Building Practice-Based Knowledge for Equity-Centered Teacher Preparation

• In Event: 34.058 - Seeing Patterns in the Kaleidoscope: Understanding Learning to Teach for Equity

Abstract

Objectives/Related Literature
Calls to strengthen the role of schools in initial teacher education have increased alongside criticisms of university-based teacher education for its perceived inability to prepare teachers who can successfully teach all students (Pullen, 2017). However, both schools and preparation programs face the challenge of supporting teachers who can promote equitable outcomes for increasingly diverse students. This study is based on three premises: (1) both schools and teacher education programs are complex systems; (2) teacher learning is a complex phenomenon (Opfer & Pedder, 2011); and, (3) learning to teach for equity is not a straight-forward or linear task (Lazar, 2018). Davis and Sumara’s (2006) concept of “redundancy” in complex systems is used to examine how teachers’ understandings about equity-centred teaching emerged from overlapping complex systems—an initial teacher education program and two elementary schools in disadvantaged communities.

Methods/Data Sources
This study addressed the question: What happens in a one-year equity-centered initial teacher education program when redundancy in knowledge, language, and ideas across complex systems is intentionally increased? Participants were five teacher educators and nine experienced elementary teachers from two schools who worked with teacher candidates for the final six months of their program. The 14 participants were also part of a research and development project, framed by The Facets (see Paper 2), aimed at building and sharing knowledge about teaching for equity within a collaborative inquiry community (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). Data sources included transcripts of meetings of the collaborative inquiry team (12 hours), semi-structured individual interviews (18 hours), and focus group discussions with [Name of Program] students.

Findings/Significance
Thematic analysis revealed that the concepts and language of The Facets provided redundancy (Davis & Sumara, 2006) across both parts of the initial teacher education system—the [Name of Program] and the collaborative research project. Over time, this prompted enhanced learning experiences for teachers, teacher educators, and teacher candidates about practice for equity. There were three major findings: (1) The Facets provided a common language across teachers and teacher educators and served as a powerful mechanism for building understandings of what teaching for equity means in practice; (2) sharing practical knowledge about The Facets made the teachers “hyper-aware” of the difference between educational equity and educational equality, which prompted deep rethinking of assumptions and the emergence of new practices related to equity; (3) the teachers used their increased understandings about equity to intentionally model and scaffold equity-focused teaching for their [Name of Program] students.

Recognizing initial teacher education as a composite of multiple complex systems suggests that teacher educators need to deliberately create the conditions from which desired outcomes are more likely to emerge. To promote the emergence of ideas and practices that support equity, ideas across the systems need to “bump up” against each other (Davis & Sumara 2006) in multiple ways and at multiple points in time. This study indicates that increasing redundancy across the parts of complex systems of teacher preparation (here, schools, teacher mentors, and program coursework/fieldwork) may facilitate increased understandings and enactment of equity-centered teaching.

Authors

• Lexie Barbara Grudnoff, The University of Auckland

• Mavis Haigh, The University of Auckland