“THE THINGS THEY CARRIED”: A STUDY OF TEACHER LEARNING ...sw298kt9576... · “the things they...
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“THE THINGS THEY CARRIED”: A STUDY OF LEARNING TO TEACH ACROSS
ACTIVITY SETTINGS
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES
OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
SANDY MARIAM PHILIPOSE
March 2010
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/sw298kt9576
© 2010 by Sandy Mariam Philipose. All Rights Reserved.
Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Linda Darling-Hammond, Primary Adviser
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Pamela Grossman
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequatein scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Rachel Lotan
Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies.
Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education
This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file inUniversity Archives.
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ABSTRACT
The study described here examines the practices of 7 beginning English-Language
Arts teachers in two schools over the course of an academic year. The analysis of
classroom observations and data on the preparation for teaching highlighted the elements
of learning settings in both pre-service and in-service settings that supported
appropriation of subject specific tools for teaching. The common features across settings
that supported appropriation were a foundation of conceptual tools for teaching, the
enactment or unpacking of practical tools through explicit modeling or collaboration, and
opportunities to enact tools within and/or across learning settings. The study also
highlighted the importance of the reinforcement of tools across settings for promoting not
only appropriation of practices but depth of appropriation. The cases suggest that it was
the features of the individual and overlapping settings for teacher learning such as the
availability of models, norms around practical tools, opportunities to enact tools, and the
access to these features across settings that best explain the teaching practice of these 7
teachers.
The study reveals a more complicated and nuanced picture of the development of
teaching practices across settings in which teachers learn to teach their subject matter.
The findings suggest that in addition to considering how to better scaffold tool
appropriation in their respective settings, teacher educators, professional developers,
departmental leadership, and policy makers should work together to provide support for
tool appropriation that spirals across settings.
As I was collecting data for the study, I came across the title “The Things They
Carried” on the book club list at Highland High School. Having never read the book, I
was inspired to pick up Tim O‟Brien‟s novel on the Vietnam War. Reading through the
first chapter by the same name, I was captivated by the detailed description of what the
soldiers carried, both literally and figuratively, as they marched in and through war. As I
sat down to write the dissertation about the tools teachers carried across settings into their
practice, this is the title that came to mind. Each teacher carries into teaching their
personal histories, the tools specific to where they have been, and those necessary for
where they are. This dissertation is my detailed analysis and report of 7 beginning
teachers and “the things they carried” into their classrooms.
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ACKNLOWLEDGEMENTS
Throughout the writing of this dissertation, I found myself struggling with how to
concisely and accurately capture what I wanted to say. The case is no different with this
very last piece. These few words of thanks carry with them an appreciation that is
beyond words.
I would first like to thank the teachers (Abby, Andrea, Barbara, Jackie, Jade,
Janice, Joanna) who allowed me into their classrooms and their lives. Through sitting in
your classrooms, you not only deepened my understanding of teacher preparation and
development, but also reignited my love of literature. I am honored to call each of you
colleagues and now friends.
Over the last five years, I have been continually inspired by Linda Darling-
Hammond‟s tireless work and commitment to improving education. I am grateful to have
had the opportunity to work with her both as an advisee and a member of her research
team. Our conversations and the TNE project have challenged me to think more deeply
about educational research and how our work connects to important questions of policy
and practice.
Rachel Lotan has been my advocate since my first day at Stanford. She has
provided me with numerous opportunities to develop as a teacher educator as well as
introduce me to the STEP model that shapes my conception of teacher preparation. Most
recently, she held my hand through the long and arduous process of writing this
dissertation. Her hugs and words of encouragement, coupled with gentle prodding,
helped me reach the finish line.
Pam Grossman has inspired much of my thinking on the theoretical foundations
of teacher education as well as the framework for this dissertation. Her encouragement,
continual interest in the study, and feedback on books disguised as chapters were
invaluable in this process.
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“Daddy, do you know what the most important thing in the world is?”
“What is the most important thing in the world, Joseph?”
“Friendship.”
I am infinitely grateful for the friends that helped support me, not only through
the dissertation process, but throughout my time at Stanford.
Regina Bolaños has been a source of encouragement from before the application
process to the day of my defense. Plano ISD did not know what a special relationship
they were forging when they assigned Regina as my mentor in my first year of teaching.
I cannot thank her enough for all the ways she has cared for and supported me.
Jack Dieckmann has been not only a friend (a.k.a. “conjoined twin”) but an
advisor and mentor in so many ways. I am extremely grateful for his gentle pushes in
both my professional and personal life. I feel privileged to have walked alongside him,
both literally and figuratively, for this journey. I am also grateful to Esther, Joseph, and
Benjamin for inviting me into their home and their family.
This dissertation would not have been possible without support of friends and
family both in Texas and in California. To the Chathas, Esther, and Lea I am especially
grateful. I also want to acknowledge those in my church and school community who
worked with me, prayed for me, and supported me with food and words of
encouragement. Each of you is very special to me and a strong reminder of how God
shows His love through people.
I dedicate my work to my Maker who has known my destination even when I did
not and to my parents who, though they did not always understand my destination, have
continually tried to provide me with the time and resources for the journey. At the end of
the long road, they can now say they are the parents of Dr. Philipose.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ........................................................................................... IX
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 10
PREVIEW OF STUDY ...................................................................................................................... 16
CHAPTER 2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................... 17
REDEFINING “CONTEXT” AS “ACTIVITY SETTINGS” ................................................................ 17 THE ROLE OF TOOLS .................................................................................................................... 21 REDEFINING “LEARNING” AND “PRACTICE” AS TOOL APPROPRIATION ................................ 22 TENSIONS WITHIN AND ACROSS ACTIVITY SETTINGS .............................................................. 23 LEARNING TO TEACH ACROSS ACTIVITY SETTINGS ................................................................. 23 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................................ 25
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 26
STUDY DESIGN .............................................................................................................................. 26 DATA COLLECTION ...................................................................................................................... 31 DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 39 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ....................................................................................................... 42
CHAPTER 4 CLARK AND HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOLS ................................................. 44
CLARK HIGH SCHOOL .................................................................................................................. 44 HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOL ........................................................................................................... 51 INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES BY SCHOOL SITE ...................................................................... 58 FEATURES OF SCHOOL SETTINGS THAT INFLUENCE TOOL APPROPRIATION .......................... 59
CHAPTER 5 JENNINGS GRADUATES .................................................................................. 62
JENNINGS METHODS COURSE ..................................................................................................... 62 JENNINGS GRADUATES AT CLARK HIGH SCHOOL ..................................................................... 69 JENNINGS GRADUATES AT HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOL .............................................................. 77 PROGRAM FEATURES THAT FOSTER APPROPRIATION .............................................................. 88
CHAPTER 6 ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES ........................................................ 92
ABBOTT STATE COLLEGE AND BENNETT STATE UNIVERSITY TEACHER EDUCATION
PROGRAMS .................................................................................................................................... 92 ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES IN SCHOOL SETTINGS ................................................... 101
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ABBOTT GRADUATES AT HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOL ............................................................... 103 BENNETT GRADUATE AT CLARK HIGH SCHOOL ..................................................................... 115 SUMMARY OF ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES ................................................................. 122
CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION OF CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS ................................................ 123
WITHIN SETTING FEATURES THAT FOSTER TOOL APPROPRIATION ..................................... 123 FEATURES OF LEARNING ACROSS SETTINGS THAT SUPPORT DEEPER LEVELS OF
APPROPRIATION ......................................................................................................................... 135
CHAPTER 8 IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY ................................................................. 145
DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................. 145 IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................ 146 A “SPIRALING CONTINUUM” FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING ................................................ 149 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE POLICY AND PRACTICE OF TEACHER PREPARATION ..................... 154 IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER EDUCATION METHODS COURSES AND SUBJECT SPECIFIC
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................. 155 IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL SETTINGS .................................................................................... 156 IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY MAKERS AND PROGRAM DESIGNERS ........................................ 157 IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ............................................................................... 160 AREAS OF FUTURE RESEARCH .................................................................................................. 161 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 165
APPENDIX A PROTOCOLS FOR BEGINNING TEACHERS .......................................... 167
APPENDIX B PROTOCOLS FOR OTHER PARTICIPANTS ........................................... 170
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 173
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Chapter 3
Table 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for School Sites……………………………………29
Table 3.2 Participants by Site……………………………………………………….31
Table 3.3: Observations/Interviews by Teacher…………………………………….35
Table 3.4: Data Sources by Setting………………………………………………....36
Table 3.5 Data Analysis Questions and Data Sources………………………………41
Chapter 4
Table 4.1: Privileged Tools for English-Language Arts Instruction by School…….59
Chapter 5
Table 5.1: Jennings Course Design by Domain Specific Units……………………..68
Table 5.2: Practices of Jennings Teachers by School……………………………….76
Table 5.3: Practical Tools Teachers Attributed to Models from Jennings………….89
Chapter 6
Table 6.1 Methods course overview across 3 teacher education programs………..100
Table 6.2
Principal Settings for Teacher Learning for Abbott and Bennett Graduates……….101
Table 6.3 Practices by Teacher, School, and Teacher Education Program………...102
Chapter 7
Table 7.1: Table of Learning Features by Setting………………………………….143
Table 7.2 Practices by Teacher, School, and Teacher Education Program….…......144
(Same as Table 6.3 – Repeated for Reader’s Convenience)
LIST OF FIGURES
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Basic Model of Activity Setting………………………………………...19
Figure 2.2 Activity Setting: Teacher Education…………………………………….20
Figure 2.3 Activity Setting: Initial Teaching Job…………………………….……..21
Figure 2.4 Learning to Teach Across Settings…........................................................25
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
We are currently in the era of No Child Left Behind which mandates a “highly
qualified” teacher in every classroom. According to the legislation, a “highly qualified”
teacher is one that has a bachelor‟s degree, full state certification or licensure, and can
prove that they know each subject they teach. At the same time policy makers have been
calling for increased attention to subject matter preparation and credentialing, there has
also been an increase in the number of alternative teacher education programs which
require little to no training before teachers enter the classroom (Levine, 2006). These
seemingly contradictory policy moves demonstrate the lack of agreement on how best to
prepare “highly qualified” teachers and the diminishing importance of preservice teacher
education in teacher preparation.
