(In)Coherent Connections: How Teacher Residents Carry Program Learning About Teacher-Student Relationships Into the Field

• In Event: 21.030 - When Preservice Teachers Learn Alongside Students, Families, and Communities

Abstract

There is limited research on how teacher training programs prepare novices to form relationships with students (Grossman & McDonald, 2008). This paper explores how residents from two different mission-driven teacher residency programs – No Excuses Teacher Residency and Progressive Teacher Residency – carry their training about teacher-student relationships into the field. I find that these two programs are highly influential in new teacher practice, particularly curricular and pedagogical strategies. However, the interactional culture at the school sites where residents secure employment, and how consistent this is with the culture of their residency program, influences residents’ willingness/ability to implement their relational training. Findings suggest that the relational aspects of a teacher’s practice might be even more context-dependent than the cognitive aspects of practice.

Author

• Victoria Marie Theisen-Homer, Arizona State University