developing dispositions of teaching through communities of practice in teacher education programs...

Developing Dispositions of Teaching Through

Communities of Practice in Teacher Education Programs

Dr. David Carroll

Western Washington University

Overview of Presentation

• Examining one early TE case

• Developing an approach to research

• Constructing a conceptual framework

• Considering contrasting cases

A first practicum experience

• “Jaimie” was in the 2nd quarter of her TE experience, enrolled in a block of courses including Effective Teaching, Instructional Technology, Classroom Management, and Elementary Students with Special Needs

• A one day per week practicum accompanied this block of courses

Teacher Education Performance Standards

• Talk with someone nearby… Where do you see the standards implicated in the case?

• Gauge your general sense of confidence / concern about Jaimie’s developing dispositions for teaching

Adding to the portrait…

• Personal Perspectives Assignment

• TE Standards Inquiry

• Descriptive Child Study

• Practicum Journal

• Individual Interview

Community

Trust

Respect

Feeling Heard

Learning is Cared About

Jamie’s Practicum Journal, 1 week after “dropping the bomb:

This morning I led the Morning Oval and the kids all responded to me and said my name. I added to my “Behavior” activity from last week and asked kids about strategies they could use or things they could do when others are being disruptive….I think I am getting better at leading the class and taking on routine activities. I am also much more authoritative when it comes to disruptive behavior and on communicating with my teacher a lot about improving the classroom behaviors and am trying to apply some of the discipline theories I am learning about.

The standards actually have…I see them quite differently now…. Before it was kind of like reading a foreign manual… But now…I’ve gone on and can see where they come into the classroom.

Talking about Motivation & Management:

Well, I think it’s important because when children aren’t motivated, they don’t reach their full potential for what they can accomplish or learn about. And the other side of that is the management. That, to me, is the teacher’s responsibility, and the school’s I think … the teacher has a lot to do with how students will be motivated. To me, each one of these encompasses the entire standards all together.

(Interview Transcript)

Social justice is a powerful, deep issue for me, and I feel that I will make great strides in building social justice into my curriculum and class community. I want to create change in the way schools see and treat marginalized children, and I want to teach children the importance of equality and social justice within our society and how it impacts all of us. I want all children to realize their potential and to find effective ways to overcome their obstacles in school and life so that they can become productive, healthy, informed, caring, and active adults.

(Jamie: Personal Perspectives Paper)

Ongoing Data Collection

• Follow Jaimie’s cohort of 12 students through program, collecting selected subsequent assignments, interviewing 2 more times and tracking them into beginning teaching

• Follow a second cohort in the “new” program similarly

NCATE Definition of Dispositions:

Dispositions Are:

Values

Commitments

Professional Ethics

Guided by beliefs & attitudes related to values

Dispositions:

•Influence behavior toward students, families, colleagues, communities

•Affect motivation & development

•Affect prof. growth

(TE Standards)

Teaching Profession as a Moral Community

(Buchmann, 1993)

• “…the teaching role entails a specific and difficult shift of concern from self to others for which the “apprentice-ship of observation provides no training….”

• “Dispositions are inclinations relating to the social and moral qualities of one’s actions….”

• “As a moral community, a profession is composed of people who think they are professionals and who seek… both alone and together… to live up to what they mean by being a professional” (Quoting Thelen, 1973)

Developing Dispositions as a Teacher Learning Issue

Applying socio-cultural learning theory:

• Dispositions are rooted in personal beliefs and values, but culturally constituted

• They are shaped by interactions with others in social contexts

• Developing dispositions for teaching takes place in and among peers and more experienced colleagues and instructors

• Thus, it occurs in communities of practice

• It benefits from modeling & assisted performance

• It is influenced by the “hidden curriculum” of teacher ed. programs

Values Actions

Developing Dispositions Involves the Ability To: • Interpret educational contexts in light of

implicit values• Activate commitment to value and engage

will/energy/effort• Develop and enact a repertoire of appropriate

practice(Ritchhart, 2002)

Developing Competence in Communities of Practice

• Repertoires of Practice

• Identities of Practice

Through a process of negotiating the meaning of experience in the TE program, teacher candidates develop:

Applying Wenger’s Ideas on Competent Membership in Communities of Practice

Mutuality of Engagement:

Are candidates able to engage with and respond to peers, university faculty, and teachers in making sense of ideas and issues of practice? Are they developing relationships with others where this mutuality is the basis for an identity of participation as a teacher?

Accountability to the Enterprise:

Are candidates able to understand the nature of and responsibilities associated with the teaching role deeply enough to take some responsibility for it and contribute to the ongoing investigation of and reflection on what standards-based teaching entails?

Negotiability of the Repertoire:

Are candidates able to make use of a developing repertoire of practices for engaging in standards-based teaching? Can they recognize elements of the repertoire and enact them meaningfully with increasing intentionality and flexibility?

Connecting to Colleagues

I C M Framework (Stooksberry, Schussler, Bercaw, 2005)

• Intellectual Domain

• Cultural Domain

• Moral Domain

CommonPlaces of Teaching(Schwab, 1978)

• Teacher / Teaching

• Learner / Learning

• Subject Matter

• Milieux -- Learning Environment

Common

Places

Intellectual Cultural Moral

Teacher &

Teaching

Learner &

Learning

Subject

Matter

Learning

Environment

Data Analysis Framework

Performances of Understanding(Blythe & Assoc., 1998)

Activities that require students to use knowledge in new ways or situations. In such activities students reshape, expand on, extrapolate from, apply, and build on what they already know. Performances of understanding help students to build as well as demonstrate their understanding.

Common

Places

Intellectual Cultural Moral

Teacher &

Teaching

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Learner &

Learning

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Subject

Matter

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Learning

Environment

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Performances of Understanding

Data Analysis Framework

Teacher Candidates’ Performances of Understanding

• Seeing connections, implications, relationships among ideas

• Interrogating their own perspective• “Reading” contexts of teaching and learning

for implicit values and ideas• Imagining or identifying practices to enact

particular values or ideas• Acquiring and enacting a repertoire or

practice with increasing intentionality

A Contrasting Case: Holly

• Intellectual understanding of ideas related to standards-based teaching

• Some sense of socio-cultural dynamics of Kgn. class and teacher’s responsibility to examine own practice

• Repeated comments of being unsure how to act; unable to act in situations she regarded as morally wrong, due to her status as a student

Brittany: A Third Kgn. Case

• Little capacity for abstract analysis of ideas from intellectual perspective

• Little prior exposure to cultural diversity, yet has a strong sense of self-awareness and a reflective stance about that

• Demonstrated a sense of moral outrage about isolation of ELL students and took action on behalf of her study child and others

Candidates’ Domains/ Facets of Dispositional Understanding About Teaching & Learning

•Intellectual

•Cultural

•Moral

Context/CommonPlaces of Teaching & Learning

•Teacher / Teaching

•Learner / Learning

•Subject Matter

•Learning Environment

Dispositions Are: Values, commitments, professional ethics guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values

Opportunities for Developing Dispositions of Teaching:Negotiating the Meaning of Course Work & Practica

Performances of Understanding for Dispositions of Teaching:

Developing and Demonstrating Competence in Com. Of Practice

•Reading contexts for values/ideas

•Recognizing values/ideas in practice

•Investing time, effort

•Developing a repertoire of practice

•Developing an identify of practice

•Mutuality of Engagement

•Accountability to Enterprise

•Negotiability of Repertoire

Refining Standards Based Practice

Developing Dispositions of Teaching Through Communities of Practice