Reclaiming Legitimacy in Teacher Preparation: Using Core Teaching Practices to Structure Clinical Experience

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Sunday 1:45 pm
  In Poster Session: Innovative Design and Models for Teaching and Teacher Education - Div K Section 09

Abstract

University-based teacher preparation has a legitimacy problem. Our curriculum isn’t always coherent, we don’t always collaborate well with field-based partners, and too many graduates enter the profession without the needed skills. In response, we spent the past decade redesigning our secondary teacher preparation program from the ground up. Our aim was to increase curricular coherence, stakeholder collaboration, and programmatic legitimacy. We introduced core teaching practices (CTPs) as a curricular framework and engaged mentors in the design of our clinically-rich model. In this paper, we use Weber’s (1947) theory of legitimacy to examine how the program’s structure helped mentors see the program as credible and worthy of support.

Authors

• Cynthia L. Carver, Oakland University

• Audra Slocum, Oakland University

• Anthony Tuf Francis, Oakland University