Tensions Between Theory and Practice in Teacher Education: Unpacking the Disconnect Between Coursework and Fieldwork

• In Event: 35.081 - Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 35.081-24 - Navigating Research and Theory Into Practice in Teacher Preparation

Abstract

Recently, teacher education programs have been criticized for being too theoretical, impractical, and irrelevant to the everyday realities of schools. The pressures to make teaching technical make it difficult to forefront the social and cultural issues that make teaching and learning a highly complex and situated task. In this project, I explore how a group of pre-service teachers negotiate the sociocultural approaches advocated in their university courses with the skills-based orientation institutionalized by schools. Drawing from a year-long case study on 3 pre-service teachers in kindergarten classrooms, I use classroom observations in field placements, interviews across the year, and university coursework/projects to document the ideologies and practices of pre-service teachers across multiple contexts (mainly the university, schools, and the community).

Author

• Haeny S. Yoon, Teachers College, Columbia University