Building Pedagogical Knowledge in Third Spaces: Becoming an English Teacher

• In Event: Negotiating the Boundaries of Student Teaching: A Reconsideration of Shared Clinical Practice

Abstract

Objectives
This research describes the pedagogical understandings of three pre-service English teachers and their professor while engaged in a full-year, collaborative student teaching experience. Findings illuminate how professor and students worked together in public school classrooms to break down boundaries (i.e. school/university settings) that often create a sense of disjuncture among teacher candidates (Smagorinsky & Whiting, 1995; Zeichner, 2010).

Perspectives
In Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B,” he writes, “As I learn from you/ I guess you learn from me--/ although you’re older--and white--/and somewhat more free.” Hughes captures the tensions of race, privilege and epistemology that inform this research. What do student teachers and professors learn from each other in unfamiliar epistemological spaces? The theoretical perspective guiding this study was informed by Zeichner’s (2010) notion of “third spaces” – as an extension of Bhabha's (2004) exploration of third spaces – that student teachers and university professors engage in when they cross boundaries to create egalitarian, generative learning spaces. The perspective was also informed by questions about knowledge and inquiry raised by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) in Inquiry as Stance.

Methods & Data Sources
This inquiry used “data of practice” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) to raise critical questions about what it means to be/become an English teacher while navigating unique boundaries related to a year-long student teaching experience. This qualitative, participant-observer case study took place in a high-needs, diverse, urban 6-12 school. As the professor embedded in this public high school, I worked with pre-service teachers and their cooperating teachers for a full school year. In this study, I focus on the three studying to become secondary English teachers. Teaching methods courses were taught inside of the public school. Artifacts from teacher candidates included weekly reflections, classroom observations, and lesson plans. My artifacts included weekly reflections, field notes, observations and interview transcripts. All data were transcribed and coded; analysis was ongoing, recursive and comparative (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Emerging codes and deepening themes were constantly shared with participants.

Discussion of Findings
Findings suggested that in this collaborative clinical practice model, teacher candidates and their professor experienced fluidity between their university coursework and real practice; they also navigated new boundaries and tensions related to engaging in personal and pedagogical work for a full school year. Preservice teachers and professor (1) learned about pedagogy from each other’s classrooms; (2) felt stress and pressure, yet also felt safe to take risks; (3) expressed a growing sense of pedagogical efficacy and comfort; (4) gained awareness of new boundaries needing to be negotiated in different teaching contexts; and (5) developed multiple perspectives on what it means to be an English teacher.

Scholarly Significance
Students’ and professor’s experiences suggest that collapsing boundaries between university teaching and secondary school classrooms can help create a third space where knowledge is developed and negotiated. Although this research provides a lens on what can happen when silos of traditional teacher candidate preparation (Naylor, Campbell-Evans & Maloney, 2015) are collapsed, there were also challenges related to the newly flattened boundaries.

Author

• Mary Beth Schaefer, Saint John's University