Research and current policy decisions such as the ones above have highlighted the
importance of content knowledge for teaching but have yet to definitively provide an
answer to the following question: Does teacher education matter? The debate regarding
the importance and quality of teacher education has been circling the research and policy
arenas for decades. The debate has been fueled by studies that show that beginning
teachers often fail to implement the lessons from teacher education when they enter their
own classrooms or by investigations that compare student achievement scores of teachers
who have had varying amounts of teacher preparation.
The current policy debate over whether teacher education matters is often fought
in policy and research circles with statistical analyses in which studies look at
correlations or run regressions with teacher certification information and student
achievement data (e.g. Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, Vasquez Heilig, 2005).
Other research endeavors, such as work by Teachers for a New Era, went a step farther
by trying to look at teacher preparation, teacher practices, and student outcomes.
Qualitative work on the question has included a number of studies, often done by teacher
educators, that look at small groups of individual teachers and observe their transition
from teacher education into the early years of teaching (Ensor, 2001; Fox, 1995). These
studies have offered descriptions and explanations for why some of the lessons learned in
teacher education do not become a part of the beginning teacher‟s practice. Studies have
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highlighted factors that might have limited teachers‟ appropriation of the practices
emphasized in teacher education such as the teacher candidates‟ adherence to images of
teaching from their previous schooling experiences referred to as the “apprenticeship of
observation” (Lortie, 1975) or how teacher candidates‟ entering beliefs regarding
teaching or learning can serve as a filter to teacher education experiences (Feimen-
Nemser, 2001; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon, 1998).
Studies have also traced lessons from teacher education to the first years of
teaching to show how teacher education matters. In her case study of 3 graduates from
teacher education and three teachers without formal teacher education, Grossman (1990)
described the differences in the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers with and
without preservice preparation. The case studies provided examples of how teachers with
teacher preparation conceptualized the teaching of English differently from the teachers
without formal preservice training. The teachers also differed in that the teachers with
preparation had a greater capacity to make sense of and reflect on what they were
experiencing in the classroom.
Other studies have also looked at how teachers experience concepts and ideas
from teacher education is related to what they might instantiate in their practice. For
example, in a longitudinal study of 10 beginning teachers, researchers found that the
conceptual tools that had been “buttressed” with practical strategies in their teacher
education “seemed to be the most influential” in the practice of novice teachers
(Grossman, Valencia, Evans, Thompson, Martin, & Place, 2000, p.1). This particular
study also found that teachers were better able to implement tools from teacher education
in their second year of teaching. Another example of a study that focused on how
teachers‟ teacher education experiences influenced their practice is Paula Ensor‟s (2001)
longitudinal study of seven secondary math teachers. Ensor‟s study followed the teachers
through their methods course into their first year of teaching. The major findings of the
study are that the beginning teachers reproduced a small number of discrete tasks and a
“professional argot” or way of talking about mathematics teaching and learning from
their preservice methods course. However, the author suggests that the methods course
did not provide the student teachers with recognition rules or realization rules. Stated
differently, the course did not provide students with the experiences to recognize the
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preferred or “privileged” repertoire of teaching practices and to realize them in teaching
through modeling or trying to create their own tasks for a classroom setting. The
research looking more closely at how teacher education might be related to the practices
of beginning teachers show that perhaps how we conceptualize teacher learning and
whether we look short or long term will have ramifications for the answer to whether
teacher education matters.
Although there has been debate over the merit of teacher education, there has
been less discussion over whether school context matters. Research has consistently
noted the significant impact the school setting has on the practice of teachers. For
example, the importance of “context” on teaching has been documented by scholars
interested in teaching reform. Talbert, McLaughlin, and Rowan (1993) have looked at
the influence of school context effects on teaching for understanding. The contextual
features highlighted by Talbert, McLaughlin, and Rowan included the classroom, the
subject matter, tracking/ teacher assignments, the social class of the community the
teacher works in, the high school department and teacher collegiality, and broader
contexts such as professional networks, and influences from district and state levels often
in the form of centralized curricula or standardized testing. The work by Talbert,
McLaughlin, and Rowan highlights the embedded nature of the multiple contexts
teachers work in and the influence they can have on teachers‟ practice, specifically for
how the need to negotiate multiple contexts might encourage teachers to “stick with
known practices”(p.62). Although the line of research on context on teaching was
focused on experienced teachers, the importance of the multiple embedded school
contexts can be even more influential when one considers that the first years of teaching
not only influence how long teachers will stay in the profession but how they will teach in
the future (Rust,1994 as cited in Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon,1998). Five of the
studies of the first year of teaching reviewed by Wideen. Mayer-Smith, & Moon (1998)
“suggest that beginning teachers actually learn how to teach when they enter the
classroom during their first year” (p. 158). Rust (1994)‟s study of two beginning teachers
(as reported by Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998) found that the new teachers,
overwhelmed by their first year of teaching, reverted to deeper belief systems regarding
and teaching and learning. The literature on beginning teachers and learning to teach
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cites the phrase “praxis shock” or “reality shock” for what occurs as a teacher takes in the
responsibilities of classroom teaching as a reason that teachers do not instantiate the
lessons learned from their teacher education. During this reality shock, “missionary
ideals formed during teacher training” collapse due to the “harsh and rude reality of
everyday classroom life” (Veenman, 1984, p.143). Studies of new teachers have also
highlighted the influence of factors in the context such as teaching assignments (pupils
and classes) and level of autonomy over what to teach (Kagan, 1992). The research has
also noted the stark contrast between the ideals presented in preservice education and the
conceptions of teaching and learning novice teachers encounter in schools (Wideen,
Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). The overwhelming nature of entering into one‟s own
classroom and the often conservative effect of the school help to explain why teaching
often seems to look the same as it always has. Hargreaves and Jacka ((1995) as
summarized in Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon (1998)) believe that teacher education
reform “will continue to be frustrated until there is fundamental change in the in the
culture and contexts of schooling” (p.159). This perspective highlights the fact that if one
wants to see the impact of teacher education on teaching practice, we must work for
greater congruence between teacher education and the schools teachers will enter.
