Challenging Apprenticeships of Observation: The Power and Possibilities of Community-Based Field Experiences

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Using Self-Study to Support Teacher Candidate Learning

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a two-year collaborative self-study examining the experiences of four teacher educators facilitating community-based field experiences in the United States and Canada. Central to this study is an examination of the ways we, as teacher educators, sought to use community-based field experiences to disrupt preservice teachers’ apprenticeships of observation (Lortie, 1975). However, in doing so, we realized that facilitating these community-based field experiences also served, in some ways, to disrupt our own apprenticeships of observation. Findings indicate that working in community-based settings has the potential to disrupt preservice teachers’ and teacher educators’ apprenticeships of observation. Additionally, when facilitating field experiences in community-based settings teacher educators may be less likely to perpetuate their own PK-12 experiences.

Authors

• Linda Taylor, Ball State University

• Erica R Hamilton, Grand Valley State University

• Amy Burns, University of Calgary

• Alison E Leonard, Clemson University