Pausing to Co-investigate Practice: Democratizing Teacher Education by Centering Youth Voices

• In Event: Towards Youth Participatory Teacher Education

Abstract

Purpose
Practice-based teacher education (PBTE) pedagogies can help novice teachers (NTs) live justice-oriented commitments in their practice (Domínguez, 2021). In typical “PBTE rehearsals,” one NT enacts an instructional practice while others role-play students. Transforming PBTE rehearsals into YPTE rehearsals by inviting BIPOC youth can democratize whose voices shape NT learning (Zeichner et al., 2015). This study investigates What dilemmas emerged when two teacher educators (TEs) invited 20 youths to pause YPTE rehearsals?

Conceptual Framework
In PBTE rehearsals, TEs draw on “vertical expertise” (Zeichner et al., 2015) as more-knowledgeable others to scaffold NT learning, pausing to explore teaching practice (Lampert et al., 2013). We democratized rehearsals by (1) developing youths’ agency to pause and (2) by repositioning youths’, NTs’, and TEs’ knowledge as “horizontal expertise” to co-investigate teaching (Freire, 1970; Zeichner et al., 2015). Such “third-spaces” (Bhaba, 1994; Guíterrez et al., 1999) redistribute authority for knowledge production amongst stakeholders (Trepper et al., 2023).

The work of teacher educators involves managing dilemmas (Berry, 2008). PBTE rehearsals spark dilemmas about when to pause and what to work on (Drake, 2016). This paper specifically examines the dilemmas of TEs facilitating YPTE rehearsals.

Methods
Data sources for this study included video-recordings of 9 discussion rehearsals in a social studies methods course, plus video-stimulated recall interviews (VSRs; Nguyen et al., 2013) unearthing two TEs’ dilemmas within 54 rehearsal pauses. Drawing on flexible coding processes (Deterding & Waters, 2020) we developed analytic codes to operationalize TE goals in pauses and to characterize the sides of dilemmas TEs faced (Figure 1).

Findings
Figure 3 summarizes dilemmas of facilitating YPTE rehearsals in each TE’s room. Broadly, in the first rehearsals, TEs’ dilemmas were primarily between PBTE goals supporting NT learning in rehearsals and Y+PBTE or YOUTH agency goals. Across the rehearsals, dilemmas shifted to being primarily between PBTE goals and CO-INVESTIGATION goals.

One example of this PBTE versus CO-INVESTIGATION dilemma came in the first youth-initiated pause. Yuna, a biracial female NT, shared that she was considering a mock trial as an alternative to the socratic seminar. Evelyn paused: “What are your options moving forward regarding the mock trial?” Author1 recognized a tension, “I have this big goal of stimulating youth agency” while also “getting us into the rehearsal as fast as possible” [fulfill rehearsal’s purpose]. Aligned with developing youth agency was the possibility of letting this situation unfold naturally:

…we didn't talk about when to pause...in tension with my, “they’re pausing… cool!”… [T]he goal was for…them to feel comfortable pausing…they feel comfortable, but they’re not using it when I wanted them to…[W]here I land is…let’s roll with it, [I’d] rather have them feel more agency…

Significance
Infusing PBTE rehearsals with YPTE may address critiques of PBTE as rote and insufficiently grounded in the relational work of teaching (Souto-Manning & Martell, 2019). For TEs committed to YPTE’s conceptual centers, this study highlights common dilemmas and provides “practical tools” (Grossman et al., 2009) for how to reimagine teacher education around building third-spaces with youth (Trepper et al., 2023).

Authors

• Andrew del Calvo, Rutgers University - New Brunswick

• Andrew J. Schiera, University of Colorado - Boulder