As noted earlier, the notion of the “wash out effect” (Zeichner and Tabachnick,
1981), or discontinuity in beliefs and practices from teacher education, has often pivoted
around the argument that teachers simply revert to earlier notions of teaching gleaned
from their own experiences as students or that teachers are more impacted by the school
in which they begin to teach than their preparation experiences. What this ignores is that
the two issues are not separate. In his report entitled “Educating School Teachers”,
Levine (2006) characterizes the debate over the type of preparation needed to be a
“highly qualified” teacher as the difference of thinking of teaching as a “profession” that
requires “rigorous preparation” or a “craft” in which one learns on the job. Such a
characterization divides teacher development and preparation into two separate arenas,
either before entering the classroom through a teacher education program or learning to
teach while in one‟s own classroom. This dichotomy ignores that learning to teach is a
developmental process beginning in teacher education (or some claim even before) and
lasting through years of classroom teaching.
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In an article entitled From Preparation to Practice: Designing a Continuum to
Strengthen and Sustain Teaching, Feiman-Nemser (2001) suggests a continuum for
teacher development that begins with preservice teaching and lasts into inservice
professional development. Feiman-Nemser notes that developmental models estimate
that learning to teach can take at least seven years or even longer. If we think of learning
to teach as a developmental continuum spreading over many years, researchers would
broaden their lenses to look at the experiences teachers are given in their first years of
teaching and see how they further develop the ideas introduced in teacher education. A
recent study, conducted by the National Research Center on English Learning and
Achievement (CELA), of beginning English/Language Arts teachers from preparation
through their first three years of teaching did exactly this. The reports not only pointed
out how teachers from the same program came to have different conceptions of teaching
writing based on their teacher education experiences but also highlighted the role of
district policies or curriculum in teacher development (Grossman & Thompson, 2004;
Grossman, Thompson, & Valencia, 2001). Such studies provide a more detailed look at
how the initial teaching context can develop and influence a beginning teacher‟s
understanding and practices in the teaching of their subject matter.
Although research endeavors such as the CELA work have added to our
understanding of how the school context is important in teacher development, we still
need to know more about how to create school contexts that better foster development of
the research-based practices such as those encouraged by teacher education. Most of the
case study designs on new teachers generally begin by focusing on the teachers and
tracing the impact of teacher education throughout their beginning years of practice. If
we acknowledge the importance of school context and the importance of alignment, we
should strive to understand how different teaching contexts support the development of
novice teachers. In such a design, we would begin by focusing on the school settings.
For example, would schools with similar conceptions of teaching to the teacher education
program help novice teachers maintain and develop concepts and strategies introduced in
their teacher education program? With the growing emphasis on school and university
partnerships, will we find that teachers that enter into schools that have a strong
relationship with universities and/or have a high concentration of alumni from the teacher
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education program will help maintain and develop the practices encouraged by their
teacher education program? Simply put, would we find that teacher education matters
when it aligns with the school contexts in the way Feiman-Nemser (2001) and
Hargreaves and Jacka (1995) suggest? To document if and how this occurs would help
answer whether teacher education “matters” (novice teachers are able to enact practices
introduced by and encouraged in their preservice training) when it is supported over time
and can expect that the school setting will not contradict messages from the preservice
program.
In the model proposed by Feiman-Nemser (2001), teacher preparation includes
preservice education, induction, and inservice professional development. In such a
model, one would assess if teacher education were successful by looking at development
of teachers as they went through the different phases. The CELA reports looking at the
impact of curriculum materials or the district as a teacher educator (Grossman &
Thompson, 2004; Grossman, et al., 2001) allow us to look at teacher development during
the first two phases. Although the research has given a more in depth look at the role of
particular features, the studies have not presented the findings in a way that allows the
reader to consider the multiple messages sent in the new school settings regarding
teaching and learning. Just as the research on teacher education has highlighted the
importance of coherence in teacher education programs (Levine, 2006), we must seek to
understand the varying conceptions of teaching emphasized by the different and
overlapping induction experiences novice teachers participate in. As the induction
research has generally focused on the features needed for quality induction programs
such as reduced preparations or mentoring, research that looks in depth at the salient
elements of teachers‟ induction experiences would help us in learning how to create
induction experiences that build off of and deepen teachers‟ understandings from
preservice education. The recent push for mandated formal teacher induction programs
through legislation such as SB 2042 which requires that new teachers complete a two
year induction program to earn a professional (clear) teaching credential serves as public
acknowledgment of learning to teach as a long process that requires support. What is not
as clearly understood is how mandated induction programs or the multiple experiences
that are a part of teacher‟s induction to the profession are congruent with the messages
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from teacher education and with the other developmental influences within the school
context such as department or district guidelines or professional development courses.
More detailed study of teachers‟ induction experiences will help ensure that such
formalized measures are implemented in a manner that aligns with the practices
encouraged by teacher education and the school contexts themselves.
In essence, research shows that school context matters. What we need to figure
out is how to garner the power of the school context and the first years of teaching to
prepare high quality teachers that can transform teaching and learning. Essential to this
question is an understanding of the role context plays in teacher learning.
Preview of Study
This dissertation presents the methodology, results, and implications of a
qualitative study examining the influence of school settings on the practices of beginning
teachers. In Chapter 2, I present the conceptual framework for the study and the
principal research questions. Chapter 3 describes the study design and methods used for
data collection and analysis. Chapters 4, 5, 6 provide a detailed description of the 2
school settings in which the study took place and the preparation and practices of 7
beginning teachers who participated in the study. These data chapters serve as evidence
and support for the cross case analysis presented in Chapter 7. The study concludes
with a discussion of implications for theory and practice in Chapter 8.
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CHAPTER 2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Redefining “Context” as “Activity Settings”
Many of the studies cited in the review of learning to teach literature in Chapter 1
used the word “context” to refer to contextual features or working conditions of the
teacher‟s first job such as job assignment, departmental or staff collegiality, or the degree
of autonomy of the teacher over their curriculum. The work by Talbert, McLaughlin, and
Rowan (1993) employ context to refer to “any of the diverse and multiple environments
or conditions that intersect with the work of teachers and teaching” such as the “school,
subject area, department, district, higher education, business alliance, professional
networks, state policies, community demographics” (p.46). The authors defined a context
effect as “the influence of particular context conditions-values, beliefs, norms, policies,
structures, resources, and processes-on teaching and in turn, students‟ educational
outcomes” (p.47). Although research on contextual effects helped to identify factors that
supported or constrained teachers‟ practices in teaching for understanding, the definition
does not focus on the process of teacher learning.
In more recent research on learning to teach, scholars are applying a sociocultural
view of learning which reframes the definition of “context” in terms of “context for
learning.” This expands the definition of context beyond just the initial school setting to
looking at the learning opportunities/experiences presented within an arena. Using such a
definition for context also allows us to then to look across settings in which teachers learn
to teach such as student teaching placements or professional development settings. In a
discussion of new views of knowledge and teacher learning, Putnam and Borko (2000)
discuss the use and implications of a situated model of knowledge in research on teacher
learning. The authors describe the situative perspective briefly and broadly in three
conceptual themes: Cognition is “(a) situated in particular physical and social contexts,
(b) social in nature, and (c) distributed across the individual, other persons, and tools” (p.
4). A model of teacher learning that draws on the situated or distributed cognition posits
that how a person learns something and the situation in which it is learned “becomes a
fundamental part of what is learned” (p.4). A situated, social, and distributed model of
learning places an emphasis on the contexts and people with whom and what a teacher
interacts as they learn to teach. If we see teaching through a situative lens, the
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“disjuncture” between preservice teacher education and the teaching practice of new
teachers is more broadly framed as a learning question and focuses our attention on the
fact that the practices encouraged in teacher education may not have a reinforcing culture
when new teachers enter the workplace (Sykes and Bird, 1992 as cited in Putnam and
Borko, 2000). Thus, the sociocultural framework gives insight into how and why the
school context is so significant in teacher development.1 This study is framed in terms of
concepts from a sociocultural/situative perspective of learning, and more specifically is
based on activity theory.
In the conceptual framework I present here, I draw off the work of activity
theorists such as Michael Cole and Yrjö Engeström and more specifically from the
conceptual frameworks based on activity theory used by educational scholars such as
Pam Grossman and Peter Smagorinsky in looking at how teachers learn to teach. In
activity theory, what educational research has often referred to as context is defined as a
setting. Cook, Smagorinsky, Fry, Konopak, and Moore (2002) define settings “as the
contexts for human development” (p.393). Each setting has a motive or outcome which
specifies what goal should be maximized in the setting. In learning to teach studies,
pivotal settings might include teacher education courses, professional development
workshops, or collaborative planning meetings.
