“They taught me”: The benefits of early community-based field experiences in teacher education

Trends in Higher Education Service-Learning Courses for Pre-Service Teachers: A Systematic Review

“…The selected research predominantly utilized S-L programs designed as components of various core curricula university courses, such as inclusive education and diversity courses (Conner, 2010;Carringtonm & Selva, 2010), introductory or capstone pedagogical courses (Chang, Anagnostopoulos & Omae, 2011;Coffey, 2010;Trauth-Nare, 2015;Sletto, 2010;Power, 2013), methods of teaching courses (Cone, 2012;Iverson & James, 2010;Kim, 2012), pedagogical research courses (Wallace, 2013), art education courses (Whiteland, 2013), thus corroborating the flexibility of S-L as a powerful curricular tool. Out of the total 15 approaches, 2 scholars designed the S-L experience as a summer program: a summer arts-based S-L with Australian Aboriginal people as beneficiaries (Power & Bennet, 2015) and a summer enrichment mentoring S-L program for developing pedagogical skills (Green, 2011).…”

Youth-voice driven after-school science clubs: A tool to develop new alliances in ethnically diverse communities in support of transformative learning for preservice teachers and youth

“…The challenge for a teacher education program, then, is to engage with these visions of schools and youth in underserved and ethnically diverse communities and help student teachers develop other ways of seeing and relating to youth of colour (Coffey, 2009;Hallman, 2012). Ray's story offers another illustration of that process:…”

Community-based field experiences in teacher education: possibilities for a pedagogical third space

“…As more teachers encounter children whose background does not match their own, it becomes even more imperative that teacher education programs respond to training teachers to understand diversity as it relates to teaching all students. Some scholars (e.g., Coffey, 2010;Rogers et al, 2006) have suggested that community-based field experiences can potentially work on multiple levels to enhance beginning teachers' insight into both students' lives outside of school and the ways in which the institution of school responds to students. Community-based field sites, often contrasted with traditional "apprenticeship of observation" models of field work (Lortie, 1975) within classrooms and schools, work toward the goals of broadening beginning teachers' conceptions of where student learning takes place as well as support the idea that teachers are not only part of a school but part of a larger community.…”

“…Holistically, such field experiences exist to promote teacher candidates' understanding and practice of culturally responsive pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 2001), as well as bridge beginning teachers' reflection on the constructs of theory and practice present in the teaching act (Shulman, 2005). Though field experiences have been acknowledged as an important component of teacher education programs, little work has explored the unique qualities of community-based settings as potential sites for teachers' learning (see Coffey, 2010). Coffey (2010) suggests that community-based settings have the power to transform the ways that beginning teachers think about the effects of schooling in their students' lives, as well as the extent to which social factors influence students' success in school.…”

“…Though field experiences have been acknowledged as an important component of teacher education programs, little work has explored the unique qualities of community-based settings as potential sites for teachers' learning (see Coffey, 2010). Coffey (2010) suggests that community-based settings have the power to transform the ways that beginning teachers think about the effects of schooling in their students' lives, as well as the extent to which social factors influence students' success in school. Communitybased settings offer sites for beginning teachers to consider how schools reside in the greater context of a community, and this can potentially broaden beginning teachers' understandings of where learning takes place (Rogers, Marshall, & Tyson, 2006).…”