By Kristin
There is a great piece in the New York Times Magazine titled Building a Better Teacher. It's a long but good read.
In it, Elizabeth Green highlights Doug Lemov's efforts to identify effective teacher maneuvers. Lemov discovered that it's important for teachers to have some sort of techniques with which to improve their teaching because many of them graduate from teacher education programs ill-prepared to teach effectively.
I couldn't agree more, and wondered what all of you would like to see change in teacher education programs.
Green's piece covers much more than simply the preparation of teaching candidates, but that's the part I want to write about today. She shares that "A 2006 report found that 12 percent of education-school faculty members never taught in elementary or secondary schools themselves. Even some methods professors have never set foot in a classroom or have not done so recently." Those of us who graduated from a university's teacher prep program already knew this. Twelve percent is not a lot, but no one should be preparing teachers to teach who hasn't taught, taught well, and taught recently.
In Green's article Lemov mentions that he considers teaching to be a skill set, like learning to play the guitar. I agree with this, and I don't think you can teach guitar if you can't play one. As well, I don't think you can teach classroom management or methods unless you know what it's like to keep 35 kids engaged and productive for 50 minutes, and have had to do so fairly recently.
Teacher education programs are desperate to get their students into classrooms in order to make up for this. Teaching candidates have to complete tens of hours of observation and then student teach, but that isn't going to guarantee they learn how to teach well unless they're working with or observing an effective teacher.
I'm going to make one suggestion to the teacher education programs: stop equating a PhD with the ability to prepare teachers for the classroom. Teacher education programs should rotate their teaching staff back out into schools so that they're staying skilled at teaching elementary or secondary students. Skilled elementary or secondary teachers could apply for a one-year rotation at a university to teach management, diversity issues, methods, or all three. Relationships could be developed between the teacher education programs and public, private and charter schools to make this happen.
I have other ideas, but I want to hear yours. What would you like to see changed about the way teachers are prepared for the classroom?
I agree that cooperating teacher placements for student teachers are incredibly important. So, what are teacher-prep programs doing to a) ensure that all CTs are capable and b) supplement the experience with video and exercises? As a current teacher candidate in graduate school, I am surprised at how little secondary-level teaching I have seen compared to the amount of theory that has been covered in our classes. I am assuming that there are hours and hours of effective teaching examples on video (similar to what is shown in the NYTimes article), but we have seen less than a day’s worth in my program.
I feel confident (not to mention lucky) in my ST placement and what I can take from the experience of working with my CT. Unfortunately, I have not heard the same from others in my program. The discussions among my classmates often revolve around what we feel we should be learning from both our CTs and the program to better prepare us for classrooms in the fall (oh please, let there be positions open!).
I’ve had two student teachers who were a lot of work, and four who hit the ground ready to teach.
What I found with the difficult two, and what Lemov seems to push, is that it’s less personality and more about skill. Given the wide-range of personalities we see among really great teachers, that makes sense. Some are shy, some are sarcastic, some are nurturing or extroverted. They’re all able to teach well.
With my two less-skilled student teachers I had to really examine what they did, what the kids were doing, how the ST reacted to what the kids were doing (or didn’t react…) and then try to direct-teach some specific strategies.
Both of them made a lot of progress, and became capable teachers by the end of their student teaching experience. The progress was evident in how engaged the kids were, and how their skills were improving.
Now, one of those teachers has earned her NBCTS, and one is a well-loved, talented teacher.
Clearly, I think most of us who teach learned almost everything during our student teaching internship.
What do you all think about the model they have in Kansas, where you co-teach for a year (and get paid!!!), attending classes one weekend a month, then go back to school for summer quarter and have a job the following September?
To me, that makes more sense than the “let’s study theory and create hypothetical units” model most teaching candidates have to complete.
I specifically remember my classroom management classes and all of the different theories and methodologies that are available for study. Yet once you step into the classroom, theory goes out the window and you find yourself faced with concrete individuals who have personalities that don’t fit any textbook examples.
Rena, that is essentially the model I’m working with right now with my current student teacher. I like it because I get to stay closely involved with my own students while also talking shop, reflecting, and thinking critically with my ST. If I could be guaranteed a ST as competent as her every year, I’d be a CT every year. However, I know that there are some preservice teachers out there who take their work far less seriously and are not willing to think as deeply as my current ST. Those dispositions she brings in (as Tom posted about sometime last year) are what are making our mutual experience good. If I had a ST with fewer of those “unteachables” about teaching, I’m not sure how I’d react or perform. I can’t teach a ST personality characteristics they don’t already possess.
There is a some current thinking amongst Higher Education Institutes that student teachers should be involved in a more team teaching approach. That is they student teach for a year with a mentor teacher. The mentor teacher doesn’t give up their class for 6 – 8 weeks, but rather has the student teacher teach in tandem thus allowing the student to learn all the ins and outs of teaching for the entire year. Just a thought for now, but sounds promising.
Mark, I agree that the quality of the cooperating teacher is a problem. In my building, as with others, there are some teachers who shouldn’t have a student teacher. Eight years ago there were very few student teachers, then suddenly there was a blizzard of them. What happens is that the really good cooperating teachers have to say “no” at some point, especially since student teachers are rolling through fall, winter and spring quarter.
And you’re right, both cooperating teachers and supervisors need to be more courageous when it comes to telling someone they shouldn’t pursue teaching.
Tom, thank you. I didn’t even know about NCATE. I looked them up and found they have a handy list of accredited institutions. You can find any state’s accredited institutions here http://www.ncate.org/public/listofaccredinst.asp
I was not surprised to see that some teacher education programs were not on their list. There are some programs of questionable quality in the Seattle area, and I was relieved to see that they are not NCATE Accredited. On the other hand, I teach at one of the institutions and give twice-yearly talks at the other, so I can say with some confidence that being NCATE Accredited doesn’t take care of every problem. While these two schools hire current classroom teachers (I teach methods at one), many of the professors haven’t been in a classroom in a long time. I still think that’s an important step if we’re talking about teaching best practice over teaching theoretical mastery.
I think the best thing any prospective teacher should do is make sure they enter a program that is NCATE Acredited. NCATE is the agency that makes sure schools of education meet a set of standards that cover every problem you’ve cited, Kristen.
I think teacher prep programs need to be a little more honest with their students, and tell them when they’re doing a poor job. I also think that mentor teachers ought to be screened so that a student teacher doesn’t end up with a teacher who just wants to hand the work over to someone else in their room for a period of time.