Current Issues in Education > Volume 8, 2005 > Number 11

Citation Information

Duffield, S.K. (2005, June 02). Swimming in the Water: Immersing Teacher Candidates in the Environment of a School. Current Issues in Education [On-line], 8(11). Available: http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume8/number11/

Swimming in the Water: Immersing Teacher Candidates in the Environment of a School

Abstract

Using the Professional Development School (PDS) model of teacher preparation, a Midwestern university created the potential for teacher candidates to become immersed into the environment of an elementary school. The question this study explored was, “Does increased immersion at a PDS site impact preparation of teacher candidates?” Themes emerged which suggested that time on site and relationships at the school impacted teacher candidates as they learned to teach.

Theory formation was supported by qualitative data collection methods including observations and interviews with teacher candidates in the PDS program and artifacts including correspondences and field experience logs.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Theoretical Framework
• Research Design and Analysis
• Findings
• Conclusion
• References

Introduction

When teachers feel isolated, the likelihood that they will remain in the teaching profession diminishes. Poor socialization of teacher candidates is believed to be one of the main factors contributing to high attrition in the teaching profession (Darling-Hammond, 1996). Studies have shown that as many as 40 to 50% of new teachers are leaving within five years of entering the profession (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Gold, 1996). To counteract this trend in teacher loss, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future recommended Professional Development School (PDS) programs as a viable method for better inducting teacher candidates (Darling-Hammond, 1996).

Originating in the 1980s, PDSs surfaced as a means to improve the preparation of teacher candidates (Abdul-Haqq, 1996). A PDS is a partnership formed between a K-12 school and a teacher preparation college with the goal of improving teaching and learning for both (Prater & Sileo, 2002). While there are varying models currently in use, the goal of the PDS partnership in this study is to enable teacher candidates do all of their field work, including student teaching, on site at the elementary school designated as the PDS. As the candidates are immersed into the environment of this school, increased opportunities emerge for the candidates to establish strong, positive relationships with cooperating teachers and students and to create a support system among their fellow PDS candidates. By allowing teacher candidates to become deeply involved at one school, rather than spreading their teacher preparation over several schools, they have the chance to gain greater understanding of how the school works and increase their confidence as teachers (Ridley, Hurwitz, Hackett, & Miller, 2005). When K-12 schools and universities form unions, they “create learning opportunities that are different from and richer than the opportunities either the school or the university can provide alone” (Gimbert, 2001, p. 41).

Calling teaching a sink or swim profession, Darling-Hammond (1996) names PDSs as a means for removing the isolationism facing many novice teachers and teacher candidates. She believes the implications for a PDS to penetrate the wall which isolates new teachers are strong because of the induction opportunity a PDS offers. Teacher candidates form relationships with experienced teachers, creating a situation in which both the teacher candidate and the teacher grow. Crocco, Faithfull, & Schwartz (2003) identify benefits including increased time at the school for teacher candidates, more opportunities for candidates to have purposeful educational experiences, and support for collaboration between teacher candidates and the school.

The PDS in this study creates the potential for teacher candidates to become socialized into the environment of an elementary school. Through a multipurpose, PDS-sponsored field experience of 30 or more hours, other field experiences associated with regular university coursework, and student teaching, the teacher candidates are provided the opportunity to become very familiar with the PDS site and the profession of teaching.

Theoretical Framework

Researchers agree that there is a range of school-university collaboratives that call themselves PDSs (Ross, 2001; Teitel, 2001). Despite the differences, PDSs do share commonalities. One commonality is the commitment to improving preparation of teacher candidates (Cowart & Rademacher, 1998; Darling-Hammond, 1996; Hoffman, Rosenbluth & McCrory, 1997; Metcalf-Turner & Fischetti, 1996). Jorissen (2002) sums up this point, “The better prepared a teacher is, the more satisfied he or she will be, thus, more likely to remain in education” (p. 2). There is much potential in the relationship between K-12 schools and teacher preparation programs as a placement site for teacher candidates (Bullough, Kauchak, Crow, Hobbs & Stokes, 1997). Grisham et al. (1999) identify the primary focus of the PDS as the coordination of field experiences.

