Persistence of the two‐worlds pitfall: Learning to teach within and across settings

Abstract

Learning to teach within and across the settings of teacher education coursework and field experience in local schools is subject to the "two worlds pitfall" where practices, norms, expectations, tools, and other aspects of teaching can be jarringly different. This remains an ever-present dilemma for preservice teachers, their teacher educators, and their school-based mentors. This collective case study follows two cohorts of secondary science teacher candidates (22 in total) through their field experiences in local schools to understand how they reorganized, repurposed, and retooled practice as they worked on noticing and responding to students using ambitious science teaching principles and practices. Analysis highlights how instructional experiences in K-12 classrooms and relationships with mentors afforded and constrained pre-service teachers' efforts to recontextualize ambitious science teaching practices in the status quo science teaching contexts of local schools.Recommendations for increasing permeability between the two worlds of teacher preparation are included.

Language ideologies in science education

“…In a study of the application of reform‐based science teaching practices among biology instructors, Emdin (); Grinath and Southerland () describe talk moves used by the instructors that were associated with a high degree of explanatory rigor among students, finding that instructor responses to the students’ contributions were more significantly related to quality explanations than the type of question asked by the instructor. Similarly, Braaten () conducted a case study of science teachers working with mentors to implement reform‐based ambitious science teaching practices within their classrooms, finding a variety of ways that teachers recontextualized the advice and mentorship they received to meet the needs of their students. Together these perspectives suggest that we cannot simply provide opportunities for challenging and better learning experiences, but we should attend specifically to language and diversity among learners in our efforts to do so.…”

Promoting Coherent Science Instruction through Coherent Science Teacher Education: A Model Framework for Program Design

“…Teacher education can play a critical role for setting teachers on the path of developing such expertise (Darling-Hammond & Oakes, 2019). Expertise in any field is characterized by well-organized knowledge, in which ideas are richly connected around a small set of powerful core ideas (Linn, 2006;Schwartz & Goldstone, 2016), and adaptive expertise, in which experts efficiently respond to non-routine and novel situations that arise through practice (Bransford et al, 2000). Science teacher education should therefore set the stage for new teachers to both develop robust knowledge for teaching and to authentically engage with the practice of teaching (Stroupe et al, 2020).…”

“…PCK is just one of a host of characteristics that are important for effective science teaching. Blömeke et al (2015) highlighted affective-motivational factors (e.g., beliefs) as well as situation-specific skills that also substantially affect teachers' performance (see also Gess-Newsome, 2015). In the following sections, we briefly review current thinking on the PCK construct and discuss the role of teachers' beliefs and goals in influencing their enactment of coherent science instruction.…”

“…The position of the reflective dynamo at the center of the STEP-C model reinforces the importance of PSTs encountering the same ideas within each context. Learning is inseparable from the context in which it occurs (Lave & Wenger, 1992), and encountering and using the same core ideas across contexts is a key part of developing expertise (Bransford et al, 2000;NASEM, 2018). Similarly, beliefs are dependent upon the contexts in which they are formed (Pajares, 1992), and adjustment of beliefs may be particularly sensitive to positive experiences (Sharot & Garrett, 2016), e.g., receiving positive feedback from students, mentors, and/or professors.…”

"I can't believe I just said that" : discursive filters and beginning mathematics teachers' enactment of ambitious practice

“…focus of research for decades. While some researchers have focused on potential ways to build bridges between universities and schools (e.g., Anagnostopoulos, Smith, & Basmadjian, 2007;Zeichner, 2010), others were concerned with making sense of how beginning teachers experience the two-worlds problem and what happens as a result (e.g., Borko & Mayfield, 1995;Braaten, 2019;Ensor, 2001;Grossman et al, 1999;Hebard, 2016;Horn et al, 2008;Kennedy, 1999;Lortie, 1975;Ritchie & Wilson, 1993;Smagorinsky, Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004;Smith & Avetisian, 2011;Thompson et al, 2013;Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981;. Regarding the latter body of work, results have shown that characteristics of individuals, aspects of institutional settings, and, in some cases, relations between them influence whether and to what extent beginning teachers enact the practices promoted in teacher education.…”