The Importance of Revamping Teacher Preparation Programs
3 January 2010 | |
Aaron Eyler
The University of Michigan is making waves with the revamping of their teacher preparation program! Why the exclamation point at the end of that sentence? Because it is about time that schools of education begin to realize that they are behind medical schools, law schools, and business schools in the quality of preparation that graduating students are walking away with. Education prep programs need to become more rigorous and focus more on practical applicability of research rather than theory and the history of the field. One of the best ideas for revamping these programs that I have read recently comes from the book “Brain Rules” by Dr. John Medina where he discusses setting up education colleges similar to the way that medical schools work. Future teachers should spend more time in “residency” than one semester at the end of their four years and a tutoring session somewhere in the middle.
The largest problem I have with these prep programs is that there is too much of a distance between learning appropriate pedagogy and methodology and actually implementing the practice into the classroom. What good is learning about a topic like “Bloom’s Taxonomy” if you don’t apply it on a daily basis until four years later? In a 3-credit course, I envision students spending one day a week in a traditional college course and one day per week working hand-in-hand with a cooperating teacher and applying the information they are learning in class. Think of all that would get accomplished with this type of model? Not only would future teachers be getting hands-on practice with implementing what they are learning in class and tinkering with it to make them successful, but full-time teachers would also have an aid in every classroom and be kept up-to-date on current literature by way of their assistant. More on this topic to come in the future with specific emphasis on strategies towards getting new teachers to focus on quality instruction using technology.
For more on the University of Michigan’s revamped teacher preparation program please visit this article from NPR.
Posted via email from Kicking Around…
Aaron,
I agree with much that you say here, except one critical point. Through my experience in various educational environments, I question the ideal of a college student spending one day in traditional college classes. I have found such an experience to be significantly unsuccessful in developing the qualities we need in teacher’s today.
Building on your previous post of “school reform must focus on its culture,” in order for this to be successful we must evaluate all aspects of the culture.
Culture, being the second womb, is all encompassing, and its easy to forget that. Thus, I argue, that school reform begins in teacher training programs and the institutions in which they are embedded. If these are done in traditional fashion, which is essentially the receptacle method (students are empty receptacles for teachers to fill up) that Paulo Freire called out for being a method of oppression, then we need to stop perpetuating the problem from the get-go.
More effective in my experience, are progressive pedagogies, such as the one employed by Goddard College. Students design their own program of study incorporating state competencies for licensure and standards of accreditation. Students live all over the world in their home communities, completing their studies in cooperation with other students and advisers. They set up their own experiences to gain mastery of skills, of which, I agree should be (and is) regular practice in applying concepts and reflecting upon their experiences.
We must re-evaluate our basic assumptions about what education is for, and what a teacher’s role is. Only from here can we truly begin to change cultures and bring about lasting, meaningful, and effective school reform. Otherwise, we are just painting the door a different color. In many cases we need to move into a completely new building or go outside (woah!). Instrumental reading for reflection in this area includes Ron Miller’s “What Are Schools For?” and Parker Palmer’s “The Courage to Teach.”
If we are not providing the structure for incoming teachers to being practicing this type of thinking and learning from the get go, then we have already set the trap for nothing of great substance to happen in reform efforts.
I appreciate your efforts in creating learning communities to affect positive change and allowing me to air my point of view here.
With Hope,
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:51 pmAdam Burk
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Adam,
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:55 pmI think you may be one of my new best friends. There is so much here that it would be unfair for me to respond right away…so I won’t. Let me kick a lot of this around in my head for a while, and I promise I will get back to you. Thank you so much for a lot of this great insight, reference points, and discussion thoughts.
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Aaron,
My struggle with college prep programs has part to do with certification requirements. I teach high school math. To get my endorsement, I had to major in math, so I have a BA degree with majors in math and a secondary teaching endorsement. In most high schools, the highest math class taught is Calculus 1. I struggle with being required to take such high level math classes when I had little or no time on how to teach Algebra 1. I think more time on the pedagogy of teaching the content would be much more beneficial. Just my two sense.
Warmest Regards,
Eric Townsley
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:09 pmQuote
@Aaron Eyler
Aaron,
I am glad that my response was well received and I look forward to continued conversations. As for being best friends, I grew up in New Jersey so we’re practically brothers.
Adam
January 3rd, 2010 at 10:57 pmQuote
Aaron,
I do agree with you. I taught for 35 years and always said that trying to teach someone how to teach was akin to trying to learn to swim by reading about water. You can’t do it. You have to get wet! This, however, is my fear: With so much required state level testing in the schools, our entire curriculum is being driven by people who are not in the classroom. (It reminds me of the early 70s when “the new math”, developed by college level math scholars, showed up in my elementary classroom and understanding what you were doing was suddenly more important than getting the right answer.) Anything that gets the student teacher into the classroom sooner and for a longer period of time would certainly get a nod from me. I am not certain about one day a week in classes and four in the field. I would tend to lean more towards 2 days in the classroom, those days being Monday and Friday to discuss what will, and then what actually did, go on for the student teacher, and 3 days to refine and expand the skill set required for preparation. I also believe the preparation for teachers, at least at the elementary level, needs to include a great deal more time on classroom management and successful discipline techniques.
And Adam–one of the biggest problems schools have always faced is that society simply does not know what it wants education to do. Are we to develop free thinkers or do we need people who will fall in line with the masses? Does it require only trained people to fill slots? Do we teach values and morals, or leave such things to the parents? The questions are endless but the discussion is fascinating.
I’ll certainly be following this discussion!