When considering the PDS model of teacher preparation, it becomes necessary to establish the importance of field experiences in the program of study for a teacher candidate. Dewey (1964) stressed the necessity of clinical experience; he recognized the importance of authentic, relevant learning and related this type of learning to teacher candidates. He called the practice schools of his time a compromise, setting artificial circumstances meant to mimic real life teaching situations. Dewey called the situation “learning to swim without going too near the water” (p. 317) and said that there are too many pieces lacking from this practice situation similar to those found in many university classrooms today. He called for a genuine apprenticeship, implicating veteran teachers as models and guides for novice teachers as they find their way in a real classroom with real children. While being steeped in the principles of teaching and learning is vital, unless these principles are contextualized by experience in the field and made concrete through practice, they will not be understood.

Dewey (1964) also addressed the conditions of the field experience, acknowledging that not all field experiences offer the right kind of training. A practice teaching experience must offer more than superficial learning. Dewey wrote about the levels present in a classroom that a teacher must learn to navigate. First, there is the surface level where elements like classroom management and procedural duties exist. This level is the most visible; therefore, immature teachers will attend to it most readily, but Dewey said in order to be effective teachers, teachers who can teach, these novice teachers must dive to a second, deeper level, that of teaching and learning. Dewey said effective teachers know what and how to teach because they understand why they have made pedagogical choices. He further directed the way field experiences should be conducted with the teacher candidates learning from a “psychological (how and why) rather than a practical standpoint” (p. 324) warning against imitation without understanding.

After taking into consideration the ideas presented by Dewey, it is appropriate to reflect on the developmental theory presented by Fuller (1969), which laid the groundwork for other researchers to follow. In studying teacher candidates and novice teachers, Fuller noticed commonalities in what he referred to as their developmental levels, or abilities, as teachers. Related to the ideas presented by Dewey, Fuller discovered that as teachers gained experience, they were more able to make connections between the classroom and their foundational training in educative principles and apply these understandings to teaching practice. In other words, they were moving to the deeper level described by Dewey as the psychological level of knowing the why and how of teaching.

Fuller (1969) found that beginning teachers are concerned with class control, their own content knowledge, and how their teaching will be perceived by others. All of these factors are what Dewey would have termed superficial, not breaking through to the deeper understandings of teaching and learning. Beginning teachers tend to be concerned with survival, and until that need is met, they will not be able to move on to the how and why of teaching.

A study presented by Gimbert (2001) echoes the ideas of Dewey and Fuller. She followed six teacher candidates through their teacher preparation in a PDS context. An important piece of this study is the development the candidates underwent as teachers over the course of their preparation. Initially, the teacher candidates viewed learning to teach as “learning about teaching” (p. 10), but over time, the teacher candidates’ understandings began to deepen, reaching the how and why of teaching described by Dewey. Gimbert believed the development of the candidates came about as they learned to teach through “unlocking the procedural knowledge of expert teachers” (p. 6). The process was not one of just pure imitation, but one of coming to understand what methods and materials were successful with the students and why.

Ross (2001) discovered that former teacher candidates claimed coursework was the least influential part of their teacher preparation program, which supports Dewey and Fuller’s ideas that new teachers are unable to make a connection between theory and practice. This deeper understanding comes later with time and experience. Ross presents the PDS model, which is different from traditional preparation programs, as providing opportunities for teacher candidates to build stronger connections between theory and practice. He additionally found that the recognition of connections between theory and practice grew stronger over subsequent years in a PDS program.

Research Design and Analysis

This study was qualitative in nature, drawing on perceptions of teacher candidates at various stages of their teacher preparation. I guided my study through Creswell’s (1998) definition of grounded theory to “study how people act and react to [a] phenomenon” (p. 56). The phenomenon in this study was the PDS model of preparation for teacher candidates through which select teacher candidates completed as much of their field work as possible at the PDS site to support immersion into the environment of an elementary school.

