Rethinking Field Experiences in Preservice Teacher Preparation

Preservice Teachers’ Learning to Plan Intellectually Challenging Tasks

“…With the movement toward 21st-century competencies, teacher educators face the challenge of developing learning experiences that are powerful enough to help teachers facilitate deeper learning in classroom (Hollins, 2015). Articulating effective planning practices that are related to rigorous curriculum observed in lessons helps teacher educators develop those learning experiences in a principled way.…”

A Communities of Practice Approach to Field Experiences in Teacher Education

“…For this to happen, teacher education programs might emphasize with prospective teachers the importance of learning to teach in new ways. In contrast to how field experiences have been conceptualized-as spaces for teacher candidates to observe master teachers and attempt to replicate their behaviors in a process that Hollins (2015) referred to as "representation and approximation" (p. 18)-a reconceptualization would stress field experiences as sites for examining the benefits and drawbacks of particular classroom practices. In such a framework, teaching is viewed not as a set of competencies or an act driven by a singular theory (Smith & Lev-Ari, 2005); as a result, each teaching context requires different theories in practice.…”

“…This experience occurs before candidates' student teaching semester, yet comes after initial experiences that could be characterized as 'observations' of classrooms (Hollins, 2015). The larger study on which this paper is based focused on the experiences of 14 English teacher candidates from a large university in the Midwest United States.…”

“…Such disagreement is salient, given that a wide variety of scholars have demonstrated the ways in which beliefs about and understandings of teaching shape the actual actions of teachers in practice (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005;Korthagen, 2004;White & Forgasz, 2016). Most understandings of teaching include beliefs relating to curriculum content and planning, the value/effectiveness of particular pedagogies, the function and format of assessment (Hollins, 2015;Jackson, 1986;Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun, 2014). Undergirding these understandings are differing theories about the way people learn and differing beliefs about the overarching goals of educational experiences and the nature of knowledge itself (Jackson, 1986;Labaree, 1997;Warner, 2016).…”

The Power of Community Partnership in the Preparation of Teachers

“…But just as the power of "owning" knowledge by youth in out-of-school settings has been demonstrated in areas as diverse as science (Birmingham & Calabrese Barton, 2014) and literacy (Goodman, 2003;Hull, 2003), the knowledge that exists within community settings, and the norms and practices which are valued by them, have the potential to inform programs and their participants in powerful and educative ways (Hollins, 2015;Lees, 2016;Lees, Heineke, Ryan, & Roy, 2016). The underlying reason is twofold: First, it is critical for those preparing to become teachers to understand what surrounds and drives the young people they will teach, and how and what they are outside of school offers valuable insights that can help them to become more effective educators.…”