"We Are Not Robots": Elementary Preservice Teachers' Focus Group Talk About Problems of Practice Around Literacy Instruction

• In Event: Literacy Instruction in Teacher Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of elementary preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) problems of practice around literacy instruction. The study comprises qualitative analysis of data collected from focus group interviews with 21 PSTs from five teacher-education institutions across the United States. Analysis of the PSTs’ talk about problems of practice (or their framing of problems) in the focus groups yielded three themes about how they defined problems and discussed strategies or solutions to problems. PSTs expressed that: 1) the range of elementary students’ literacy abilities challenged their differentiation, 2) they missed opportunities they believed would make them better prepared to teach aspects of literacy, and 3) conflicting and constricting demands limited their literacy instruction.

Authors

• Jacquelynn S. Popp, Lake Forest College
  Presenting Author

• Kierstin Giuncoy, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Tori Golden Hughes, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Christine Leighton, Emmanuel College
  Presenting Author

• Carin L. Appleget, Creighton University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Poonam Arya, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xiufang Chen, Rowan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Crystal Dail Rose, Tarleton State University
  Non-Presenting Author