The research took place over three years, and the teacher candidates were interviewed a minimum of three times from their entrance into the PDS program through the completion of student teaching. Several observations of the teacher candidates were also completed, with at least one occurring before student teaching and another during the student teaching experience. The candidates’ field experience journals and reflections were analyzed and interpreted to provide further insight into their experiences.

The main source of information came from face-to-face interviews. As recommended by Creswell (1998), Mishler (1991), Rubin and Rubin (1995), and Seidman (1998), I used an interview process that involved a series of interviews whenever possible. I conducted the interviews over time, allowing the candidates to tell their stories as they became more deeply immersed into the environment of the PDS.

The data were analyzed and interpreted in an on-going manner as suggested by Creswell (1998) and Straus and Corbin (1990). As patterns emerged, I was able to tailor the focus of the study and make later interviews more productive.

Triangulation, a means of validating the data (Creswell, 1998), was taken into account during both collection and analysis. In data collection, I looked at the scene from multiple perspectives, hearing the stories the candidates told, listening to the cooperating teachers and reading their evaluation forms, and viewing through my own lens as an observer. During analysis, I examined the effects of the PDS program over time through a series of interviews with the candidates as they moved through the teacher preparation program, using time to validate my interpretations. I made initial interpretations as I gathered the data and then revisited the data several times to place it side-by-side with new data from both the same candidate and fellow candidates.

The Sites

Located in the upper plains, Midwestern University serves approximately 12,000 students during an academic year in both undergraduate and graduate level programs. About 250 students are enrolled in the undergraduate teacher education program each semester.

The PDS site, a local elementary school, is located right off Midwestern University’s campus within walking distance of student housing. It is a K-5 school with about 400 students enrolled annually. The proximity to the university and location in the community contribute to a highly diverse student population as nearly 40% of the students are from minority groups compared to the state average of 11%. The school is designated a Title I school with nearly 60% of the students receiving free or reduced lunch. The diversity of the student body combined with the proximity of the school to the university, made it the prime choice for a PDS site.

This elementary school has a strong history of commitment to the PDS relationship with the former principal initiating the school-university partnership in 1990. In 1992, a graduate-level teacher internship was established, and in 2000 the undergraduate program featured in this study emerged.

Two teachers from the site school have been given release time, allowing them to assist with the coordination of the graduate and undergraduate level programs at the PDS site. Having these PDS liaisons on site gave the teacher candidates representatives in the building to whom they could go with their immediate questions and concerns. Many classroom teachers at the PDS site were supportive of this program as well, opening their classrooms so that the teacher candidates had places to observe and interact with the students. Fifteen or more of 30 classroom teachers at the PDS site hosted teacher candidates each semester.

The Participants

The PDS program in this study provided the potential for teacher candidates to become inducted into the environment of an elementary school through a 30 or more hour, eclectic, PDS-sponsored field experience; other assorted field experiences; and 16 weeks of student teaching. Whenever possible, the candidates completed their field work at the PDS site, rotating among the available classrooms. Visitation sign-up sheets were posted in the office of the PDS and requirements were set for minimum hours at each grade level. These minimum requirements fluctuated with the various teachers volunteering to host students each semester. Ross (2001) identified the importance of this eclectic approach to immersion into the environment of one school, “One of the promises of the PDS is to expand the teacher candidateship experience beyond the walls of one classroom and one teacher to provide experiences in the entire school” (p. 10).

Before student teaching, all of the candidates in the PDS program had completed at least 90 hours of observation and field work at the PDS site. Most teacher candidates had far exceeded the 90 hours with some candidates more than doubling this figure. The PDS candidates were required to participate in at least one of each of the following events: IEP meeting, faculty meeting, physical education class, music class, resource room session, lunch in the cafeteria, recess, and parent-teacher conferences. Crocco, Faithful & Schwartz (2003) note the benefits of this increased involvement which include deeper relationships with both their cohort teacher candidates and cooperating teachers. By allowing teacher candidates to become deeply involved at one school, rather than spreading their preparation out into several schools, these candidates had the opportunity to gain greater understanding of how this school works and increase their confidence at the PDS site. As the traditional teacher preparation program at Midwestern University currently operates, the possibility exists for a teacher candidate to receive a student teaching placement in a classroom with a teacher he or she has never met before and in a school that is largely unfamiliar. The PDS program aims to eliminate this possibility for teacher candidates.