The activity theory framework is particularly useful for looking at the process of
learning to teach as it allows for the fact that an individual moves across many settings
and can participate in embedded settings. During the process of learning to teach,
teachers go through multiple activity settings, some which are embedded within each
other. The principal activity settings can be broken down broadly into teacher education
and the initial teaching position. However, embedded within these settings are other
important settings whose importance will vary by teacher since “settings” are defined by
participants themselves. In teacher education, the different settings would include
teacher education coursework (e.g. educational psychology classes, methods courses
focused on the teaching of particular subject matter, classroom management), field
placement, or meetings with a supervisor from the program. Once teachers enter their
1 A socialization model also highlights the importance of context but seems to leave it out the elements of
agency and variation that are observed in teacher development and the studies that document the practices
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own classrooms, they might participate in other settings such as department meetings,
planning meetings with grade level teams, in-district and outside professional
development meetings, and/or meetings with mentors. These embedded settings, or what
is sometimes referred to as subsettings, are significant in that they may be in tension with
other settings. I will return to the idea of “tensions” later as now I will move to a
description of the model.
In the basic activity setting framework, an activity setting includes a subject, an
object, and mediating artifacts which are signs and tools. Thus in a simple model, a
teacher candidate/new teacher would be the subject whose goal of becoming a competent
teacher would be mediated by the artifacts or tools gleaned from the various facets of
teacher education and/or their initial teaching setting with the motive of becoming a
competent teacher (object).
The basic model depicted above describes an activity setting at an individual level. In a
more complex model that takes into account both individual and group activities (referred
to as a collective activity settings), there are also rules, a community, and a division of
labor (Engeström and Miettinen, 1999). A teacher‟s learning is therefore mediated by the
activity setting in which he or she participates. For instance, a teacher in one setting may
have a very different vision of what the aim of teaching is and the tools reach that goal
than a teacher participating in a different activity setting.
Mediating Artifacts
New Teacher (Subject)
Becoming a Competent Teacher (Object)
Based on model found in Cole & Engeström, 1993
Figure 2.1 Basic Model of Activity Setting
20
Figures 2.2 and 2.3 represent the two main collective activity settings in which
many beginning teachers learn to teach. The first activity setting (see Figure 2.2) is
teacher education. Upon entering the program, teacher candidates come into the long-
standing practices associated with teacher education and become a part of a community
that is constrained by certain norms and rules particular to the local teacher education
program. The motive, or implicit outcome, of the setting of teacher education is to
prepare teacher candidates to become competent teachers. In a coherent program, the
student teachers participate in coursework and field experiences and reach different levels
of appropriation2 of the tools that are encouraged in their teacher preparation programs.
As learning to teach can be thought of as a continuum that moves from teacher
education to the early years of teaching (Feiman-Nemser, 2001), the first teaching job can
be considered the next broad collective activity setting in which teachers are learning to
teach (See Figure 2.3). Although there are multiple goals in the initial teaching job such
as an emphasis on student learning, for the purposes of this study, the primary object
2 Grossman et al. (1999) define appropriation as the process through which the teacher candidates adopt the
tools for use in the school or teacher education program and internalize the ways of thinking associated
with the practices that are encouraged in the setting.
Tools (Conceptual, Practical)
Rules of Community
Division of Labor (Coursework, Supervisory, Cooperating Teachers)
Community
Object: Preparing to be a competent teacher
Subject: Teacher Candidate
Figure 2.2 Activity Setting: Teacher Education
Based on model found in Cole & Engeström, 1993
21
considered is the further development of teaching practices. As noted earlier, the school
setting also contains multiple embedded settings. These can include the district, subject
specific departments, or professional development settings that are both generic and
subject specific. Given the focal goal/object under consideration, this study will focus on
the embedded settings in which the primary object is teacher learning. The school itself,
and each of the embedded settings in the initial school setting, has its own community
with its own norms and rules and tools for instruction. Each of these features as well as
the tools and division of labor will differ by school site and might vary by each embedded
setting. For example, a content specific professional development may be composed of
different participants and privilege different tools for teaching than the subject specific
department at the school.
+
The Role of Tools
In activity theory, the subject‟s goal or motive is mediated by tools. In Grossman,
Smagorinsky, and Valencia (1999), the authors define and describe two types of tools
teachers use to guide and realize their practice. The authors define conceptual tools as
“principles, frameworks, and ideas about teaching, learning…that teachers use as
heuristics to guide decisions about teaching and learning” (p.11). The examples of
Tools (Conceptual, Practical)
Rules of Community
Division of Labor (District, Admininstration, Departments, Induction mentor, Professional Development)
Community
Development of teacher practice
New Teachers
Figure 2.3 Activity Setting: Initial Teaching Job
Based on model found in Cole & Engeström, 1993
22
conceptual tools provided by the authors vary from broad theories such as constructivism
to theoretical principles such as instructional scaffolding. In my own work as a teacher
educator, we emphasized the conceptual tool of alignment or backwards design in
curriculum planning. In contrast to conceptual tools, practical tools are defined as
“practices, strategies, and resources” that have “more local and immediate utility” such as
journal writing or curriculum materials (p.12). It is important to note that in using an
activity theory framework, the appropriation of both types of tools is dependent on the
subject‟s active role in the practices (p.13). In the examples above, I highlighted tools
used by teachers for instruction. When thinking in terms of settings focused on teacher
learning, we must consider how practical and conceptual tools can also mediate teacher
learning.
Figures 2.2 and 2.3 highlight the importance of tools as mediating factors in
teacher learning. Tools which mediate teacher learning in settings with the goal of
preparing teachers can include artifacts of teaching practice such as model unit plans,
case studies documenting dilemmas of practice, or examples of student work. Given that
the goal of both teacher education and school settings is ultimately concerned with
student learning, tools in teacher education and school settings can also include tools for
instruction such as curricular materials, handouts, or strategies that can be used in a
classroom. In professional preparation, the tools for preparation (e.g. artifacts from
teacher education) would often overlap with tools used in the practice (artifacts to be used
in the classroom) itself. As such, tools used in preparation settings not only mediate
teacher learning but the appropriation of privileged tools for instruction are also the goal
of the setting.
Activity theorists speak specifically about practical tools that move across
settings. These are known as boundary objects. The practical tools provided in various
settings such as lesson plans or handouts for students are examples of practical tools that
teachers might appropriate and carry across settings.
Redefining “Learning” and “Practice” as Tool Appropriation Given the emphasis in activity theory on the appropriation of tools and the
purposes of this study, we can redefine teacher “learning” as an appropriation of practical
and conceptual tools. The depth of learning can then be characterized by the level of
23
appropriation of the tool. Grossman, et al. (1999) outline five degrees of tool
appropriation: lack of appropriation, appropriating a label, appropriating surface features,
appropriating conceptual underpinnings, and achieving mastery. How deeply a teacher
appropriates practical and conceptual tools can depend on a number of factors. Among
these factors that influence appropriation, the writers include the following: the social
context of learning in which tools were introduced and used (How were the tools
introduced to them in the setting? Did the teachers have a chance to see the tool in action
or were they presented with the conceptual underpinnings?); the individual characteristics
of the learner such as their apprenticeship of observation (how were they taught?) and
their personal goals and expectations for teaching (Is it about the students and/or the
subject?); and their knowledge and beliefs about the content they teach.
A related point to note is that according to this framework, what we commonly
refer to as teaching practice can be described in terms of the conceptual and practical
tools used by teachers.
Tensions Within and Across Activity Settings
In using an activity theory model, it is also important to consider that there are a
number of overlapping activity settings and motives that could be at tension for the
novice teacher. For example, during teacher education the student teacher might be
unable to enact the practices modeled in her teacher education program due to the
constraints in her field placement. Tensions could also between other elements of the
setting such as tools. For example the tools privileged in professional development for
student learning might support different goals than those supported by the school in
which a there is a focus on increasing test scores on a particular measure. In his
discussion of expansive learning (2001), Engeström describes tension, or what he refers
to as “contradiction,” as the driving force of change in activity. Over time, the
contradictions such as the one described here might result in a transformation of the
activity.
Learning to Teach Across Activity Settings
The use of activity theory allows analysis of the types of tools, the individual and
social context of learning around the tools, levels of appropriation, and possible tensions
within and between activity settings and how that influences tool appropriation. These
24
features allow researchers to look both across and within settings in which teachers learn
to teach to better understand the practices observed in their first years of teaching. The
ability to look across settings also raises the question of how tools travel across settings.
