Integrating Learning Experiences With a Community Organization to Support Prospective Teachers of Ethnic Studies

• In Event: Teacher Educators Creating Critical and Anti-Oppressive Alternative Spaces Within University-Based Programs

Abstract

Objective
This paper examines the learning possibilities for teacher candidates and teacher educators that were created when three traditionally distinct courses in a teacher education program (TEP) were integrated to meet the emergent strengths and needs of a cohort of students focused on teaching Ethnic Studies.
Perspective
Since its inception in the 1930s, the field of social foundations of education has underscored that teachers should be intellectually and pragmatically engaged in the formation of a democratic society (Tozer & Butts, 2011). However, prospective teachers often critique social foundations for lacking a clear purpose and being the “least worthwhile component of their professional preparation” (Beadie, 1996).
To address the legitimate critiques of social foundations while recognizing its crucial role for teachers in a democratic society, we developed a foundations course that was integrated with a learning theory class and a field placement practicum. The course was partially designed in response to critical feedback from a previous cohort of TEP students in an Ethnic Studies pathway. They cited the lack of integration across foundations, learning, and field courses and the lack of concerted attention to issues of race, class, and language. Consonant with the commitments of Ethnic Studies, the integrated course was designed and taught as a collaborative effort between university-based faculty in teacher education, a community-based organization with a long history of work on issues of educational justice, and a local high school.
Methods & Data
Three categories of data were collected and analyzed for this study. First, TEP students were interviewed at the end of the quarter about their experiences in the course. The semi-structured interviews were analyzed for themes across participants as well as particularities among the participants through structural coding techniques (Guest et al., 2012; MacQueen et al., 2008; Namey et al., 2008) and content analysis (Krippendorff, 2013; Schreier, 2012). Second, student assignments from the academic quarter, including weekly reflections, were collected. These documents were interpreted as “social products” that reflect the interests, perspectives, values, and ideologies of students (Saldaña, 2012). As Bowen (2009) suggests, the artifacts were analyzed through an iterative process of content analysis (Krippendorff, 2013; Schreier, 2012) and thematic analysis (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006). Finally, all class meetings were video-recorded. Class discussions were analyzed for student learning through a lens of microgenetic learning (Parnafes & diSessa, 2013) and interaction (Goodwin, 2007; Jordan & Henderson, 1995).
Results
Our analysis demonstrates that the integrated learning environment allowed TEP students to 1) understand how social foundations and theories of learning can be used to examine, address, and re-imagine their engagement with students; 2) feel confident in reworking and innovating their interactions with students to be consonant with perspectives they gained in social foundations and learning theory; and, 3) use their field experiences to see themselves as producers of theory in social foundations and learning theory.
Significance
An integrated model of social foundations supports the learning and practice of prospective teachers and addresses critiques that have called for its truncation or elimination in teacher education programs, offering considerable understandings to teacher educators.

Authors

• Thomas M. Philip, University of California - Los Angeles

• Kevin Armenta

• Li'i' Furumoto

• Edward Flores, Advancing Justice - Los Angeles

• Darlene Lee

• Emma D. Hipolito, University of California – Los Angeles