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Essential Preservice Instruction and ExperiencesThose who are learning to teach need experiences designed to produce capable teachers who value their own learning. These essential experiences may take place in the natural workplace of scientists and/or mathematicians, in college or university courses, or in schools. Essential preservice instruction must model those best practices described in Framework Section II, engaging teacher candidates in the real learning of scientists and mathematicians. Teacher candidates also need multiple opportunities to have contact with student learners, reflect on their practice, develop other classroom skills and connect to resources.
Modeling Best Practice In All EnvironmentsUniversity and field experiences for preservice teachers must reflect current research in teaching and learning. Beginning teachers should have opportunities to understand the nature and methods of working as a scientist or mathematician by engaging in such activities as mathematical modeling and scientific field study. While learning in a university content or methodology course, observing others teach, or facilitating the learning of others, prospective teachers need to experience and discuss the practices which most effectively allow all learners to grow. Successful learning environments for teacher candidates, whether in the classroom, the field, the laboratory or elsewhere, are places in which Framework Guiding Principles and Content Standards are brought to life.
These statements describe exemplary teacher preparation programs:
- Experiences with content and pedagogy encourage prospective teachers to see themselves and peers as learners.
As future teachers construct mathematics and science meaning, communicate their understandings, and listen to others doing the same, they will see the importance of these actions for learning. A rich dialogue can emerge about personal and peer learning as well as the environment and instructional strategies that supported that learning. When the energies in a class are focused on learning, teaching is seen as the means to an end, rather than itself the centerpiece.
- Experiences with content and pedagogy offer preservice teachers opportunities to talk about teaching practices that promote their learning.
As groups of future teachers identify effective instructional strategies and conducive aspects of the classroom environment in their own learning experiences, they can envision how to make good learning happen for their students. Through this discussion, learner-teachers can understand the impact of classroom environment, communication, instructional strategies and tools on learning.
- Preservice teachers observe demonstration lessons and school classrooms in order to develop understanding of effective instructional practice.
In discussion of observations, the learners question and clarify what they have seen, identifying some instructional strategies which they may adopt. They later have opportunities to try these practices in classrooms themselves.
- Classroom placements for preservice teachers reflect current research and best practices.
Future teachers have multiple classroom experiences with diverse faculty using a variety of effective teaching styles. These learners see that best practices may flourish in classrooms of limited resources, where ingenuity and adaptation become second nature. They engage in continuous dialogue on practice. Supervising teachers model reflective practice as they examine their teaching and their supervisory roles.
- Preservice teachers are placed in classrooms which model best practices in curriculum, instruction, assessment and creation of a productive learning community.
Site-based or university-based preservice programs in which there is substantive school-university collaboration can more often accomplish placements in such classrooms. Partner schools that are exemplars of best practices can work with a university or college for the education of future teachers.
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SnapshotA group of preservice teachers is engaged in a study of how bacteria spread. Through initial activities, they have constructed an understanding of how organisms grow, both linearly and exponentially. They have also used mathematical and scientific models, graphs and calculators to understand bacterial growth. Instructors have encouraged conversation as learners make connections, eliminate misunderstandings and make sense of bacterial population. Through classroom practice and discussion, these future teachers and their instructors have worked together on the essential concepts: asexual reproduction, population growth and limiting factors, exponents as operators, and linear versus exponential patterns.
Now, as small groups work with real application problems involving the exponential spread of bacteria, the learners have a deeper understanding of the urgency in halting bacterial growth cycles. Through written reflection, they express what and how they have learned. Through discussion of their writing, they gain insight into the diverse needs of learners.
__________________________________________________Contact with Student Learners
Future teachers gain great insights into learning and teaching when they enter the practice arena. In the spirit of early and continuous field experiences, contact with student learners needs to occur often to bring meaning to pedagogy courses. Frequent, rich experiences with student learners support preservice teachers' foundation in developmental psychology and the elements of best teaching practice.
These statements describe exemplary teacher preparation programs:
- Field experiences are early and continuous.
Professional growth is assumed to be a continuous process. Interactions with younger learners begin as soon as possible in preservice experiences, and opportunities for involvement grow as the teacher candidate progresses.
- Work with individuals or small groups of learners focuses on communication.
When working with one student or a small group, preservice teachers see that clear communication is essential to learner understanding and sound instructional decisions. Small group work, which facilitates learner participation and teacher listening, can help the preservice teacher understand the importance of each student's voice in full class activities.
- Teacher candidates' work with individuals focuses on diagnostic assessment of student understanding.
A learner's prior knowledge and misconceptions can be most readily assessed in a one-to-one situation, particularly when the learner is struggling to master a concept, process or skill. Through this diagnostic work, the preservice teacher learns to plan and provide experiences that meet the needs of individual learners, allowing them to see and understand, not just perform by rote.
