Expanding Our View of Teaching and Learning: Applying Constructivist Theory(s) to Teachers Education.
TITLE Expanding Our View of Teaching and Learning: Applying Constructivist Theory(s) to Teachers Education. PUB DATE 2003-00-00 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (New Orleans, LA, January 24-27, 2003). PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) Speeches/Meeting Papers (150) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Portfolio Assessment; Action Research; *Constructivism (Learning); Cooperative Learning; Educational Environment; Elementary Secondary Education; Field Experience Programs; Higher Education; *Inservice Teacher Education; Interpersonal Relationship; *Preservice Teacher Education; Problem Solving; Reflective Teaching; Student Attitudes; Student Participation; Teacher Attitudes IDENTIFIERS Authenticity; Learner Centered Instruction
Beginning with the Group: Collaboration as the Cornerstone of Graduate Teacher Education
Abstract The paper describes the philosophy and structure of an M.Ed. Field-Based Masters Program. The program is designed around intact cohort groups of experienced teachers who meet once a week for four hours over a 22-month period. The curriculum is integrated, and it includes a teacher action research project extending throughout the two-year program. Because of the program's design, both faculty and teachers enrolled must work collaboratively to plan, implement, and evaluate curriculum. The paper describes how group process and collaboration are integral parts of both the teachers' learning experiences and the ongoing professional development of faculty who teach in the program. It concludes with a discussion of the challenges the program faces and how it is continuing to evolve to meet the needs of the teachers who seek masters degrees at this university.
Transforming future teachers' ideas about writing instruction
In our combined experience of nearly ten years, we have seen the goals of methods courses in writing grow and deepen. Today, we think of teaching writing as a process of 'scaffolding', or supporting children's language development in ways that broaden the writer's expressive possibilities, deepen her or his understanding of written language and text, and socialize the young writer into the role of literate adult (see, for example, Murray 1979, Calkins 1986, Graves 1983). It is our responsibility and challenge to initiate prospective teachers, who may not have been taught writing in this way, into the problems and possibilities of teaching the writing process inventively and meaningfully. After more than twelve years participating in school literacy events, teacher candidates come to us with prior knowledge of what writing is and how it is taught. However, this knowledge is limited in several ways. First, it is limited to what teacher candidates have learned about writing from the pupil's point of view. Second, what teacher candidates have already learned about teacher thinking and pedagogy is based on informal childhood observations of teachers while participating in lessons. Third, learning from one's experience as a pupil typically reflects status quo rather than state-of-the-art practice (Florio-Ruane 1989). In this paper we describe a course that offered opportunities for prospective teachers to transform their prior experiences of teaching, writing, and children as they began to assume the role of the teacher. We then assess how this curriculum was experienced by the teacher candidates.