Partnering with Cities to Enrich Teacher Preparation Curriculum

Author(s):

Crystal Chen(submitting)Lin Goodwin(presenting)Colleen Horn(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 03, Teachers' Perspectives on Home-school Relationships

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

17:15-18:45

Room:

K3.21

Chair:

Angelika Paseka

Contribution

The recent Education and Training in Europe 2020 Report (European Commission (EC), 2013a) outlines education and training priorities around four thematic areas: early school leaving (ESL); higher education; youth employment and vocational education and training; and lifelong learning. Regarding ESL specifically, European Union member responses emphasize the need to support children from low socio-economic, migrant or disadvantaged minority backgrounds, particularly in urban areas given, typically, high concentrations of disadvantaged populations. Additionally, their responses focus on preparing teachers to work cooperatively with families and communities of such populations in order to leverage students’ strengths and community resources. Such partnerships are seen as essential to students’ success.

In line with this theme, our study examines how one teacher certification program prepares teachers to engage with urban communities by reimagining what we mean by “partnerships.” We expand conceptions of school-university partnerships to include the wider community, highlighting the notion of partnering with cities to enrich teacher preparation curriculum and extend teacher candidate learning in—and of—the community. As such communities are not just a rich resource, but more importantly become a source of place-based learning for teacher candidates given growing understandings of location-specific teacher preparation (Matsko & Hammerness, 2014). This is particularly relevant in urban teacher preparation, given commonplace definitions of urban—and by association, urban schools and students—as pathological, deficient, dangerous, and failing (Noguera, 2003; Scherer, 2005; Watson, 2011). By deliberately re-defining “city” and its communities as partners in preparing teachers, the program in this study sought to “change the center of gravity in teacher education to provide a stronger role for schools and communities in the education of teachers” (Zeichner, 2006, p. 3), and enable the development of “community teachers” (Murrell, 2001; Zygmunt et al., 2016) who see teaching as a “social practice,” (Schussler, Feiman-Nemser, Diez, & Murrell, 2014, p. 4), framed by the intersection of schools, communities, cultures, and cities.

Our context is an urban teaching residency program that aims to prepare educators who are culturally grounded, socially aware, and inclusive in their ability to embrace city-urban-students. We argue that this kind of teaching/teacher depends on relational knowledge, in addition to personal and professional understandings. Relational knowledge is grounded in meaning making (Pesek & Kershner, 2000), enabling teacher candidates to discern capacity and value in the communities where their students live. Relational knowledge also emphasizes the building of relationships (Boyd, MacNeill & Sullivan, 2006)—not only relationships residents can build with the city in order to come to know the city, but also the relationships their students have with their (urban) communities, and how all these different ways of knowing urban communities can become fertile ground for interpersonal connections among students, teachers/residents, and culturally responsive pedagogy. In our study, we ask: What personal, professional, and relational knowledge about “urban/city” do residents bring to—and gain from—their explorations of urban communities? We analyze residents’ learning from community explorations in a U.S. central city, an assignment designed to develop ‘eyes of capacity’--to see the urban communities as places of possibility, rich cultures, and sources of culturally relevant curriculum.

Our study contributes a unique perspective on partnership building and shares ways that engaging urban communities as sites of learning can deepen teacher candidate understanding about culture, community, and city, and inform teacher preparation curricula. Our work also speaks to the conference theme by offering a contextualized portrait of “local translations” in response to “transnational reform pressure” (ECER, 2017, p. 1) to meet the academic and socio-emotional needs of school populations that are increasingly diverse racially, linguistically, socio-economically, in the U.S., across Europe, and indeed in most places of the world.

Method

Study participants are one cohort of teaching residents (N= 19) in an 18-month urban teacher residency program housed in a highly selective, Research-1 university. The Master’s-level program prepares teachers in Science, ESL, and Special Education. The sample varied in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, certification area, and professional/educational background. Of the 19 residents, there are 3 males, and 16 females within a diverse cohort: 4 residents identify as Asian, 2 identify as bi-racial, 5 identify as Black, 1 identifies as Latina, 1 identifies as Middle Eastern, and 6 identify as White. Because we are examining residents’ explorations of urban communities, we also highlight residents’ geographic locations, recognizing that residents come with funds of knowledge—10 residents grew up in urban communities, while 9 residents grew up in suburban communities. Data sources include a pre-assessment about “urban,” and 19 Community Walk/Community as Resource assignments that residents completed for a core class in the program. The assignment asked students to visit a designated school/placement community at least twice, and to perceive the community through two sets of eyes: a) as a stranger for whom everything is new or unfamiliar; and b) as someone who lives in the community and calls it home. Residents then created an e-poster of the community, and a handout that identified a community resource and described the ways they might use it to enhance curriculum for and make connections with diverse students. The research team met regularly to analyze data and discuss emerging themes related to residents’ articulations and presentations of their assigned community (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). Through an iterative process, we analyzed the qualitative data inductively and deductively (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Maxwell, 2012). Jointly, we open-coded across the data sources (e-posters, presentations, handouts) to look for emergent themes (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). We then revisited the data sources and deductively coded by emergent themes around integrating community with curriculum, such as “community practices,” "cultural resources," and “families,” (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). We acknowledge that our findings cannot be generalized, but subscribe to the notion of transferability when looking at the ways in which the residents presented and applied their reflections, articulations, and assessments of communities and their resources.