Seventeen teacher candidates were accepted into the PDS program from 2001-2003. Purposeful sampling was employed as parameters were set on the group to be studied. The candidates had to meet the following criteria: be admitted into the university’s education program, have a minimum of three semesters remaining in their program of study, and possess a willingness to participate in the study.

Each spring, new candidates were recruited through a mass mailing sent to all students recently accepted into the university’s education program. A list of interested candidates was compiled, and a lottery-style process was completed to narrow the field of qualified candidates. The geographic location of Midwestern University proved to be a limiting factor in diversifying the sample. All participants in this study were between the ages of 19 and 22. Two of 17 were male, and all were self-identified as Caucasian.

Limited numbers of PDS teachers meant a cap needed to be set each year in regard to the number of new candidates who were accepted into the program. With each new group entering, the concern was compounded because the previous group of candidates was still completing the program and needed classrooms at the PDS site for field experiences and student teaching placements. Of the 17 teacher candidates, 8 entered the first year, 5 the second, and 4 the third. Three candidates chose to leave the program for personal reasons. See Table 1 for a list of candidates and the PDS-sponsored field experiences completed.

Table 1. Teacher Candidate Listing of Field Experiences Completed

The Research Question

After becoming involved with the partnership between Midwestern University and a local elementary school, I wondered how far-reaching and how deep the impact would be when teacher candidates were given the opportunity to become members of a PDS community. An overarching question formed as I asked, “What is the effect of a PDS on the preparation of teacher candidates?” Subsidiary questions formed including the one currently addressed, “Does increased immersion at a PDS site impact preparation of teacher candidates?”

The perceptions of teacher candidates in a PDS program were authentically gathered using the candidates’ own words and actions through interviews and observations. A panorama of experiences was painted as, one-by-one, the candidates designed a portion of the PDS landscape. Studying this scene, both in slices and as a whole, allowed the formation of a theory about the impact of the partnership between Midwestern University and the PDS on the candidates.

Findings

Immersion into the environment of a school resulted in several outcomes for the teacher candidates in this study. The strongest themes that emerged were founded on both time and opportunity, which the PDS provided the potential for. First, through time and presence at the PDS site school, the candidates received extraordinary opportunities not usually available to a teacher candidate in the traditional program. Second, relationships with both students and PDS site teachers had time to develop. Third, teacher candidates had time to begin to work through the long, complex process of learning to teach.

Extraordinary Experiences

Because the teacher candidates involved in the PDS program became trusted members of the community at the PDS site, they were offered opportunities that other teacher candidates did not receive. They also had a better than average chance to be in the right place at the right time, learning through inside communication lines of positions, both paid and volunteer in nature.

Stephanie learned through a cooperating teacher, in whose classroom she spent a great deal of time, of the need for an assistant coordinator for the after school program. Stephanie stepped right in and soon earned an additional opportunity to join a curriculum writing team. She even went on a week-long training with the other members of the curriculum team over summer break. When Stephanie came close to graduation, the need arose to replace her as assistant coordinator, and her replacement was easily found when a teacher at the PDS site recommended Angie, who happened to be another member of the PDS cohort.

Angie was a frequent visitor to the PDS site, completing the initial 30-hour experience twice and volunteering often with the before-school reading program. She even worked on special projects with some teachers upon request. She described one such experience. “She [cooperating teacher] made me feel so welcome and involved….She asked me if I would help with the science lesson. While she taught one part, I did the demonstration. It gave me the opportunity to really get involved.”

Carole and Andrea were able to experience team teaching as they were invited to complete later field experiences and student teaching with two cooperating teachers who used team teaching in their classrooms. Carole explained the procedure.

We have team time. That’s when both classes meet in the morning and we do calendar and have a mystery item of the week, and that’s when we talk about and do activities in the morning. That was really neat to experience because that’s something I’ve never experienced before. Not all schools do that, and not all classes here do that, either. I think our class is the only one where they do that.

