Teacher Educators as Reformers? The Complicated U.S. Case

• In Event: Teacher Educators as Reformers? The Complicated U.S. Case

Abstract

Problem and Educational Significance
In the U.S., there are many teacher education reforms that reflect the shift in policy rhetoric from the demand that teacher education programs prepare “highly qualified teachers” to the expectation that they produce “highly effective teachers” (Hess & McShane, 2014). One controversial innovation relocates initial teacher preparation at new graduate schools of education (nGSEs) (Cochran-Smith, Miller & Cummings Carney, 2016), which are unaffiliated with universities but offer 9-12 months of preparation as well as teacher licensure and master’s degrees. Teacher preparation at nGSEs has been the object of both enthusiastic media and philanthropic attention (e.g., Brenneman, 2015; Gates Foundation, 2015) and excoriating critique (e.g., Stitzlein & West, 2014; Zeichner, 2016). Relocating teacher preparation at nGSEs involves the emergence of new cadres of teacher educators with beliefs, practices, and pedagogies that may or may not be similar to those of U.S. teacher educators at university-initiated or -affiliated programs.

Objectives, Perspectives and Modes of Inquiry
This paper examines one of the newly emerging groups of U.S. teacher educators using case data from three sites in a cross-case study of teacher preparation at nGSEs. The study combines two theoretical frameworks—communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and knowledge-practice relationships in teacher learning communities (Author, 1999)—to get at shared cultural practices and conceptions of knowledge and practice. Two foci of the larger nGSE study are the focus of this paper: (1) the goals, purposes, and beliefs of nGSE teacher educators about: teacher preparation as a lever for change, learning to teach, teaching knowledge, and equity/diversity; and (2) the key practices and pedagogies teacher educators employ. The paper uses case and cross-case analyses (Ayres, Kavanaugh, & Knafl, 2003; Stake, 2006) of data sources from each site, including: interviews with nGSE leaders/founders, administrators/faculty, school mentors, candidates, and graduates; observations of courses, teaching modules, coaching sessions, assessments, and fieldwork; program materials and documents, including assignments, delivery platforms, evaluation rubrics; and institutional data, including recruitment/retention rates and effectiveness reports.

Results and Contributions
This paper presents three results of cross-case analysis. (1) Teacher educators at nGSEs see themselves and their work as part of a larger U.S. “education reform” movement with accountability as central and effective practice as primary (Mehta, 2013). (2) Teacher educators at nGSEs work primarily from a “knowledge-in-practice” (Author, 1999) conception of knowledge-practice relationships, assuming that the primary knowledge teachers need is embedded in the practice of effective teachers. (3) Despite commonalities in what they oppose and similar attention to opportunities for teacher learning in and from practice, other beliefs and practices of teacher educators across nGSEs vary widely in specific pedagogies, visions of teaching, and conceptions of equity and justice. Differences depend in part on the social, political, and business agendas to which the nGSEs are attached as well as the larger goals of their founders and funders. This paper concludes that how the larger teacher education community in the U.S. responds to teacher education at nGEs requires that we first understand this new phenomenon from insider perspectives.

Author

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College