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Leveraging Collective Inquiry to Improve Teacher Education

Thu, April 27, 4:05 to 5:35pm, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Floor: Meeting Room Level, Room 221 C

Abstract

Purpose
The Adaptive Cycles of Teaching (ACT) model is an innovative approach to teacher preparation that utilizes practice-centered learning theory and mobile technology to improve teacher education (Grossman, Compton, Igra, Ronfeldt, Shahan, & Williamson; 2009). The ACT model provides teacher candidates: 1) curricular depth by focusing on a core set of professional practices; 2) opportunities to enact multiple lesson cycles with feedback/coaching; and 3) opportunities to assess lesson effectiveness through analysis of student formative assessments and coach feedback. Faculty teams designed the ACT model for the undergraduate elementary education program and have continued to improve it over three iterations of design-based research (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003). Efforts are underway to adapt and extend the model across the undergraduate early childhood and special education programs. This paper examines how the ACT model evolved, in particular, the role that faculty inquiry teams played in conceptualizing, designing, and testing the model.

Perspectives
Improving teacher education is fundamentally a learning process. In particular, designing higher education work environments to facilitate faculty learning and growth can lead to continuous improvement and fundamental reforms. The How People Learn (HPL) framework identifies four interrelated concepts that can inform work environments to foster faculty learning (Brandsford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hammerness, Darling-Hammond, & Bransford, 2005). Learner-centeredness capitalizes on participants’ strengths, needs, and interests, and enhances motivation for the work undertaken. Community-centeredness distributes learning to enable individuals to achieve more than they might otherwise on their own. Knowledge-centeredness fosters and supports knowledge re-organization. Assessment-centeredness allows for feedback and revision. These HPL concepts are fundamental qualities of teacher educator inquiry teams serving to foster both learning and change.
Methods
This paper entails a descriptive historical account of the inquiry processes faculty used to develop and adapt the ACT curriculum, a practice-centered model of teacher preparation. The context is a college of education within a multi-campus private nonprofit university located in a mid-western metropolitan area. Recent demographics on the undergraduate teachers in the institution indicate a high percentage of minority candidates (i.e., 26% Hispanic and 45.9% African American) many of whom are the first in their families to attend college.

Data Sources
We examine three years of faculty inquiry team project outcomes, including surveys and focus group feedback completed during that time period.

Results and Conclusions
Faculty involved with undergraduate teacher education engaged in multiple forms of inquiry to improve. A core team engaged in design-based research to develop, implement, test, and improve the ACT model. Several smaller teams obtained research residencies to specifically inform elements of the ACT. A faculty research residency is a college of education sponsored program providing faculty with time to investigate practices in k-12 schools to improve teacher education coursework (Author, 2016). We illustrate the synergy among these inquiry opportunities and highlight how they supported faculty engagement, learning, and curricular reform.

Significance
We draw implications for the role of faculty inquiry in systemic change, in particular, how we might integrate continuous improvement and professional learning to reform teacher education.
 

Authors