Fostering Community-Based Field Experiences in Teacher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Rethinking Clinical Practice and Practicum Experiences

Abstract

This paper describes community-based field experiences that focus on literacy learning and teaching for middle and secondary preservice teachers. Across two programs, field experiences are framed as alternative placements where teacher candidates learn literacy teaching outside of traditional content area classrooms. We identify how anchor assignments that connect the work in the field sites to work in university-based methods classes urges prospective teachers to become more attentive to the relationship between teacher and students. Embracing alternative, community-based sites for teacher learning fosters broader contemplation of students’ learning and lives, and leads teachers early in their career to view teaching as a process of inquiry rather than a pre-defined assemblage of techniques.

Authors

• Terri L. Rodriguez, College of Saint Benedict

• Heidi L. Hallman, The University of Kansas