07 Sep2018

A Focus On Enduring Dilemmas in Teacher Education: Highlights from Sept./Oct. JTE

Check out the September/October 2018 issue of the Journal of Teacher Education (JTE). It is now available online and hitting desks around the country. See what Volume 69 Number 4 has to offer!

In this month’s editorial, “Research That Illuminates Enduring Dilemmas in Teacher Education,” members of the JTE editorial team at Michigan State University highlight the issue’s six articles. Robert E. Floden, Gail Richmond, and Corey Drake, note the papers’ help readers consider strategies for making progress on common dilemmas that teacher preparation programs face in their efforts to prepare profession-ready teacher candidates.
In “Marching Forward, Marching in Circles: A History of Problems and Dilemmas in Teacher Preparation,” Jack Schneider of Michigan State University examines major issues facing teacher preparation over the years, and distinguishes between “problems” and “dilemmas” which he defines by factors that produce or prevent positive outcomes. He identifies three issues that constitute specific dilemmas and offers “a promising way to examine a broad range of challenges in teacher education.” Through his lens, the JTE editorial team characterizes the issues addressed by authors of the other papers in this edition.
“Why Seek the Living Among the Dead?’ African American Pedagogical Experience: Exemplar Practice for Teacher Education” addresses current dilemmas in recruiting and preparing a diverse teaching force by reorienting teacher education toward an underutilized resource—African American pedagogical excellence. Melanie Acosta of the University of Alabama, Michele Foster of the University of Louisville, and Diedre Houchen of the University of Florida outline the core attributes of African American pedagogical excellence, including its historical genesis, and reveal ways public school desegregation has jeopardized the transcendence of African American pedagogical excellence within teacher education.
“Interrogating the Intersections Between General and Special Education in the History of Teacher Education Reform” provides a historical analysis of major reforms in teacher education, beginning in the 1970s, specifically focusing on the opportunities each reform presented to build a shared agenda across pre-service general and special education, and the constraints that operated on them. This paper by Linda Blanton of Florida International University, Marleen Pugach of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Mildred Boveda of Arizona State University reveal the existence of several such intersections, each of which created substantive occasions for joint action across general and special education at every stage of teacher education reform.
“Promoting Educators’ Use of Culturally Responsive Practices: A Systematic Review of Inservice Interventions” assess existing frameworks for culturally responsive practices (CRP) potential for promoting equitable learning environments. Jessika Bottiani, Catherine Bradshaw, and Katrina Debnam of the University of Virginia, Kristine Larson of Johns Hopkins University, and Christina Bischoff of University of Arizona provide a systematic review aimed to (a) describe the features of empirically examined inservice CRP interventions, (b) analyze the quality of the empirical studies, and (c) characterize study measures, outcomes, and conclusions regarding intervention impact. Their findings suggest that the research base is inadequate to draw conclusions regarding effectiveness and that more rigorous CRP inservice intervention research is needed.
“Preparing Teachers to Engage Rural Students in Computational Thinking Through Robotics, Game Design, and Culturally Responsive Teaching” investigates teacher preparation and teacher change in engineering and computer science education. Jacqueline Leonard of the University of Wyoming, Monica Mitchell of MERAssociates, Joy Barnes-Johnson of Princeton High School (NJ), Adrienne Unertl of Clark Elementary School (WY), Jill Outka-Hill of Stocktrail Elementary School (WY), Roland Robinson of Wyoming Indian Middle School (WY), and Carla Hester-Croff of Western Wyoming Community College examine culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy (CRTSE), culturally responsive teaching outcome expectancy (CRTOE) beliefs, and attitudes toward computational thinking (CT). Teachers participated in one of three treatment groups: robotics only, game design only, or blended robotics/game design. The results of the study reveal some variability by treatment type and inform future research on equitable practices in engineering and computer science education.
“Teachers’ Approaches Toward Cultural Diversity Predict Diversity-Related Burnout and Self-Efficacy” Tony Gutentag, Gabriel Horenczyk, and Moshe Tatar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explore ways in which, and the extent to which, DOPA (Diversity in Organizations: Perceptions and Approaches; that is, asset, problem, challenge, or nonissue) approaches predict teachers’ diversity-related burnout and immigration-related self-efficacy. They discovered the teachers’ perception of the immigrant student as an asset and not as a problem was related to lower diversity-related burnout and to higher immigration-related self-efficacy. They recommend future research should focus on possible interventions with teachers on the ways in which approaches to cultural diversity are developed, negotiated, and adopted.

Online abstracts of each JTE article are accessible to the public, but AACTE members may access the full text online for free. Simply log in to your AACTE account here.

Tags: assessment, content areas, diversity, JTE, research, rural education, teacher quality, technology, workforce development