Figure 2.4 highlights the activity settings of interest to researchers interested in
looking at the process of learning to teach and particularly to those interested in subject
specific teaching. The first setting, labeled “apprenticeship of observation,” refers to
Lortie‟s (1975) term that refers to the images and beliefs teachers have regarding
teaching from prior schooling experiences. Also, this is not a setting per say, this first
triangle refers to the multiple classrooms and experiences that provide tools and norms
for teaching. A teacher enters teacher education replete with images from his or her own
apprenticeship of observation. For secondary teachers, this entering conception of
teaching may be based on their subject-specific courses in high school or college.
In a traditional teacher education program requiring both subject specific
coursework and field placement, a beginning teacher is introduced to more subject
specific tools both in a methods course and through student teaching in a classroom.
Through these experiences, teachers are generally introduced to practical and conceptual
tools through a variety of tools for teaching learning. This can include course readings,
modeling from the methods course instructor, or completing assignments that ask
teachers to enact practices for domains of teaching such as lesson planning. Teachers
then enter classrooms nested in departments, schools, or districts that have their own
norms and preferred tools.
25
Given Feiman-Nemser‟s description of a continuum across the settings, one
would imagine that the closer aligned the settings, the higher the probability of
appropriation/learning. Unfortunately, as has been noted in the review of literature
presented in Chapter 1, the story is often not so simple and there is a need for further
investigation of teacher learning to better understand the process of learning to teach as
teachers move across settings. It is this problem that drives this study.
Research Questions
The study described in this dissertation is based on the activity theory framework
outlined here and is guided by the questions below:
1. What are the emergent practices of beginning teachers?
2. What practices are privileged in the settings where teachers learn to teach?
3. What factors influence appropriation or the degree of appropriation of conceptual
and practical tools?
4. How is the degree of appropriation of practices related to the degree of
congruence between settings?
Embedded Settings: Methods
course
Student teaching
Embedded Settings:
District, School, Dept,
Professional development,
BTSA, Classroom
Embedded Settings:
Content Prep High School
and college
Apprenticeship of
ObservationSubject specific
teacher education
Initial school context
Figure 2.4 - Learning to Teach:
Development of Subject Specific Tools for Figure 2.4 Learning to Teach
Across Activity Settings
Development of Subject Specific Tools
26
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY
The study explores the influence of school settings on the practice of beginning
teachers by considering the factors that influence the appropriation of tools by beginning
teachers as they move across settings in which they learn to teach. In this chapter I
outline the study design and methods used to investigate this question from a
sociocultural lens and specifically an activity theory framework. The chapter includes a
discussion of the study design, data collection procedures, data analysis process, and the
limitations of the study.
Study Design
Given the nature of the research questions and the conceptual framework outlined in
Chapter 2, the study design needed to take into account the multiple activity settings
teachers participate in as they learn to teach and allow a direct comparison of teachers
from the same teacher education program in different school settings. Given that the
study was based on a sociocultural framework, and specifically on activity theory, the
study design needed to allow the researcher to learn about the settings from the subjects
themselves and provide the researcher with knowledge about the subjects (participants),
the goals of the settings, the tools that the community uses, the rules and norms of the
group, and the cultural historical background of the community.
As such, I designed a comparative embedded case study of the teacher education
and induction experiences of beginning teachers in two school sites. The case study
design allowed for the investigation of a “contemporary phenomenon within its real-life
context” which was at the heart of the study (Yin, 2003). The original design of the study
was to follow graduates from the same program into two contrasting school sites. As
such, the first step would be to choose a focal teacher education program. After the
choice of a focal program, the school sites would be the principal sampling decision. To
better understand the relationship between tensions between activity settings, the original
design was to include a school site that was considered a reinforcing site for the
privileged tools of the focal teacher education program and another site that was
considered non-reinforcing. The choice of sites would also be based on the availability
of recent graduates from a focal teacher education program in one subject area
department.
27
The two school sites were to be comparable as far as size and student demographic
information and would vary primarily on the reinforcing or non-reinforcing “culture” of
the subject department as compared to the practices privileged by the focal teacher
education program. The two sites would be identified by the methods course instructor in
the focal teacher education program (FTEP) as one site that reinforces the practices of the
course/program and another site that historically has not been as consistent or congruent
in keeping with the practices privileged by FTEP. The majority of the study participants
would come from the focal teacher education program. This would allow a look at the
practices of graduates from the same program in two different school sites. The
remaining participants at each site would be new teachers from different teacher
education programs. The inclusion of graduates from another program would allow a
cross case comparison of how the settings influence teachers from different teacher
preparation backgrounds. This comparison design would allow a parsing out of which
practices were related to a teacher education program and which features of practice may
be more connected to settings and influences from the school site. Having more than one
teacher at a school from both the focal and non-focal programs would also allow the use
of replication to address the rival hypothesis that differences in appropriation between
school settings were due to individual differences or preferences.
In order to minimize variability and maximize my ability to look in depth at the
different activity settings, I looked at teachers in the same content area and in this case
English-Language Arts. In order to further focus the classroom observations, I chose to
focus observations and analysis on comparable courses such as the survey courses
traditionally offered to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors at the high school level. The
decision to focus on a content area also allowed me to focus my data collection and
analysis on the settings in teacher education and the initial teaching placement whose
goals or “objects” were to prepare or develop teacher practice around the teaching of
English Language Arts. In order to further minimize variability and increase
comparability, the participants were to be all their in their first and second years of
teaching which are commonly included as the years of experience referred to as
induction. All participants would also be graduates of a university-based teacher
credentialing program so as to minimize variation in teacher preparation.
28
Focal Program Selection
As I was trying to focus most on the school settings, I had to be sure to address
the rival hypotheses that a lack of appropriation was due to a weak teacher education
intervention or lack of participant content knowledge. Therefore, the focal teacher
education program I selected was a program with a strong focus on subject specific
pedagogy. The program offered a three quarter course dedicated to curriculum and
instruction in the teaching of English-Language Arts in which students were introduced
to and given opportunities to enact subject specific conceptual and practical tools.
Additionally, this program‟s candidates generally had a solid academic preparation from
strong undergraduate institutions.
Site Selection
The choice of the Jennings University Teacher Education Program as the focal
program guided my choice of school sites. As proposed above, possible school sites were
identified by the principal English methods course instructor at Jennings. After
generating a list of “reinforcing” and “non-reinforcing” sites, I narrowed down the school
selection by the number of recent Jennings graduates at each school and the availability
of other new teachers from different programs at the school site. This process led to the
selection of Highland and Clark High School as the two school sites.
As proposed, I selected the two school sites, Clark High School and Highland High
School, based on the methods course instructor‟s recommendations for a reinforcing and
non-reinforcing site. However, upon entering the two school sites, it was quickly
apparent that Highland High School, which was identified as non-reinforcing site,
privileged some of the same practices privileged at the Jennings Teacher Education
Program but was not as coherent or consistent in the reinforcement of tools privileged in
the Jennings methods course as Clark High School. As such, the two sites were really a
more (Clark) and less reinforcing (Highland) site.
Table 3.1 provides basic demographic information about the school site. A more
detailed description and discussion of the tools privileged for English-Language Arts
instruction will be provided in Chapter 4.
29
Table 3.1: Descriptive Statistics3 for School Sites
Percent of student
population
Clark
API4 -734
Highland
API – 709
American Indian .3 .5
Asian 22.9 17.6
Pacific Islander 1.5 1.0
Filipino 7.2 12.6
Hispanic or Latino 30.2 36.6
African American 4.5 4.7
White (Not
Hispanic)
31.2 26.9
Multiple or No
Response
2.1 0.1
On free or reduced
lunch
33 28
English Learners 19 23
Reclassified Fluent
English Proficient
16 16
Total population 1,879 1,878
http://www.cde.ca.gov/
The two schools, located in the same county, were large comprehensive schools
with student populations of about 1,880 students each and a relatively similar
demographic make-up. Although both Clark and Highland had similar numbers (low to
mid-700s) on their Academic Performance Index, one of the important distinctions
between Clark and Highland, not apparent in the chart above, was the difference between
student growth on standardized tests/assessments. In contrast to Clark which met
expected growth targets on state accountability measures, Highland High School was
under threat of going under Program Improvement status due to not meeting the growth
standards for overall growth and growth of students in particular (minority) subgroups.
