Poster #83 - Reaching Teachers before they Enter the Classroom: Promoting Pre-Service Teachers’ Culturally Relevant Practices

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Low-income children from culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds score below their mainstream peers on various measures of school readiness (Espinosa et al., 2006; Lee & Burkham, 2002). As a result, researchers and policymakers have come to recognize the critical role of early childhood programs in fostering school readiness skills for all children. Yet, the benefits of preschool are intimately tied to the quality of teaching provided (Neuman, 2008), and low-income children are more likely to be enrolled in under-resourced, lower-quality schools with less-experienced teachers (Olson, 2003). In recent years, initiatives have, therefore, sought to provide professional development and training to early childhood educators, as a means of improving teaching practices (Bacevich & Salinger, 2006; Neuman & Cunningham, 2009; Poglinco & Bach, 2004; Wasik et al., 2006). One particularly important area of focus has been on coaching teachers to integrate culturally responsive teaching practices that build on the unique skill set that children from diverse backgrounds bring into the classroom (Gay, 2010). Through coaching, teachers are provided with knowledge and techniques, as well as opportunities to receive feedback on their practices. However, despite the importance of developing culturally responsive teaching practices, many teacher training programs fail to provide pre-service teachers with the resources necessary to attain these essential skills. The current study, thus, explored the effectiveness of providing web-based coaching to pre-service teachers in the summer before they enter the classroom.

Fifty pre-service teachers who were committed to teaching culturally diverse children from low-income communities participated in the study. Over the summer months, pre-service teachers were given online access to a series of nine animated webinars and a manual providing intensive training in a culturally-responsive, strengths-based classroom oral storytelling program (Reading Success Using Co-Constructive Elaborative Storytelling Strategies, R-SUCCESS; Authors) that has been found to be effective in enhancing teachers’ culturally responsive classroom practices and supporting low-income Latino and African-heritage children’s academic outcomes. After completing the webinar series, pre-service teachers received feedback on their plan to share a story using R-SUCCESS techniques. Later, once they entered the classroom setting, they submitted a video-recording of themselves sharing an oral story in their classroom to obtain certification in R-SUCCESS, following a set protocol. All teachers were then asked to implement R-SUCCESS in their classrooms, and to complete questionnaires about the training process, as well as their implementation of R-SUCCESS. Precertification webinar viewing patterns will be compared to those of in-service classroom teachers who were previously trained and certified in R-SUCCESS. Certification videos will be coded for instructional support using the CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008), as well as for teachers’ use of R-SUCCESS strategies. Analyses are ongoing, but suggest few differences in the webinar viewing patterns and certification of pre-service teachers, when compared to in-service teachers. Once analyses are complete, findings will be discussed in relation to the policy-based and practices-based implications of providing culturally-responsive training to pre-service teachers who are devoted to teaching in under-resourced schools.

Authors

• Adina Schick, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Lauren Scarola, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cassie Wuest, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gigliana Melzi, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Schneebaum, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author