Mapping Teacher Candidate Experiences for Continuous Improvement in an Educator Preparation Program

• In Event: Thinking Collaboratively About Teacher Education: Exploring Promising Practices in Program Design

Abstract

We examined the lived experiences of teacher candidates in a large educator preparation program that houses both traditional and residency pathways. An improvement science framework (Bryk et al., 2015) was used to analyze empathy interviews and journey maps collected from teacher candidates in order to examine the research question: How can we use what we learn from the experiences of our teacher candidates to continuously improve our program? The constant comparative method was used to identify emergent themes. Findings included areas for improvement in the program resulting in change ideas in course design, delivery, and clinical integration. We argue that candidate perspectives are critical to developing effective programming that produces highly prepared teachers in positive learning environments.

Authors

• Christina Macias, California State University, Fresno

• Heather L. Horsley, California State University, Fresno

• Cathy Yun, Learning Policy Institute

• Karina Ortega, California State University - Fresno