The pedagogical implications of this difference are discussed in Chapter 4.
Participant Selection, Recruitment, and Description
After identifying the two school sites which were comparable as far as size and
student demographics, I approached the two school principals for permission to conduct
the study at their school sites. Upon receiving written principal consent, I contacted all
3 Chart reports statistics from the 2006-2007 school year. 4 A school‟s Academic Performance Index or API, is a score between 200 and 1,000 that indicates how
well students in a school performed on the previous spring‟s tests. The number includes a weighting
system that takes into account the various tests taken by pupils at the schools.
30
eight of the new English teachers (in their first and second year of teaching) at the two
school sites. Teachers were first contacted via an e-mail providing a written description
of the study and required level of involvement. The e-mail provided an opportunity for a
scheduled in-person meeting to hear more about the study. Seven of the eight teachers
responded. During the in-person meetings, I provided a printed and oral description of
the study and answered teacher questions. After the in-person meetings, all seven of the
teachers agreed to participate in the study and signed consent forms.
Of the 7 participating teachers, 4 were Jennings graduates that were distributed
evenly across the two schools. The remaining 3 participants completed their methods
course at Abbott State College and Bennett State University, with the two Abbott alumni
at Highland High School and the Bennett graduate at Clark High School. Table 3.2 (See
page 31) provides brief background information on the 7 participants. The first letter of
the teacher‟s first name corresponds with the first letter of the program they attended and
the first letter of their last name corresponds with the name of the school site. All 7
teachers held a Bachelors degree in English or a variation such as Comparative Literature
from a four-year university. Abby differs from the remaining participants in that she
entered Highland High School as the teacher of record on an emergency credential when
she should have been completing her long term placement. As such, she completed her
methods course while already in her school setting. Although the inclusion of a non-
traditional preparation route5 was not in the initial design, Abby‟s case allowed fruitful
and relevant comparisons given the research questions and current policy questions
around teacher preparation. A more detailed description of the background, preparation,
and practices of the teachers are provided in Chapters 5 and 6.
The distribution of the teachers by school and program allowed for the types of within
program and within school comparisons outlined in the study design. Although initially
the goal was to have a balance of first and second year teachers across school sites for a
cross-sectional design, the fact that the majority of the teachers were in their second full
5 Abby differs from participants in many alternative certification routes in that she was in a traditional
teacher education path until there was an emergency opening at Highland at the time of her long term
student teaching placement. As such, she completed many teacher education courses and a short term
placement prior to entering the classroom as the teacher of record. Her experience was similar to a teacher
in an intern program where teachers complete coursework but enter the classroom as the teacher of record
with a reduced load in lieu of student teaching and still receive some sort of coaching or support.
31
year of teaching actually strengthened the design. First of all, the analysis of practice of
second year teachers addresses the alternate hypothesis that differences or lack of
evidence of appropriation were due to praxis shock (Veenman, 1984). In addition, in
their study of the practices of beginning English teachers, Grossman et al. (2000) found
that teachers may be able to draw more on what they were exposed to in their teacher
education program in their second year of teaching. As such, the second year of teaching
may be a better indicator of the appropriation of tools from a teacher education program.
Table 3.2: Participants by Site
Clark High School Highland High School
Teacher Teacher
Preparation
Program
Years of
Experience
Teacher Teacher
Preparation
Program
Years of
Experience
Jade
Carter
Jennings 2 Jackie
Ha
Jennings 1
Janice
Connelly
Jennings 2 Joanna
Harper
Jennings 2
Barbara
Casper
Bennett
State
2
1st year at
site
Abby
Halston
Abbott State
College
Entered with
Emergency
Credential
2
Shading indicates Jennings graduates Andrea
Haggart
Abbott State
College
2.5
Data Collection
The majority of the data collection for the study was conducted during the 2007-
2008 academic school year. A few follow up interviews were conducted during the
2008-2009 school year. As the study was organized by the different activity settings in
which teachers participated, Table 3.4 (See end of chapter) lists the data sources and the
types of sources that were collected by setting. As noted in the chart, data sources
included semi-structured interviews, fieldnotes of classroom observations, observations
of presentations and meetings, and documents and artifacts from practice. The chart
shows the multiple sources of data available by setting and in particular the triangulation
of data possible for the settings of the methods courses and school settings.
32
Interviews
I conducted semi-structured interviews with the lead methods course instructors,
department heads, and mentor teachers in each program and school setting. I conducted a
series of three to four interviews (See Appendix A for protocols) with each of the seven
teachers to learn about their prior experience with the subject area, their supports in the
school setting, a teacher education card sort, and a final card sort on professional learning
opportunities during the study. The card sorts were stimulated recall tasks that included
cards with the titles of courses from teacher education or professional development
opportunities. Teachers were asked to sort the cords and explain their categorizations. In
addition to these interviews on the settings in which they learned/were learning to teach, I
also conducted pre and post observation interviews with the seven teacher candidates.
The pre-observation interviews were conducted with by phone prior to the observation or
a few minutes before the class. Post-observation interviews, when conducted, were
conducted shortly after the class observed either in person or by phone. Although
attempts were made to conduct pre- and post-observation interviews for each classroom
observation, the teachers‟ schedule often constrained the ability to conduct the interviews
in a timely manner. All interviews listed in Table 3.4 (See page 36) were digitally
recorded with the permission of the participants. In addition to the digital recordings, I
also took detailed notes during the interviews. The notes provided documentation of the
interview in case of any technical recording problems but also allowed the quick review
of notes and asking of clarifying and probing questions during the interview. To allow
for comparability of data, I began interviews with common questions, asking follow up
questions as needed. The notes and digital recording were then reviewed and recordings
selectively transcribed.
Fieldnotes/Observations
In addition to interviews, data on the different learning settings also included
observations of mentor meetings at Clark High School, observation of methods course
sessions at Jennings and Abbott during the year of the study, and of professional
development opportunities such as a Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA)
trainings at Highland High School. For each of these settings, I took detailed notes on
what was said, tools presented, and manner of presentation. Although there were not
33
consistent amounts of data across each of the settings, the data from artifacts and teacher
interviews helped triangulate the data and create a more complete picture of the settings
teachers participated in.
I also created detailed field notes from 57 classroom observations of teacher
practice spanning 50-90 minutes each. Each teacher was observed between six and ten
times across the span of the year. This included observations spanning three-four units
per teacher. In trying to capture the whole of a unit, I tried to schedule observations at
the beginning, middle, and end of a unit but was constrained in accomplishing this by the
need to conduct multiple observations at a school on the same day. In order to capture a
better sampling of teacher practice, I included observations during at least three
instructional units presented at different points in the academic year. For each
observation, I took detailed field notes in which I created an agenda with the outline for
the day‟s lesson, then filling in each section with descriptions of teacher practice and
teacher and student interactions. At the beginning of the study, I digitally recorded
teachers while they were teaching to better capture the lesson. I ceased recording lessons
shortly into the year as it was determined that the level of detail surpassed what was
needed for the purposes of the study. As the observational data for a unit often included
one to two consecutive days of instruction rather than the arc of instruction I had hoped to
capture, I supplemented observational with interview data regarding goals and tools
enacted in the unit. Table 3.3 (See page 35) lists the number of observations by teacher
and the texts/units the observations targeted. Review of the chart reveals the similarity
between the units/texts taught across teachers and schools. This similarity allowed for a
cross-case comparison of tools used for units on the same text. For example, five of the
seven teachers were observed during units based on Sandra Cisneros‟ House on Mango
Street.
Documents/Artifacts
During the year of the study, I also collected documents for the various settings
for learning to teach included in the study. This included course syllabi from all 3
programs, course assignments and lesson plans from the Jennings course, district
materials for new teachers at Clark High School, and professional development materials
from the Literacy Workshop. In addition to materials from the learning settings, I also
34
collected artifacts from the practice of the 7 teachers. I collected instructional materials
used by teachers during the classroom observations. When possible I also collected
materials that were intentionally provided to new teachers at the school setting and the
materials teachers had access to through the department and district. This included
materials such as district curriculum guides and common materials available in resources
such as departmental binders.
35
36
Table 3.4: Data Sources by Setting Setting Embedded
Settings
Interviews Fieldnotes/
Observations
Documents/
Artifacts Apprentice-
ship of
Observation
Prior
experiences with
subject matter
Interview with teacher Questions focused on
previous coursework
and/or experiences with
subject matter
(Appendix A:
Apprenticeship of
Observation Interview
Guided by Courses
Taken)
Teacher
Education
Methods Course Interviews with teacher Protocol was similar to
Grossman (1990).
