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Alverno College and Montclair State University: Building a Culture of Deeper Learning

Fri, April 28, 8:15 to 10:15am, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Floor: Ballroom Level, Room 302 C

Abstract

This paper evaluates the structures and mechanisms of Alverno College and Montclair State University that support their efforts to prepare teacher candidates to teach for deeper learning. While these two preparation programs vary drastically in size, context, scope and resources, at the heart of both of the programs is a deep commitment to the foundations of teaching for deeper learning. The purpose of this paper is to explore similar themes across the sites, and to understand how the differences are mitigated by the focus on deeper learning.

Montclair is the largest annual producers of teachers in the state of New Jersey (an average of 400 teachers/year). Alverno, in contrast, prepares approximately 80 teachers a year in their small, liberal arts college in Wisconsin. Although these programs vary in size, and context, both have large populations of first generation college going students and students from diverse backgrounds, and both have steadfast commitments to modeling and teaching for deeper learning as they prepare their candidates to do the same.

The data gathered for this study comes from an in-depth case study that included in-person interviews and focus groups, surveys and classroom observations with program participants, faculty, and key stakeholders. In analyzing our transcribed data, we engaged in a multi-stage method. We first identified emphasized topics and emergent themes upon the completion of our data collection. Next, we continued to refine our analysis through an iterative process of comparing the interview, survey, and observation data to our thematic summaries.

Based on our analysis, we identified key structures that form teacher preparation at Montclair: their Center of Pedagogy, conceptual framework (known as the Portrait of a Teacher), and a longstanding partnership with the City of Newark. Montclair’s model of preparation is experiential, inquiry-based, and cohort-based). Whereas structures are key in the Montclair case, there are three mechanisms that shape preparation at Alverno: the habits of mind of teaching, the abilities-based curriculum, and the history of collaboration and sisterhood (Alverno is the nation’s largest Catholic women’s college).

At both institutions, faculty model deeper learning pedagogies, enabling candidates to experience the ways in which they are instructed to teach. At each institution, there is a culture of continuous improvement—a culture that contributes to their preparation of teachers where candidates are actively engaged in deeper learning. Faculty develop collaborative and respectful relationships with the candidates, which models the type of connections the they aim for graduates of the programs to establish with their own students.

These case studies provide critical insight into the structures, mechanisms, and approaches that teacher preparation programs can adopt to ensure that teacher candidates, especially from diverse and underserved communities, are supported in their development of deeper learning pedagogies and dispositions.

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