- Preservice teachers develop skill in checking with individual students to assess group progress.
The teacher needs opportunities to practice staying in touch with all students during instructional periods in order to sense degrees of understanding. When students reveal their understandings and take responsibility for their learning, teachers can judge whether the group is ready to proceed.
- Beginning teachers have opportunities to practice and evaluate new tools or instructional strategies with small groups at first.
Some essential classroom skills that might best be practiced early with smaller groups include setting up laboratory procedures, setting the stage for cooperative learning, providing guidelines for work with learning tools, promoting classroom equity, and using strategies for both oral and written communication.
- Prospective teachers have opportunities to experience teaching consecutive classes in a unit.
Teaching consecutive classes allows reflection on instruction. Since beginning teachers must learn to address learner misconceptions and reinforce concepts based on the assessments from previous work, they need to experience the cycle of teaching over a period of days. One such cycle may include diagnosis, initial instruction, formative assessment (informal and formal), and additional instruction. Such continuity is important for both preservice teachers and the learners.
- School and college personnel give continuous feedback to preservice teachers in their work with students.
The insights and experience of others help shape preservice teachers' growing knowledge around content, pedagogy and learners. Asking questions helps preservice teachers inquire into their practice.
- Beginning teachers' early experiences include work with students at all levels, including special needs students.
All children can learn, but their learning needs differ. By working with children of different ages, abilities, and motivation, preservice teachers gain great insight into the scope of the teaching challenge. Only through working with children with differing needs can preservice teachers understand the depth of those needs and the range of strategies that help all children learn. Teacher candidates also need extensive opportunities to observe at a variety of K-12 grade levels.__________________________________________________
Snapshot A group of preservice teachers joins a fifth-grade class in Acadia National Park for a transect study to measure the effects of foot traffic on lichen growth and diversity of lichen types. First they string a 30-meter line across a rocky area to create the transect. Working in mixed groups, students and preservice teachers examine a 2-centimeter by 100-centimeter area directly underneath the line and record their data, noting the types, size and health of the lichen underneath the transect line. All learners examine and compare data from the various groups.
Back in a workroom, college and elementary students enter information into a spreadsheet and search together for patterns in the data. After a large group discussion, they decide to write a report of their work, including recommendations to the Acadia National Park Services. One recommendation suggests placing boundary markers to denote those areas where foot traffic might be prohibited or limited.
Afterward, the fifth-grade teacher meets with the college students and their instructor to discuss classroom management issues in the field as well as how to pose questions which promote inquiry. Preservice teachers are more attuned to the need for both in light of their common experience.
__________________________________________________Reflecting on Practice
Future teachers must reflect often on their practice, closely examining student learning and their own developing knowledge and skills in teaching. While reflection is often a solitary act, preservice teachers' ability to reflect on learning and teaching can be enhanced through the insightful observations and knowledge of supportive professionals. This kind of feedback can help the teacher candidate consider and implement changes in practice.
These statements describe exemplary teacher preparation programs:
- Prospective teachers engage in frequent spoken and written communication with practicing professionals.
Reflective journals or dialogue journals with a supervisor may assist in self-evaluation and provide a forum for asking difficult questions. Frequent discussions with those who have observed the preservice teacher work with children, such as the university or classroom supervisor, help create opportunities for growth and interaction.
- Reflective practice models in college and school settings promote teacher reflection on shared experiences.
Preservice teachers are encouraged to engage in common teaching experiences with others in their cohort and then reflect together on the experiences. Members of a preservice class or group might share experiences such as observation of a lesson, construction of knowledge, or introduction to some new instructional strategy.
- Co-teaching allows two individuals - teacher and preservice teacher or two preservice teachers - to reflect on the actions and learnings of a class.
In this situation, both may assume facilitator responsibility or alternate between facilitator and observer. Mutual trust is essential for the effectiveness of this way of receiving feedback on one's practice.
- Video- and audio-taping are used for self-reflection and dialogue on practice.
Taping a teaching-learning situation allows preservice teachers to check on specific aspects of their teaching as well as on student actions and responses. While focusing on students is generally most useful, there may be times when the purpose of taping is to examine teacher actions. This activity is especially helpful in checking on student participation, depth of responses, teacher voice, equity, shared responses in group learning, and wait time.
- Prospective teachers use case studies to simulate practice and compare that simulation to their own experiences.