Interview was focused
on take-aways and
formative experiences in
teacher education with
relation to the teaching
of English/Language
Arts
(Appendix A: Interview
Guided by Courses
Taken)
Interviews with
methods course
instructors
Interviews focused on
what they wanted
students to know about
the teaching of the
subject matter and
course assignments/tasks
(Appendix B: Protocol
for Methods Course
Instructors)
Program description
and course listing
Course descriptions,
Course syllabi
Course assignments
Supervisory Interview with teacher
Asked teacher about
goal of setting, any
attributions of tools, and
take-aways
Student
Teaching/ Field
Placement
Interview with
cooperating teacher
and/or teacher
Emphasis was on tools
used for instruction,
available supports for
teacher learning, and
major take-aways
37
Setting Embedded
Settings
Interviews Fieldnotes/
Observations
Documents/
Artifacts
Initial
Teaching
Context
District Interview with
department head
Emphasis on
district/subject specific
goals and tools,
supports for new
teachers
(Appendix B: Protocol
for Department Heads)
Interview with teacher
Emphasis on
district/subject specific
goals and tools,
supports for new
teachers
District curricular
materials
Department Interview with
department head Asked about their role in
the department, tools
privileged in department,
supports for new
teachers
(Appendix B: Protocol
for Department Heads)
Interview with teacher
Emphasis on supports
for new teachers,
privileged tools for
instruction, norms,
professional
development
opportunities
Observations of faculty
meetings, department
meetings
Course descriptions
Intructional/
Curricular materials
Lesson plans,
calendars, assignment
BTSA/Induction
Support
Interview with mentor
teacher (s)
Asked about their role,
support provided, tools
shared, observations
about teachers‟ practice
(Appendix B: Protocol
for Mentors)
Observations of
mentor meetings and
BTSA seminars
Professional
Development
Interview with teacher
Asked about the goals,
methods, and take-aways
(Appendix A: Final Card
Sort)
Observations of
professional
development
opportunities
Field notes taken during
the observation paying
close attention to
elements of instruction
such as activities, tasks,
grouping , facilitation of
discussion, etc, Attn to:
conceptual and
pedagogical tools.
Motive of subsettings,
opportunities for
participating in practices
Documents from
professional
development
opportunities
38
Initial
Teaching
Context
(Cont.)
Classroom
(Current
Practice)
Pre-post observation
interviews over the
course of the year with
the teacher Interviews focused on
description/objective of
current unit, objective
for lesson, how and why
these objectives were
chosen, what resources
teacher used to develop
the materials, to what
experiences did they
attribute the ideas and
activities they used,
reflection on
instruction/unit/student
learning
(Appendix A: Pre-
Observation and Post-
Observation Interviews)
Lesson observations
spanning multiple units
over the course of the
year
Observations captured
teaching during 3-4
units. Observations
were spaced across the
school year to try and
capture teacher
development. Field
notes were taken during
the observation paying
close attention elements
of instruction such
activities, tasks,
grouping , facilitation of
discussion, etc, Attn to:
conceptual and practical
tools and describing tool
appropriation
Course descriptions
Intructional/
Curricular materials
Lesson plans, calendars,
assignment descriptions,
handouts
39
Data Analysis
The process of data analysis began with the fleshing out of field notes following
interviews and classroom observations. Short analytic memos were created at the end of
the documents in which I noted emergent patterns across teachers, schools, and programs.
The analysis process continued with the organization of the data by program, school, and
teacher in the Atlas.ti coding software. The documents were loaded into “document
families” by teacher that could then be combined into “superfamilies” to look for patterns
by school or program.
The creation of codes and coding of data was an iterative process. First, I created
an initial list of codes based on the traditional areas of teaching for English-Language
Arts such as reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary. I then consulted with a methods
course instructor and content area expert for refinement of these codes. In addition to
area specific codes, I also included common tasks in teaching such as assessment and
planning. For the purposes of the study, I combined the areas of English Language Arts
instruction and the more generic tasks for teaching under the umbrella term “domains.” I
used the one term “domains” to describe both the skills for Language Arts and skills for
teaching due to the fact that both the subject specific areas and more generic instructional
tasks are addressed in settings for teacher learning and in teacher practice. As the study
progressed, I included additional codes for areas that were emphasized in specific
settings. For example, I included literary discussion as it was the focus of multiple class
sessions and assignments in the Jennings methods course. Another example of data-
informed codes were codes for isolated and contextualized vocabulary instruction. This
specific addition was due to the emphasis on vocabulary instruction at Highland High
School. The final list of codes included broader conceptual tools such as “teaching
grammar/vocab in context” to specific practical tools observed across settings such as
Silent Sustained Reading. Although there was variance in grain size of tools across the
domains, the codes allowed me to capture important distinctions between schools,
programs, and teachers. Most of the domain codes are represented in the charts of
teacher practices (See Table 6.3). In addition to codes for practical and conceptual tools,
I also coded how tools were presented in teacher learning settings (i.e. explicitly
40
modeled, presented via course readings) to see what features might support tool
appropriation.
The analysis of data moved in stages. First, I used Atlas.ti to code interview and
field note data regarding practice and preparation to teach, moving through the data one
teacher at a time. Then, I moved into a stage of analysis in which I concentrated on
patterns of teacher practice. I used the code reports from ATLAS.ti to identify the
number of times codes appeared and then looked for qualitative differences/ distinctions
between the implementation of tools within the domains. This data helped to create
charts in which I listed evidence of practice by teacher, domain, and school. The charts
were then used to write analytic memos. I started the coding and memo writing process
with the teachers from Abbott and Bennett on whom I had less data and then moved to
the Jennings teachers so as not to work from a normative view of practice based on the
focal program. Once I had detailed accounts of practice by teacher, I wrote memos on
the practice of teachers by school. Then I wrote memos on the similarities and
differences within teachers at the same school, comparing their practices by teacher
education program.
After identifying patterns of practice, I then explored the preparation of each
individual teacher. I began with analytic memos on each teacher, noting the preparation
experienced across settings and instructional domains. Next, I compared preparation
experiences to current practice to highlight possible relationships between the two. This
yielded a case write-up of each teacher concluding with a chart in which I identified
where tools had been presented across the activity settings in which teachers learned to
teach and their current setting and practice. Table 7.3 of Jade‟s preparation and practice
is an example of this analytic work. The last level of analysis was a cross case analysis in
which I looked across each of the analytic memos by teacher to identify patterns in
appropriation across teachers and settings. This analysis focused on identifying
influential settings, features common to those settings, and patterns regarding
reinforcement across settings. I provide a list of the research questions and analysis
questions that guided the analysis process in Table 3.5. The results of this analysis
process are reported in Chapters 4-7 and draw on the variety of the data sources collected.
41
Table 3.5 Data Analysis Questions and Data Sources Research Questions Analysis Questions Sources of Data
What are the emergent
practices of beginning teachers?
What pedagogical and conceptual
tools are teachers using for the
teaching of English?
What are the emergent practices
of beginning teachers? How do
the practices for teaching ELA
compare to teachers from the
same teacher education program?
To teachers from different
programs? To teachers in
different schools?
Fieldnotes and audio recordings
from classroom observations and
interviews
Artifacts from teacher practice
What practices are privileged in
the settings in which teachers learn
to teach?
What pedagogical and conceptual
tools are privileged in each setting?
How are teachers introduced to these
tools? (face, transparency, explicit,
implicit, opportunity for practice)
Interview data from teachers,
methods instructors, supervisors,
CTs, mentors, department chairs,
district curriculum personnel
Artifacts from methods course,
teacher education program (e.g.
unit plans), professional
development, curriculum, teacher
practice
Fieldnotes from observations of
methods course, mentor
meetings, professional
development meetings
What factors influence the
practices teachers appropriate
or the degree of appropriation?
What level of appropriation do
teachers demonstrate?
(lack of appropriation appropriating a
label, appropriating surface features,
appropriating conceptual
underpinnings, achieving mastery),
How might personal
background/features be related to
appropriation?
What types of experiences in the
multiple settings correlate with
different degrees of tool
appropriation?
What is the degree of alignment
between different activity settings
beginning teachers participate in
as they are learning to teach?
