Teachers and Students Planning Classroom Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment: Preparing Teachers to Implement Democratic Classrooms

• In Event: Teacher–Pupil Planning in Middle-Grades Schools: Research and Evaluation Methodologies for Examining the Intentions and Outcomes of This Process

Abstract

The implementation and functioning of democratic classrooms has been a tenet of the middle school concept for over 50 years (National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, n.d.; National Middle School Association, 2010). The presence of democracy in a classroom setting and engaging students as part of the instructional democratic process was introduced nearly a century ago (Dewey, 1916) and has received greater attention in recent years (Beane, 1990, 1997; Beane & Lipka, 1984, 1987).

Currently, there are two issues with why middle level teachers are not implementing democratic classrooms. First, teachers simply do not have the resources to demonstrate, encourage, or practice truly democratic classrooms — classrooms in which students and teachers work collaboratively to develop and implement curriculum.

The second, and I believe larger issue, is the lack of professional training in how to effectively develop and implement a more democracy-based teaching and learning environment. To that end, I am advocating for a national research project focusing teacher preparation. Ideally, this would be developed by the MLER SIG. Once a valid and reliable design has been developed, SIG members could participate by collecting data concerning teacher preparation programs.

Figure 1 illustrates a research model that could form the basis for the development of a project to examine the effectiveness of teacher preparation. While still in its developmental stage, this model proposes multiple survey data collection points over a four-year period from pre-service teachers, first-year teachers, third-year teachers, cooperating teachers, mentoring teachers, and building administrators. A pre-post survey design would be implemented by collecting data from pre-service teachers both before and after their student teaching semester. Survey items would be determined by examining the literature on the efficacy of pre-service teachers (Gowie, 2010; Nietfeld & Cao, 2003; Woolfolk Hoy, 2000) and the literature levels of teacher efficacy (Coladarci, 1992; Dembo & Gibson, 1985; Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Guskey & Passaro, 1994; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001; Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990). Cooperating teachers would be asked to complete a survey evaluating the student’s knowledge and efficacy as a teacher. Once the pre-service candidate enters the profession, data could be collected from 1st and 3rd year teachers to assess their attitudes and also their levels of preparedness for teaching young adolescents. Mentoring teachers and building administrators would also be asked to complete surveys evaluating the first and third-year teacher’s efficacy, level of preparedness, and proficiency in the classroom. Over time, this model could provide a large-scale, longitudinal data set sufficient for model development through a variety of statistical procedures including time-series analysis. Time series forecasting is the use of a model to predict future values based on previously observed values (Hamilton, 1994).

The SIG has demonstrated capacity to develop and implement a national-level research project. Nearly 70 members of the SIG recently participated in the National Common Planning Time Project. Ideally, the SIG could develop and implement a similar national-level project focusing on teacher preparation. This paper will describe and discuss the background, need, and feasibility of such a national, SIG-sponsored, project.

Author

• Steven B. Mertens, Illinois State University