Expected Outcomes

Preliminary data analysis indicated that most residents stayed within normative definitions of community resources, suggesting that their personal experiences obscured their ability to perceive resources through a relational or professional lens. Residents most frequently highlighted formal learning spaces (e.g., museums, libraries), bypassing the informal learning spaces where local lives, culture, and agency were expressed (e.g., murals, community gardens). Moreover, preconceived notions of urban were sometimes suggested in the assumptions they made about what community members needed, e.g., “[resource] can also prove useful as a way to improve English learning, which is likely needed in this community.” Still, residents did demonstrate movement towards complicating preconceived notions about “urban,” enough to begin making connections (personal and relational knowledge). Overall, the assignment opened residents up to learning opportunities in the community, enabling them to reassess and extend their own implicit knowledge, draw deeper meanings from the activity, and consider implications for their future practice (professional knowledge). By enriching residents’ knowledge about diverse communities, we presume to enable them to expand their personal, professional, and relational knowledge for culturally grounded and meaningful instruction. These findings tell us that residents can build funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) that would allow them to connect with their students through shared experiences that resonate with and value students’ lives. Our study has implications for European contexts where similar questions and goals about teacher competence are being raised. As in the U.S., teachers are being “asked to teach in increasingly multicultural classrooms, integrate students with special needs…[and]…[adjust] to the evolving needs of learners in a world of rapid social, cultural, economic and technological change” (EC, 2013b, pp. 7, 9). Though contexts may differ, there are many similarities in the issues facing policy makers and educators globally, rendering learning and sharing across (inter)national borders potentially meaningful.

References

Bogdan, R. & Biklen, S. (2007). Qualitative research in education. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Boyd, R., MacNeill, N., & Sullivan, G. (2006). Relational pedagogy: Putting balance back into students’ learning. Curriculum and Leadership, 4(13). Retrieved from http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/relational_pedagogy:_putting_balance_back_into_s tu,13944.html?issueID=10277 ECER. (2017). Call for Proposals. Retrieved from http://www.eera-ecer.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Pictures/ECER_Logos_and_Pictures/ECER_2017/ECER_2017_Call_for_Proposals_fin.pdf European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice. (2013a). Education and Training in Europe 2020: Responses from the EU Member States. Eurydice Report. Brussels: Eurydice. European Commission. (July, 2013b). Supporting teacher competence development for better learning outcomes. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/repository/education/policy/school/doc/teachercomp_en.pdf Maxwell, J. (2012). Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Matsko, K. K., & Hammerness, K. (2014). Unpacking the “urban” in urban teacher education: Making a case for context-specific preparation. Journal of Teacher Education, 65(2), 128-144. Murrell, P. (2001). The community teacher. NY: Teachers College Press. Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132-141. Noguera, P. (2003). City schools and the American dream. NY: Teachers College Press. Pesek, D., & Kershner, D. (2000). Interference of instrumental instruction in subsequent relational learning. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 31, 524-540. Scherer, M. (2005). Perspectives/Our cities, ourselves. Educational Leadership, 62(6), 7. Watson, D. (2011). What do you mean when you say urban” Speaking honestly about race and students. Rethinking Schools, 26(1), 48-50. Schussler, D., Feiman-Nemser, S., Diez, M., & Murrell, P. (2014). Swimming in deep waters. Democracy and Education, 20(2), 1-5. Zeichner, K. (2006). Reflections of a university-based teacher educator on the future of college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education , 57(3) 326-340. Zygmunt, E., Clark, P., with Clausen, J., Mucherah, W., & Tancock, S. (2016). Transforming teacher education for social justice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Author Information

Crystal Chen (submitting)

Teachers College, Columbia University, United States of America

Lin Goodwin (presenting)

Teachers College, Columbia University, United States of America

Colleen Horn (presenting)

Teachers College, Columbia University

New York

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.