Contradictions in Preservice Teacher Lesson Planning: An Activity Theory Analysis

• In Event: 72.048 - Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: 72.048-4 - Preservice Teachers' Learning Across Multiple Contexts

Abstract

Preservice teachers (PTs)—as subjects in two, among many, linked activity systems—are confronted with multiple, conflicting objects and motives. These tensions often surface in the way tools, particularly written and oral genres, are used within and across activity systems. Drawing on both activity theory and genre theory, this study builds on traditions of writing studies and teacher education by applying writing studies methodologies to PT learning. The purposes of this study include 1) furthering understandings of how novice teachers learn to appropriate the genres of teaching, 2) exploring contradictions between university preparation programs and P-12 school contexts, and 3) beginning to propose new approaches for teacher education that may either embrace or resolve macro-level sociopolitical contradictions.

Authors

• Charlotte L. Land, Pennsylvania State University

• Jessica Cira Rubin, The University of Texas - Austin