Exploring Youth Perspectives of Field-Based Teaching Experiences: Insights and Considerations from a Grow Your Own Educator Preparation Program

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 9:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Latine Students Righting the Wrongs in and for Their Schools and Communities (Table 3)

Abstract

A Grow Your Own (GYO) program, provides teens of the Global Majority (a term describing 85% of the global diverse populations) (GM) the opportunity to explore teaching as a career through an equity and social justice lens (Author A, 2016). This study aims to investigate the following:
How do students describe their experiences in the GYO program?
How do field experiences in this specific GYO program impact students' consideration of teaching as a profession?
Examining students’ experiences in a GYO is a way to uplift students of the GM and strengthen practices that can serve to identify historical harms and imagine remedies in education in order to revitalize the field of education.
This study examines the research questions through Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework. As the GYO was designed for students of the GM, this framework provides a lens to the cultural wealth of communities of the GM (Yosso, 2005) and highlights how preservice teachers deepen their knowledge of learners and their own development in social contexts (Darling-Hammond, 2006) with the important practice of field experiences (Shelton et al., 2020; Seiforth & Samuel, 1979).
A case study methodology is used to explore GYO students’ field experiences and consideration of teaching. Of the 23 students in this case between 2010-2018, all were students of the GM. Students included in the study had four or more instances describing the field experience during their semi-structured interview.
First-round inductive coding involved coding all data and the second round of inductive coding, filtering by field experiences, and identifying students with four or more responses. Researchers created descriptive codes, ensuring consistency, and reviewing each other's descriptive codes to ensure reliability. Based on Yosso's (2005) framework, deductive coding identified various forms of capital.
A sampling of students described their experiences: “I thought it was probably one of my favorite classes like working with kids and being around students [in the] classroom,” “The best part about working with students is seeing their growth,” and “You feel at home and that teachers actually care if you care.”
Furthermore, students’ described their field experiences: “When they look up to you…it’s just good because you’re a role model to them, you know? And they just look up to you,” and “ I’ve kinda felt that 6th grader feel again and so it's nice to reconnect to that.”
Three broad themes emerged for each of the research questions. Students shared positive experience, positive impact on the lives of others, and connection when describing their experiences in the GYO program. Positive views about teaching, community/role models, and transformative experience provided insight into the field experience's impact on becoming a teacher.
The themes above connect to Yosso’s (2005) CCW framework where students engage in and apply their own cultural capitals. GYO students elevate their cultural capital as they seek to repair generational educational injustices within their communities as they explore teaching and engage in field experiences. This is important to understand when designing and supporting preservice teaching experiences for youth of the GM.

Authors

• Jenna Clark Martin, Regis University

• Amie Hạ, University of Colorado - Denver

• Amanda J. Gonzales, University of Colorado - Denver

• Anataly Uribe, University of Colorado - Denver