After spending over 60 hours at the PDS site one semester, Mike felt comfortable enough to ask the principle for a mock interview. Following the interview, Mike asked her to tell him what she thought he could work on. Mike also perfected his read-aloud skills volunteering with the before-school reading program.

I’d recommend that to anyone. It was awesome. I didn’t know how big it was going to be. I thought maybe 10 kids…it was more like 40…it as a good practice for me because my goal this semester was to really build up my reading voice, and I did some real good voices and stuff so I had a good chance to practice with a really big audience.

The graduate internship program was another area PDS teacher candidates seemed to have an advantage. With extensive classroom experience and letters of recommendation from cooperating teachers, these candidates had a step up when applying for this competitive graduate internship program co-sponsored by the local school district and the university. This program awarded selected undergraduates of the teacher preparation program the opportunity to earn a master’s degree in education tuition free while teaching full-time in an area school. The interns earned half the pay a regular first-year teacher earns. Stephanie, Jenny, Renee, Tammy, Laurie, Andrea, and Beth all earned placements as interns in the graduate master’s degree program.

Developing Relationships

Relationships with students. Relationships with students oftentimes became the measurement standard by which teacher candidates evaluated their effectiveness. Young teachers commonly want very much for their students to like them. Teacher candidates are especially vulnerable because they lack confidence (Gimbert, 2001). I looked for evidence of the candidates forging relationships with the students both through what they said during the interview process and in their field experience logs as well as during the visits I made to their classrooms.

Fuller (1969) documents the concern inexperienced teachers have with being liked by their students, both before and after student teaching. As teachers mature and develop in the field, they tend to grow out of this stage and into a concern for student achievement and learning. It seems that the concern with self and being liked is a common marker of teachers who are still focused on the superficial aspects of teaching.

All of the candidates spoke about the value they placed upon the perceptions the students had of them. Angie said she enjoyed the recognition, stating, “I was greeted with a couple of students saying, ‘Mrs. Paulson!’ and running to give me a big hug. It was really nice to be recognized and welcomed.” The reward of the children recognizing her and being excited to see her was worth stating several times in her reflection journal and during interviews.

Despite the fact that Mike was experiencing high levels of conflict because of a faltering relationship with his cooperating teacher, Mike stated with conviction that he was having a good student teaching experience because the students were responding positively to him.

During the exit interview, Jenny shared that she tried to establish a bond with a student who was lagging behind, meeting with him daily. His success was important to her. She also explained how she kept a journal with each student so “we’re getting to have communication back and forth.”

Laurie and Renee told stories about students they felt needed extra attention. Laurie wrapped up one story by saying, “Then one day he gave me a hug, and I knew I had made a connection with that child.” Renee also felt success. “[He] was having a lot of behavior difficulties, but he is really smart. I knew he was into football, and I am really into football, and we could talk about it….It helped a lot to get more respect from him.”

On the flip side, the lack of positive relationships with the students can yield a much less successful scenario. Tammy struggled with how to support her students and met up with many frustrations. “This is a lower [ability] class,” she informed me during a face-to-face interview. To explain how she had come to this conclusion, she shared that her cooperating teacher had given her this information. When asked for evidence to support this belief, Tammy spoke of a social studies exam that did not go well.

I told them I was really disappointed after all the studying that we did and half the class flunked, and, yeah, we talked about it….They just didn’t even care whether they flunked. They got the test back, and they were like, “Oh.”

Tammy could not hide her disappointment and concern while sharing that the students tested her a great deal. She sounded betrayed as she told about how the students seemed to trick her by acting “sweet and nice” at first, and then later began to challenge her. Tammy seemed to distance herself from the students and justify their reaction to her by claiming they were a “lower [ability] class.” Stroot et al. (1998) identified this stage of teaching as survival, stating that, like Tammy, these teachers are not ready to take responsibility for what occurs in the classrooms. Teachers in the survival stage tend to “rationalize their inability to teach effectively…by blaming the school context or the students…”(Stroot et al., 1998, para. 8).

