Preparing Prospective Teachers to Be Classroom-Ready Through an Immersive After-School Tutoring Program

• In Event: 31.092 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Three - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 31.092-2 - Developing Young Students' and Teachers' Social-Emotional Identities Through Service-Learning in Classrooms and After School

Abstract

First-year teachers will often enter classrooms with wide ranges of student differences and needs. This mixed-methods study lends itself to the body of research on critical service learning by examining the ways in which participating in a weekly immersive after-school tutoring program enabled eleven prospective teachers to develop fundamental characteristics of a classroom-ready teacher. The results suggest that completing weekly critical reflections enabled the prospective teachers to define classroom-readiness. The results also suggest that experience with administering reading assessments enabled prospective teachers to use the results to plan lessons. Prospective teachers need opportunities to reflect on experiences where they can examine and articulate their personal biases, fears, and concerns, so as newly minted teachers, they are classroom-ready.

Authors

• Benita R. Brooks, Sam Houston State University

• Nancy Kay Votteler, Sam Houston State University

• Jannah Walters Nerren, Sam Houston State University