Ties That Bind: Curriculum and Performance Assessments as Threads That Weave Coherence for Teacher Candidates

• In Event: Exploring the Contours of Coherence in Teacher Preparation: Four Perspectives on the Concept, the Pathways, and the Challenges

Abstract

This paper focuses on the use of curriculum and performance assessment as tools for building conceptual and practice coherence for teacher candidates, especially with regard to equity-based teaching.
Theoretically, the paper draws on two seminal works in teacher education. First, the Teacher Education and Learning to Teach (TELT) Study (Kennedy, 1998) examined how teacher candidates changed as they progressed through their programs, with particular attention to the knowledge needed for teaching. By exploring multiple program designs with more than 700 teacher candidates, the study concludes that the substance of the program—not the program design—is the key factor that differentiates what is learned and how it is learned. Second, Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005, 366) described three learning principles for facilitating teacher development: 1) teacher candidates come into teacher preparation with pre-conceptions about the work of teaching; 2) curriculum for teacher candidates must address how they are to enact the knowledge and skills they learn; and 3) teaching is complex and requires metacognitive skills for making sense of their daily experience. This paper explores the process of building curriculum and performance assessments using these core ideas about how to engage teacher candidates in learning to teach.
This paper draws on seven years of a teacher education redesign initiative at a research intensive university. The paper is a descriptive case study of program redesign including curriculum development, performance assessment development, and early results in the exploration of perceived program coherence for teacher candidates based on teacher candidates surveys and interviews and teacher educator interviews.
Findings suggest three core practices for building coherence into a program using curriculum and performance assessment. First, conceptual constructs in the curriculum and assessments must be accessible to all members of the community—faculty, supervisors, cooperating teachers, and teacher candidates. For example, we draw intentionally on the idea of equity, the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy, and the tenets of critical race theory, yet many faculty and supervisors are in early stages of learning about these concepts themselves. Second, locating appropriate evidence in teacher candidate performance across observations, artifacts, and self-analysis or reflection is challenging in two distinct ways—in some instances it is a matter of agreement on what counts as evidence and in other instances it is a matter of not having the right opportunities for teacher candidates to demonstrate evidence. Both need specific forms of attention. Finally, managing dissent and multiple perspectives among faculty and teacher candidates requires forethought and planning. Seeking coherence around concepts such as equity can simultaneously make our program values explicit and create an environment of group think, eschewing the value of multiple perspectives. We need to be planful about what is non-negotiable with teacher candidates with regard to understanding concepts and histories around topics such as equity and systemic racism, when there will be moments of perspective sharing and affinity group conversations, and how we will manage dissenting voices. Additionally, multiple perspectives can be a learning opportunity, but only if we facilitate the learning process around those perspectives.

Author

• Mistilina D. Sato, University of Minnesota