Tammy did not seem to have matured past the first developmental level that Fuller (1969) and Dewey (1964) refer to. She summed up her story about the failing students by saying, “…it’s frustrating. I am exhausted of ideas right now because I want them to learn. I want them to be excited about it, but I don’t know how to change things to make them learn it.” Tammy had been unable to form connections with these students, getting to know them as individuals, which would have provided the information she needed in order to motivate them to learn.

Relationships with cooperating teachers. The relationships candidates established with the cooperating teachers were also influential in forming perceptions of a positive or negative experience for the candidates in this study. After completing the initial PDS field experience, Mike offered the following advice, “If you find a teacher you’re comfortable with, keep going back to them because you’re going to build a relationship and learn some of the coolest stuff, like little things you wouldn’t even think about.”

Andrea had a powerful statement regarding the support she received from her cooperating teacher during the student teaching experience.

I really felt like a partner since day one. Not like a student teacher. Very much like a partner. From day one, Karen (a pseudonym) said, “When we start out the day, stand. Don’t sit in the back and just watch. Stand right up here with me, even if you don’t say anything. The kids see that you’re up here with me, that we’re both equal teachers in this room.” You know, that was just amazing. It really was. So, from day one, I was just standing up there….It made a big difference.

During student teaching, the relationship between Jenny and her cooperating evolved to a level of mutual trust and respect. When the cooperating teacher needed to be out of the building on medical leave for several days, she requested that Jenny teach her class. While school policy mandated that a certified substitute teacher needed to be hired, the substitute sat in the back of the room while Jenny facilitated the learning. The substitute teacher sent notes to both the cooperating teacher and the principal stating how impressed she was with Jenny’s teaching.

On the other hand, the lack of positive relationships between teacher candidates and cooperating teachers could lead the candidates to perceive an unsuccessful field experience. Because the teachers chosen by Tammy and Mike were already committed to working with other PDS candidates, they were alternately assigned to different teachers at the PDS site. Tammy stated how her lack of a relationship with the cooperating teacher caused her discomfort at the onset of student teaching. “Coming in here I wasn’t sure because we had a difference in personalities, especially teaching personalities.” Tammy further described teaching in ways that directly contradicted her teaching philosophy because it was what she felt her cooperating teacher would want. She described a reward program using purple-colored paper slips which indicated outstanding performance or behavior. During Tammy’s time in this classroom, the students never received an award for positive performance or behavior from their teacher, but Tammy reported that they often received punishments for poor performance or behavior.

If it were me, I would give them [purple slips] out a lot more frequently…she doesn’t give them out very often. You have to be really doing something really, really good. I haven’t seen them get purple slips at all….I think that’s the hardest thing during student teaching because you just have small differences in what you do. You just have to follow what the teacher does so that it stays consistent.

Mike had a similar experience and talked about what it was like to student teach with a cooperating teacher whose personality clashed with his.

Actually, this has been a pretty rough student teaching experience. My teacher and I seem to have personality clash. I feel like everything I do irritates her….She made a comment about male teachers and what she doesn’t like about the way we teach….I tried to ask her if there is something I should do better, but she won’t tell me.

Some candidates did not invest the time necessary to grow good relationships. Nate waited until the end of the semester to complete his field hours, and the experience became a blur for him.

I was looking at my hours…and there’s Halvorson and Henke (pseudonyms), and I don’t know. I have one face for both. And for one class period, I can’t remember anything we did. I had some other teachers that I went to, and all I remember is Relo[catable] 12, one of the buildings outside.

Learning to Teach. Learning to teach is a complex process that progresses in stages (Fuller, 1969 ; Stroot et al., 1998). While the INTASC (Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium) principles (Council of Chief State School Officers, 1992) describe what every teacher ought to be able to demonstrate, it is important to acknowledge that even the most experienced teachers do not always exhibit the qualities described in each of these ten standards. Fuller (1969) theorized that teachers develop in stages including preteaching, early teaching, and late teaching. The stages of evolution for teachers from preteachers to early teachers and then to mature teachers are the product of both time and preparation.

