should come from the students, I (Clive) beg to differ. Although generally in agreement with the approach, I think a balance is needed: teachers should pose questions too.

For example, the students in the course Reflective Professional Development I am teaching this term seem to love the questions we are pursuing; e.g., how much do teachers learn informally, how can informal learning be enhanced, how can formal PD be more effective? I don’t have to push the students at all – in small groups, whole-class discussion, and individual writing they go to work on the questions in quite a refreshing way. However, many of the questions we discuss came from me: they are inherent in the structure of the course and the readings I recommend.

So there has to be a balance. The classroom should be a setting for co-learning or “co-constructivist” learning. Teachers should suggest many of the questions, but also do the following:

  • Let a question go if there is no “uptake” from the students
  • Respect the additional questions and sub-questions students raise
  • Allow the students a lot of air-time so they can identify questions and express their views about them
  • Encourage the students to pursue their own questions in their assignments

Over time, with this approach, we will get a better sense of which questions are interesting and fruitful, and which ones we should pose next time we teach the course, while again looking for new questions from the students.

Children’s Role in Human History: Implications for Schooling

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On February 26, I (Clive) read Ivan Semeniuk’s interview in the Toronto Globe & Mail with anthropologist Niobe Thompson, producer of the CBC TV series The Great Human Odyssey. According to Thompson, human life has been quite tenuous over the millennia and only the ingenious have survived. “Our closest call came about 150,000 years ago when…there were fewer than 1,000 breeding adults left” due to “punishing volatility” in Africa’s climate (sounds like Canada today!).

Thompson goes on to talk about key pockets of humans that have survived through incredible ingenuity, involving their “inventing technology to solve the challenges of their world.” This has required creating a whole culture in which everyone participates, including the children. “Whenever I am living with traditional cultures I have the experience of being overwhelmed with the skills my hosts have for living in their environment.” Thompson goes on to talk about the key role of children’s learning in this:

A person cannot become a hunter or a free-diving gatherer or a reindeer nomad as an adult. This is an immense package of skills that one must begin mastering as a child.

This set me thinking. To what extent are children in schools today learning “inert ideas” and “remote matters” (John Dewey) rather than things fundamental to surviving and thriving in the real world? Dewey would agree that one cannot master (and reconstruct) the requisite “immense package of skills” as an adult. The process must occur in earnest from the first day of school (and prior to that in the home). Unfortunately, however, as Nel Noddings says in Education and Democracy in the 21st Century (2013), schooling today is going in the opposite direction.

I do not foresee dramatic changes in the basic structure of curriculum…. Indeed, if we continue in the direction we are now headed, the curriculum will become even more isolated from real life…. It is this tendency that we should resist. (p. 11)

Children do learn a lot of useful things in school: we and our societies are much better off than we would be without schooling. But at present we seem to be headed in the wrong direction. So resist we must. Even in the right direction, we have a very long way to go. Perhaps human survival is not a stake, but human well-being around the planet certainly is.

Resolutions, Reforms, and Incremental Change in Education

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Clive BeckNew Year’s resolutions are notoriously poorly kept. At our local gym, the regulars joke about the “resolutioners,” who sign up for a year but barely make it to the end of January. Sadly, a lot of proposed educational “reforms” are like that.

Clare, Lin Goodwin, and I (Clive) are working on a chapter on teacher education reform for the next Handbook of Research on Teacher Education. In reviewing the literature, we came across a wonderful article by Mary Kennedy called “Against Boldness” (Journal of Teacher Education, 61 (1-2), 16-20). In it, she makes a plea to avoid taking a “bold” approach to teacher education reform. The article has important implications not only for teacher education but for teaching in general and even everyday life (as in trying to keep fit). Kennedy remarks:

[B]old ideas are part of our problem, for by definition they are unrealistic, out of range, over the top. Ultimately, bold ideas fail because they don’t take real circumstances into account or because they expect too much from people. Eventually, each of us runs out of gas, gets tired and disheartened. (p. 17)

In my view Kennedy isn’t a pessimist or anti-idealist: she thinks substantial improvement is possible and should be pursued. But she believes we must pursue it by (a) acknowledging and building on present achievements and (b) proceeding incrementally (like the tortoise that finally won the race). She says:

What we need in education are ideas that develop slowly and that build on what we already have, not ideas that develop excitedly or that deviate markedly from current practice…. [B]old ideas…hinder our progress toward real improvements by distracting educators and making it more difficult to concentrate…. Every helpful idea requires teachers to make adjustments. Every time we help teachers, they have to stop thinking about how to wrap their students’ minds around a concept and instead turn their attention toward accommodating the new innovation…. [T]here is no doubt that we need to find ways to improve teaching and teacher education. But [instead of pursuing bold ideas, we should be] studying our practices closely and deliberately, deepening our understanding of the circumstances in which we work, and finding small and sustainable ways to improve. (p. 19)

As the JTE editors rightly point out, Kennedy’s position is itself bold! Indeed, it is radical in today’s climate. But it is productively bold, offering an alternative to the myriad high-sounding, contradictory, and often damaging measures, frequently promoted for political reasons rather than out of genuine concern for improvement. Let’s be systematic and effective in our renewal work, not “bold.” How’s that for a New Year’s resolution!