Case studies are written or visual stories of actual classroom situations that present questions or dilemmas about content, instructional strategies, or other classroom issues. Through a discussion of these studies, preservice teachers deal with situations that may have or might arise in their own practice. Case studies allow the preservice teachers to look deeply at mathematics and science knowledge as well as the teaching of difficult concepts in those areas. Video-taped lessons, often commercially prepared, provide a similar forum for discussion.______________________________________________________
Snapshot A group of preservice teachers in the field has noticed that their students' work in geometry is not connected to the actual three-dimensional world, but remains connected for the most part to a two-dimensional study. The mathematics methods instructor who works with these prospective teachers in the field has decided to use the reflective practice model that involves teachers in a day-long series of activities, with subsequent teaching and reflection on that teaching. The day's activities include the instructor's demonstration lesson showing best practice in three-dimensional perspective work, a group discussion, experiential work which extends teachers' personal content learning in this area, a planning session to design a learning experience for the students with whom teachers are currently placed (K-12), and time for teachers to reflect on their personal learning for that day.
The teachers note the flurry of activity during the instructor's demonstration lesson with seventh-graders and the extent of knowledge students have gained at the end of two hours. Students show they have developed a language for work on perspective and some fairly sophisticated notions of relationships between real objects and the views of those objects from different perspectives. Preservice teachers explore their own knowledge through a series of activities that engage them in work and discussion with their peers.
The prospective teachers plan activities for their grade, working in grade level clusters of K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Some agree to watch the teaching of a peer so that feedback on two levels is possible. In carrying out their activities with the students, teachers are asked to write about what students have learned, what they themselves have learned, and how they have dealt with emerging challenges in the classroom. This reflection becomes the substance of a discussion on their practices in assessment, classroom management, material use, and instructional strategies.
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Developing Other SkillsExemplary teacher preparation programs also help prospective teachers develop other skills, some relating to student learning, others relating to parents and community.
These statements describe such programs:
- Prospective teachers develop theoretical and practical understanding of children's development and learning needs. Mathematics and science content, pedagogy, and understanding of child development acquired in academic coursework is integrated with classroom experience. Concepts about child development are extended and reviewed as preservice teachers continue to come in contact with the students in learning situations. Instruction is viewed through a lens that takes into account the developmental level of the learner while still providing challenges for all.
- Beginning teachers' preparation in the use of tools and new instructional practices allows exploration, practice and discussion around use with learners.
Preservice teachers increase their awareness of new strategies in courses, classrooms and schools as well as through reflection, professional reading and professional meetings. They need access to technology tools and other tools that enhance the mathematical and scientific understanding of the learners and reinforce best practices. Further, preservice teachers must be given opportunities to practice using these tools and new strategies in the classroom setting.
- Preservice teachers participate in teacher activities that build relationships with parents, other teachers and the community. Teacher candidates attend teacher, grade-level, curriculum and department meetings, thus becoming a part of the larger school community. They gain insights into particular children and age-groups by attending parent-teacher conferences, back-to-school nights, and student activities such as mathematics meets, science fairs, athletic events, dances, concerts and plays. Preservice teachers help to plan and participate in Family Science and Family Math nights in which children engage in rich mathematics and science activities with their families and teachers. Other simulations of parent-teacher encounters and family situations can prepare future teachers for positive interaction with their own students' parents.
Connecting to Resources
Access to local, regional and national organizations and other resources provides the preservice teacher with a broader knowledge base for classroom studies and a greater bank of resource possibilities for their own students. Supervising teachers and college instructors provide models for using these resources.
These statements describe exemplary teacher preparation programs:
- Communities provide many resources to enhance classroom experiences for learners.
Parents, community organizations, local businesses, libraries, research facilities and universities provide science and mathematics resources or offer people who will share their expertise with the class. Planetariums, nature reserves and local banks are a few examples. Preservice teachers have access to the many available resources in ways that prepare them to use similar resources in their future teaching.
- University programs and partnerships and other local networks offer support to all professionals.
Preservice teachers are provided with information on student participation in professional development opportunities. They are invited to sample student benefits; professional memberships; college and university courses, workshops and seminars; regional partnerships and local networks. School-based programs offer special partnerships where school partners provide preservice teachers access to all school resources. Universities and colleges, in turn, offer the supervising teacher and other school partners access to college or university resources.
- Computers provide prospective teachers with access to a wealth of information and networking possibilities for teachers and students via telecommunication.
There are currently local Maine telecommunication networks as well as links to national and world-wide networks. Preservice teachers access lesson plans, other curriculum materials and scientific data as well as "converse" with practitioners on these networks.
- National, state and local educational organizations contribute to the content, pedagogy and learner knowledge base of the preservice teacher through many offerings and resources.
These resources include professional organizations, science and mathematics agencies, parents and community members, and others offering assistance with curriculum, teaching and learning. Student memberships are available for most journals and associations, and many conferences and workshops offer reduced registration fees for students.