At the end of the first PDS field experience, each of the Midwestern University teacher candidates were asked to rate their confidence level. All of the candidates rated their confidence at the highest level. During student teaching when they were asked to reevaluate this response, all student teachers in the PDS program said they would lower the rating previously stated. They were not as confident as they believed they were at the end of the initial field experience. The candidates agreed that they did not realize how much they did not know. They had a false sense of confidence because of their lack of awareness and understanding of the complexity of teaching and learning (Thorton, 2004). During the extensive amount of time the PDS candidates were able to spend in the field, they came to realize that they still had a lot to learn.

Early teachers, the second stage identified by Fuller (1969), are preoccupied with their status. This self-centered focus includes concerns with adequacy in the classroom, how they will be perceived by others, classroom control, and how much support they will receive. Early teachers want to know from their cooperating teachers how they are doing. Mike expressed this feeling when he shared that his cooperating teacher had never given him any positive feedback. Compliments and words of encouragement are vital as teacher candidates struggle to find a place in the classroom, which is often much different than they imagined it to be.

The mature teaching phase is marked by concern for the students (Fuller, 1969). Self-evaluation and reflection are cornerstones of this stage of development. Teachers in this stage have the ability to understand the why and how of teaching and can choose methods and materials based on student need. The teachers know their students as individuals; therefore, they understand how to motivate them. Jenny was close to achieving this status. During an interview, she described a lesson on the rain forest. One of the early activities in the unit involved the students completing a Venn diagram comparing rainforests and forests with which the students were familiar. The students found the comparisons more difficult to identify than Jenny had expected. The students needed more time than was in her plan to complete the task, but they were engaged and interested in the activity. Jenny understood the needs of her students and extended the lesson, demonstrating her ability to teach responsively and flexibly.

Jenny also exhibited mature teaching when working with a student who was an English language learner. Jenny initiated a meeting with the ELL teacher to coordinate efforts. She also communicated extensively with the child’s parents. To involve the whole class with making the child feel welcome and supported, Jenny elicited their assistance in labeling objects in the classroom with both the child’s native words and their English equivalents. Jenny rarely talked about classroom management issues, instead she spoke about advanced teaching methods such as the workshop approach to teaching reading and writing and journaling with her students to build relationships and learn more about their strengths as writers. Her classroom featured hands-on lessons such as a store with a real cash register where students could buy and keep the items they purchased with real money, or an activity using menus from area restaurants in which the students used dramatic play and placed pretend orders as they worked on their reading and writing skills.

Conclusion

Before conclusions can be drawn, limitations of this study need to be acknowledged. Sample size was kept small to accommodate the placements of teacher candidates at the PDS site and make coordination manageable for the small staff. Another limitation was the rural nature of the location, which offered relatively low numbers of classrooms to the university’s teacher preparation program. Often site classrooms were already committed to teacher candidates outside the PDS program. Finally, the infancy of this program meant that the program was growing and changing as the coordinators felt their way through the new process.

Despite these limitations, impacts were evidenced. As seen through the positive examples, especially Jenny, Carole, Andrea, Stephanie, and Angie, time spent immersed in the environment of one particular school and specific classrooms allowed the formation of strong, positive relationships with students and teachers. The PDS placement also allowed the teacher candidates to move beyond focusing on the procedural aspects of teaching and begin to think about methodology in a purposeful manner.

The negative examples also support the theory developed in this study. While a generalization can not be drawn based on this small sample, the experiences of Mike and Tammy are important to consider. Despite the increased time spent on site, they lacked prior immersion in the particular classroom in which they student taught. Therefore, while they were familiar with the school and many of the students and faculty, the cooperating teachers and students in these rooms were new to them. Their experiences were self-reported as “a disaster” and “difficult.” While Tammy learned to negotiate the difficult path by conforming to her teacher’s methods and materials, Mike never found a niche in his cooperating teacher’s classroom. The results of this study form implications for the increased support and training of both cooperating teachers and teacher candidates as well as for increased field time for teacher candidates in the classroom in which they will student teach.

Author

Stacy K. Duffield

North Dakota State University
P.O. Box 5057
Fargo, ND 58105

(701)231-7102-office
(701)231-9685-fax

Stacy Duffield is an Assistant Professor in Teacher Education at North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota.

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