Teaching Skills Without Content: Student Teachers Learning "the Contentless Curriculum"

• In Event: Clinical Practice and Content-Based Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Scholars have noted that in US K-12 schools the teaching of skills has taken precedence over the teaching of content. This study addresses three short-comings of the literature: 1) none of the existing studies in this area are is empirical in nature; 2) none looks at these issues in the context of student teaching; and 3) none has looked at the implications of the situation for education related to social critique. Using an inductive, qualitative methodology we coded 167 lesson observation summaries and triangulated those with 22 interviews of student teachers in grades K-4. Our findings showed that instruction is typically focused on teaching one mandated skill after another with little opportunity for students to do social critique.

Authors

• Paul John Sylvester, Westchester Univ. of Penn

• Steve P. Myran, Old Dominion University