Kathie
January 4th, 2010 at 3:26 pmQuote
Kathie,
First I want to congratulate you on being a veteran of 35 years. That is a feat that deserves serious recognition, and I hope that people thank you on a daily basis for your contribution to the success of America’s youth. I also like your proportional idea with regards to time in the field vs. class. I also think that your point about “reflection” is critical to college students learning to become high-quality teachers. My final thought revolves around you, as a person. I would like to see more teachers, such as yourself, in college classrooms working with students. I don’t even mean for you to have to teach the whole class. Taking someone and rotating them across four classes so that they work with the same group every four cycles would add a wealth of knowledge and experience to a field overly crowded with theory that isn’t practical for first-year students.
Thanks for your comment and your commitment.
January 4th, 2010 at 6:42 pmQuote
I am taking the approach that all practices can improve without slamming teacher education today. There is something of a mob mentality attacking colleges of education that is not productive. Much of what we learn is the result of our own input and curiosity, our drive and questioning toward a set of truths or principles or experiences that can come together to form an identity – for example the teacher identity. More experience is necessary as all have said here, but not if we totally throw out group/cadre work and thought whether in the classroom or online. I’m saying there is a place for some of the traditional ideas of teacher education, but times are definitely changing and many colleges of education are very much noticing these changes. It would serve everyone well if there were more focus on colleges where important (and successful) innovations are occurring. Personally, I am on a path to help this effort, to help produce a new breed of education professional. We have to keep in mind, as was mentioned above, that too many powers outside of education are driving its direction with commoditized, packaged examples of achievement as exemplified by the rash of standardized tests and educational competition so highly publicized by Arne Duncan and other politicians.
Tsmith – educational technology doctoral student/classroom teacher 15 years
January 4th, 2010 at 11:21 pmQuote
An update on the revamping of teacher education schools for those that are interested:
http://www.ncate.org/public/010410_BRP.asp
AE
January 5th, 2010 at 11:58 amQuote
Kathie et al.,
In line with what you are saying about the perennial conversation about education’s goals, I was surprised today when looking through a Praxis II study guide, I came across this statement, “Although one key purpose of education is graduating students who are responsible citizens capable of participating thoughtfully in a democratic society, educational practices have a tendency to foster dependency, passivity, and a ‘tell me what to think and do’ complacency.”
Later, I read Peter Gray’s article on Psychology Today (http://ow.ly/TavT), titled “‘Why Don’t Students Like School’ Well Duhhhh…” it’s because they love freedom, he writes, and schools are prisons.
Surprisingly, the fusion of these two ideas, one from a major corporate testing company and the other a psychologist who sent his kids to Sudbury Valley School is very much one I can subscribe to.
Largely educational institutions, which I think most have the same goal as the one from the study guide, are mills and factories. They are a series of pull these levers, and push these carts, and jump these hoops, and do as I say and repeat what I say, activities. There is no culture of participatory democracy or thoughtfulness.
Mock elections and the like don’t prepare students for being thoughtful citizens in a participatory democracy. Telling kids that if their answers aren’t one of the options available to be marked on a scan-tron sheet then their irrelevant, isn’t crafting thoughtfulness, it is molding people who know how to manipulate a system, to beat the game, or at least survive it. And teacher prep programs are often no different! How often do students in teacher prep programs have any say in their program of study or the governance of their college or university?
Teaching prep programs don’t apply enough of the theory they cover in classes. Again, I point to Goddard College, as one of the few institutions that truly has a history of innovation and pedagogical implementation that practices what it has teachers-to-be study. Not only do students read Dewey but they live out his books in their experience at Goddard. They can offer truly interdisciplinary and learner-centered experiences to their students, because they themselves have done it. The understand critical pedagogy because they practice it, in workshops and in their own reflective practices.
Friends who have gone through highly regarded teacher-certification programs, note that while they learn philosophers like Dewey exist and a bit about what they had to say, it is mostly just to put a check-mark in box on a list. They don’t wrestle with the ideas and concepts, they are introduced to such ideas, because they are supposed to be, to say that they have. By example they learn how to “teach.” That they need to get the test scores so that they can pass. To get the test scores you do as they say, and you tell them what they said. This is then taught to their their students in K-12 classrooms so that they can “pass,” so that the school gets its money from the government and they get their paycheck. We forget about the higher orders of Bloom’s Taxonomy. We forget about what it truly means to be thoughtful and learning.
“It is difficult to get people to understand something when their salary (or other reward) depends on them not understanding it.” -Upton Sinclair
Further more Goddard doesn’t “teach” the theory of participatory democracy, they are in the process of practicing it. Just like the dichotomy of our culture-that of the ideal of democratic government system, but the everyday experience of our jobs being controlled by corporate monarchs or oligarchs-our educational institutions are no different. They preach one thing and practice another.
So, for me, the answer lies in getting in line with one’s values, personally and institutionally. To take the risk of behaving differently if it is in accordance with a larger truth. I am a fan of Zoe Weil and the Institute for Humane Education. They too practice what they teach, which is the idea of doing the most good and the least harm in the world. This is a simple, yet revolutionary model of thought and action. They demonstrate that by living and offering the experience that can transform the students own lives, they can then in turn offer these experiences to others in a ripple effect of emancipatory relationships. Unfortunately, oppressive pedagogies like those employed by many institutions, only make sure that each person is keeping the chains locked on the next.
I am grateful for this very thought-provoking conversation and those contributing to it. So thank you, Aaron, Kathie, and Terry. I hope that we can all support each other, if even only through this conversation to bring about meaningful change.
In peace,
January 5th, 2010 at 11:01 pmAdam
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@Adam Burk “Doing the most good and the least harm” is similar to the motto used in medical practice. I feel that my education at Goddard allowed me to take the risk of incorporating ideas that were waiting to happen…outside the dictates of what it means to teach, and applying them in ways that are beneficial to the student as an individual.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:55 amQuote