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Bridging the Two Worlds of Teacher Education Through Synchronous "Learning Argument" and "Teaching Argument" Units

Sun, April 7, 9:55 to 11:25am, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Floor: 800 Level, Room 801A

Abstract

Purpose. Much teacher education research has focused on the problem of the “two worlds pitfall” (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985), the disconnect between “constructivist practices endorsed by the university and transmissive instruction prevalent in K-12 classrooms” (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2007, p. 2). Many university English Education programs, for example, emphasize dialogic discussion and students’ everyday literacies (Hillocks, 2011; Lee, 2007; Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2005) when teaching interpretation or argument. However, despite much progress, the discourse of English Language Arts classrooms often emphasizes teacher-centered, “known answer” questions, most notably in lower-tracked classes and under-resourced schools (Mihalakis, 2010; Nystrand et al., 2003; Oakes, 2005).

As a result, student teachers often fall back upon these teacher-focused pedagogies, which position students as receivers of knowledge and ultimately hinder students’ opportunities to engage critically with texts.

This pilot study explored the effects of an intervention that attempted to join or refigure the two worlds (Horn & Campbell, 2015; Zeichner, 2010) through an ELA methods course jointly designed by university faculty and mentor teachers and drawn from principles of ELA instruction that position students as learners with rich intellectual and social resources.

Grounding Framework. The course built on three elements:
• Shared planning: Mentor teachers and university faculty jointly planned a constructivist middle school “learning argument” unit that took place synchronously with a “teaching argument” unit in the methods course.
• Shared space: University methods courses took place at the mentor teachers’ middle school. University faculty visited middle school classrooms and mentor teachers joined the methods classroom.
• Shared expertise: Mentor teachers were positioned as experts in the university classroom, sharing examples of constructivist teaching.
To illustrate the alignment: Both mentor and student teachers participated in an argument writing activity involving a murder mystery (Hillocks, 2011). Then mentor teachers implemented that same activity, and finally all groups compared experienced and derived meta-level understandings of constructivist learning and student resources.

Methods and Data. We compared numeric course evaluations averages for methods courses from 2015 - current pilot course, and used emergent coding strategies to analyze student evaluations, teacher interviews, and both placement and university classroom discussions.

Findings. Students’ numerical ratings of this course where significantly higher than ratings for six previous methods courses taught by the same faculty. Patterns in comments and interviews included questions about ways to draw on students’ everyday resources and multiple allusions to student talk, which increased during the three days of the murder mystery aligned activity.

Mentor teachers’ comments indicated that the pilot project influenced their positioning of their own students as capable learners. For example, one teacher commented that he didn’t think the murder mystery activity would work for students; he thought they would “not be able to handle it. But it was an hour and a half of solid engagement.”

Significance. The implications of this study are especially useful for teacher education research and design. Joining the “two worlds” with an emphasis on constructivism and “funds of knowledge” can lead both student and mentor teachers to position students as capable knowledge builders.

Authors