Helping Preservice Teachers Feel Ready to Teach: Mindfulness and Self-Regulation

• In Event: Social and Emotional Learning in Teacher Preparation: Emerging Policy, Research, and Programs

Abstract

Objectives
The aim of the present study is to (1) examine the naturally occurring social-emotional orientation for teaching (SEOT) of preservice teachers in a secondary school masters in teaching program, and (2) how this relates to preservice teachers’ feelings of preparedness to lead their own classrooms at the end of their master’s degree program. We define SEOT as mindfulness, self-compassion, stress, and regulation efficacy.
Theoretical framework
Attending to the competing management, instructional, and emotional demands of a classroom requires a tremendous amount of social and emotional competence for teachers. When demands outpace teachers’ skills, stress rises and they may become more hostile and punitive (Jennings, Snowberg, Coccia, & Greenberg, 2011). Preparing teachers in aspects of SEOT during preservice training may increase their ability to handle the normative challenges of teaching. Moreover, they may then be able to provide the type of cognitively-rich instructional practices that are most predictive of meaningful student learning.
Methods
Faculty in the School of Education developed a new course, “Attentional Teaching Practices” (ATP) to add to the Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program for the 2013-14 year. The present study describes efforts to understand the SEOT of the preservice teachers in the 2012-13 baseline cohort of the MAT program, to inform ATP curriculum development. The SEOT subscales were given to MAT preservice teachers in a required MAT course during the last week of the Spring 2013 term and took 20 minutes.
Nearly everyone in the courses completed the questionnaire, (N = 98 preservice teachers). Participants were about 22.87 years old (SD =8.88), about one-third (35%) had taught in schools before entering the MAT program, and the majority had a parent with at least a college degree.
Data
We used the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (23 items; α =.81; Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006), the Self-Compassion Short Form (12 items; α =.78; Raes, Pommier, Neff, & Van Gucht, 2011), the Perceived Stress Scale (14 items; α = .81; Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983), and the Teacher Efficacy for Regulation of Negative Affect at Work (8 items; α =.90; Midgley, Maehr, Hruda, Anderman, Anderman, Freeman, & Urdan, 2000). We also asked how prepared they felt to lead their own classrooms, on a scale of 1-5.
Results
RQ1: The mindfulness scale showed the strongest associations with the other scales. Stress, as expected, was negatively related to the other scales.
RQ2: We conducted regressions, controlling for whether or not the participant had taught before coming to the MAT program, and found that mindfulness (β = .29, p = .003) and regulation efficacy (β = .47, p = .000) were significantly related to how prepared he/she felt to begin leading his/her own classroom.
Significance
In the proposed AERA session, we will describe the present findings, along with discussion about how they inform curriculum development to address the SEOT of preservice teachers in MAT programs. We will emphasize the importance of understanding how mindfulness skills and self-regulation of affect may support teacher preparation efforts.

Authors

• Shannon Beth Wanless, University of Pittsburgh

• Tanner LeBaron Wallace, University of Pittsburgh

• Jennifer Lorraine Cartier, University of Pittsburgh

• Thomas Akiva, University of Pittsburgh

• Amanda Ferrara, University of Pittsburgh

• Carl Johnson, University of Pittsburgh