Program A: Studio School Design Research

• In Event: 46.067 - Team/Design Professional Development School: Critical Common Commitments for Teacher Development

Abstract

The Program A research agenda is designed to yield data that both guides the growth of individual candidates using a developmental rubric designed by the State Department of Education and provides data with respect to the affordances and constraints of the teaming model. Specifically, we are creating a developmental assessment system in which teacher candidates are uploading evidence of student learning as they engage in the Inquiry into My Practice Protocol (IMPing) within on-site seminars with clinical instructors and then with school staff at the classroom level. This assessment system provides rich records of practice chosen by candidates as evidence that they are meeting the competencies and acquiring the dispositions for good teaching, and this evidence is directly linked to student learning. The assessment system (SCOPE) data is supplemented by video records, surveys (of candidates and school personnel), evaluations, planning documents, meeting notes and journals entries. Together these data enable us to document teacher candidate learning and school improvement in ways that demonstrate the developmental progress of teachers along a standards-based continuum.
Katz (2012) describes the stages of teacher development as survival, consolidation, renewal, and maturity. Each stage containing both developmental tasks or those things that teachers do at that particular stage and training needs or those things that teachers need to move to the next stage. Davison (2006) frames his research into intra-institutional collaboration among teachers, specifically ELL and content area teachers, in terms of teacher identity and teacher professional development. He traces educator development through four stages: self-concern, task management, learner impact and, finally, teaching innovation. One of our goals is to accelerate the development of educators, so that they more swiftly become the kinds of teachers who demonstrate what Berliner (1986) describes as increasing levels of intuition, fluidity and knowing-in action. Others (Caruso, 1977; Sacks & Harrington, 1982; Yarger & Mertens, 1980) also make a case for stages that move from concrete to abstract. Broadly understood, learning depends on the way human individuals understand one another (Tomasello & Rakoczy, 2003). All teachers must be ready, willing, able, reflective, and communal (Shulman & Shulman 2004). We understand these as the qualities of educators who are more likely to understand the people they are trying to teach. The question, however, remains, is there a continuum, what is the continuum, and how do we move them further along the continuum during the preservice years. What kinds of clinical experiences do teacher candidates need and how do we know when progress is being made?
The most important findings to date include: 1) patterns with respect to candidates’ submissions to the SCOPE system reveal candidates moving from qualitative anecdotal reporting to more quantitative data-focused reporting, and 2) because of the experiences in both community and schools, candidates are developing professional dispositions at a faster rate and developing specific skills that we would not typically expect of novice teachers.

Authors

• Carole G. Basile, University of Missouri St. Louis

• Richard Stanton, University of Missouri - St. Louis