Exemplary Cases of Teacher Education Program Design and Evaluation

• In Event: Charting the Landscape of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers

Abstract

In Studying Diversity in Teacher Education, co-edited by Arnetha F. Ball and Cynthia A. Tyson (2011), this seminal volume of work highlights scholarship by researchers who take up the topic of diversity in teacher education across various epistemological, methodological, and sociopolitical issues. They note the “historically persistent, yet unresolved, issues in teacher education” (p.10). “Until we improve teacher education we have no hope of improving diversity in teacher education” (Ladson-Billings, 2011, p. 362). Teacher education institutions, educators, and researchers must examine their programs and research agendas to ensure that teachers are being prepared for the ever-increasing diversity found in educational settings and that the education and support of Teachers of Color and Indigenous teachers are also given much-needed attention (Gist & Bristol, 2022).

In another seminal piece, Grant and Secada (1990) noted limited research on diversity and teacher education in their literature review. Like the ERIC search done by Grant and Gibson (2011) for their chapter in Studying Teacher Education, we too did a simple word search of “diversity and teacher education” that returned 22,086 peer-reviewed, full-text articles, compared to 960 less than ten years ago! Indeed, diversity and teacher education has gained wide attention over the past twenty years. By adding program design to the search, the number increased to 39,121 records. With further analysis, the descriptor “teacher education programs” consists of 2853 records. An added breakdown of these records yields n=313 for program effectiveness and n=29 for program evaluation (Figure 1 in upload summary).

We looked at the 29 records for a deeper evaluation of the studies on teacher education research and identified three case studies that discussed their assessment of teacher education program evaluation that focuses specifically on preparing Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers. To put these numbers into context, the work in teacher education, however, reveals few studies that focus on diversity, teacher education, and program design. In other words, “few studies deal with assessing program effectiveness or looking at the outcomes of teacher education in K-12 classrooms” (Ball & Tyson, 2011, p. 28). Authors (2022) also commented on the challenges of inviting researchers to contribute research on program design in their section introduction in the Gist and Bristol (2022) handbook. The challenge of doing program evaluation resides in differing contexts, doing the work of teacher education, and having limited time to look carefully and systematically at program design.

Though there are a limited number of teacher education programs in the literature, there is still great work happening in teacher education and program design. This section describes the new and innovative program design needed to support Teachers of Color and Indigenous teachers in successfully navigating teacher education and P-12 classrooms. We describe the need to examine the specific barriers to racial equity present in teacher preparation programs.

Authors

• Weade James, AACTE
  Presenting Author

• Felicia Moore Mensah, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Jacqueline A. Rodriguez, The National Center for Learning Disabilities
  Presenting Author