Preparing Preservice Teachers for the Challenges of Workplace Collaboration

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: Division K Section 6 Poster Session

Abstract

As teacher educators, it’s our responsibility to ensure our students are prepared for their first years of teaching. In addition to content and pedagogical knowledge and skills, they need workplace or "soft" skills for success in the profession. We contend that such workplace skills are best developed and supported during the field component of a teacher education program rather than in the first years of teaching. In this paper, we apply Will Felps and colleagues’ (2006) seminal article, “How, When and Why Bad Apples Spoil the Bunch” to our own research and experience as teacher educators. We offer a framework for understanding challenges to workplace collaboration and strategies for teacher educators to develop these skills in preservice teachers.

Authors

• Louise S. Ammentorp, The College of New Jersey

• Lauren P. Madden, The College of New Jersey