Are there any tensions between the
goals/outcomes of the different
settings?
How is degree of appropriation
related to the degree of
congruence between settings?
Artifacts from teacher practice,
department curricula
Interview data from teachers,
mentors, department chairs, etc.
42
Limitations of the Study
Although the study design allowed for interesting comparisons that can inform
theoretical discussions, the small number of participants and settings and the case study
design limits the generalizability of the findings. Generalizability is also limited by the
fact that the teachers and schools were not chosen randomly. Thus the design does not
allow for any causal claims and a different sample of teachers (e.g. from different
programs or school types) might have yielded different findings.
An additional limitation of the design is the retrospective nature of the interview
data from teachers on their preparation experiences. Given the interpretive nature of
human memory, the study would have would have been improved through the inclusion
of observations of the actual settings in which the teachers participated as they were
moving through preparation into practice. In addition, prior research has noted the
“unacknowledged knowledge growth” of teachers to their teacher education coursework
(Grossman & Richert, 1988). As such, I triangulated the teacher interview data on
preparation with interview data from methods course instructors and course documents.
In addition, when possible, I conducted observations of the methods course. As the
research questions were focused on the influence of school context, it would have been
difficult to do a longitudinal study of teachers starting with preparation not knowing
where teachers would start their careers after completing the credential.
In terms of reliability of the study, I was both the data collection instrument and
the researcher. As such my subjectivity entered both at the field noting process and the
coding process. As such my personal experiences, including my background in teacher
education and stance on the importance of subject specificity in teacher preparation, are
lenses that influenced how I collected and interpreted the data. The coding scheme and
emphasis on description of teacher‟s tool use in the classroom were efforts to minimize
the influence of subjectivity.
In addition, my relationship with the two schools and the focal teacher education
program in the study (Jennings) provided me with greater access and knowledge of these
settings and in particular to the Jennings teachers. This led to an asymmetry in the data.
I tried to address the asymmetry in the data, particularly across the three teacher
education programs, through more in-depth interviews with Abbott and Bennett
43
instructors and graduates and by conducting observations of the current methods course
when possible. This relationship with Jennings may also have influenced the willingness
of Jennings teachers to share their classrooms and experiences with me. Knowledge of
my affiliation with the university and the program might have influenced teachers‟
interview data or classroom observations. I tried to address this possibility through the
triangulation of data and the scheduling observations with little advance warning to
emphasize that I just wanted to observe what teachers would normally do.
An additional limitation related to sampling was that the programs and schools in
the sample were not randomly selected or necessarily representative of the programs and
schools in the United States. The Jennings program in particular is highly selective and
unique in the 3 quarter methods course design. In addition, both Highland and Clark are
large suburban schools with more resources for hiring and close relationships to the
teacher education program at Jennings. As the study was designed around where Jennings
graduates went to work, it must be noted that a sampling of graduates from more
representative programs and/or schools (including schools that are under resourced or
working under different constraints) might have yielded different results.
As the sole researcher, time was a constraint for data collection and analysis.
Time constrained the ability to do consistent observations of activity settings such as
professional development or co-planning meetings. Data from teacher interviews and
documents helped fill in noticeable gaps. Time also constrained my ability to return and
flesh out fieldnotes and notes on the day of observations and interviews. For areas for
which I wish I had captured a specific detail, I was able to refer to digital recordings
and/or accompanying documents.
Some of the limitations described above are due to the nature of case study
research. I tried to directly address other methodological issues when possible through
measures such as the triangulation of data.
44
CHAPTER 4 CLARK AND HIGHLAND HIGH SCHOOLS
In this chapter, I provide a description and analysis of Clark and Highland High
Schools as settings for learning to teach English-Language Arts. The two schools, both
large comprehensive high schools located within miles of one another, were comparable
in many ways. As noted in the previous chapter, Clark and Highland served
approximately the same number of students and had similar student demographics. Both
schools were organized into subject specific departments and offered similar English
courses in which students worked with common high school texts such as Romeo and
Juliet or The Crucible. Although similar on many surface level features, the Clark and
Highland English departments varied in their approach to the teaching of English-
Language Arts and their departmental norms for supporting new teachers. In general,
Clark High School provided new teachers with a coherent and explicit approach to
teaching encapsulated in the department‟s curricular materials and supported by norms of
collaboration. This was in strong contrast to the disjointed and intentionally open
approach to English-Language Arts instruction that characterized the Highland English
department and the practices of those in the department.
In the sections that follow, I give a description of each school highlighting
important features of each department focusing mostly on privileged conceptual and
practical tools for English-Language Arts instruction. I conclude with an analysis of the
features of the two schools that foster or hinder tool appropriation.
Clark High School
Clark High School was described by the lead methods course instructor as a
reinforcing setting for the practices privileged by Jennings University. Although the
school was not a professional development school, the methods course instructors had a
close relationship with the English department at Clark High School. Jennings often
placed student teachers with cooperating teachers in the Clark English department. The
student teachers from Jennings were often hired into the school the following year if there
was an opening.
45
At the time of the study, Susan Olanski had been at the school for 22 years and
had been the department head for many years. When asked about her vision of good
English-Language Arts instruction, Susan replied as follows:
It‟s [English] performed. It‟s got an audience. It‟s got a purpose. It‟s not on a
sheet of paper with numbers necessarily. It‟s that you are producing something.
You‟re putting the play on its feet…It‟s also being able to command a room,
being able to articulate what you‟re thinking, being able to edit your own work
when you‟re done, being able to find books to read that you love…That [students]
have critical sense –that they speak up for themselves, that they are aware of
when they are being fooled and they do it by looking at a lot of different media
and that they do it by being able to create critical response that suits the medium,
that they appreciate art… (Interview, 5/08/08)
When prompted to describe what this kind of teaching looks like, Susan responded:
Modeling, thinking out loud, [students] get to witness critical sense,
written models, visual models, art, responses to art. So if you read Kafka‟s
The Metamorphosis, then you do something in another medium. You
compose something or you write something. Graphic responses help kids
remember what it is they‟re analyzing. Using rubrics so that they know
what a good thing – the ingredients in a good performance or good essay
are, what the ingredients are… (Interview, 5/08/08)
In Susan‟s response we see an emphasis on the use of models, explicit instruction
through tools such as a think-aloud and rubrics, and the importance of art in the English
classroom as both a medium of expression and a medium worth responding to. In
general, the practices privileged by Susan aligned with the practical and conceptual tools
highlighted at Clark High School. Susan exerted strong instructional leadership through
her creation of course materials, provision of professional development opportunities that
supported the vision of teaching described above, and most notably her mentoring of new
teachers. Susan often served as a cooperating teacher for Jennings student teachers. As
such, she often modeled many of the privileged tools for student teachers who were then
hired into the school. Of importance to the study, Susan served as the cooperating teacher
for Jade Carter. Susan was also the cooperating teacher for Janice Connelly‟s
cooperating teacher (CT), Jessica. In an interview, Janice noted that her CT, Jessica,
closely followed the same lesson plans as Susan, creating a family line of teaching
46
practices and tools, running from Susan to Jessica, and then on to Jade and Janice. In
some ways, Susan serves as the unofficial matriarch of a “family line” of teaching
practices that have come to characterize the practices of Clark teachers.
In addition to the student teaching setting, Clark‟s privileged tools also “traveled”
to the department and new teachers through co-planning. Although the interview data
indicated a divide in the department that caused great tension and stress around issues
such as scheduling, data also revealed a strong emphasis on collaboration and
instructional support, particularly for new teachers. Susan stated that she usually
“attach[ed] a person to a partner for each of the subject areas” (Interview, 5/08/08). As
such, each of the three beginning teachers at Clark were paired with other teachers,
usually a Clark veteran, for co-planning. Aside from the veteran co-planner, there was no
central location or easy access to existing curriculum materials. For more detailed
curriculum materials or resources, teachers generally talked to their colleagues. Susan
shared that teachers just asked each other when they needed materials for a specific
unit/text and others were happy to share. The new teachers in the study confirmed
feeling they could ask for help or materials if needed. In addition to the local resources,
when new teachers entered the district, they received a “Literacy Toolkit.” The Toolkit
was essentially a binder containing a potpourri of information such as sample unit plans,
and model essays with scores. The Toolkit provided evidence of a strong district
emphasis on backwards design and integrated and scaffolded instruction focused on
writing but it was unclear from interview data how often teachers used the resource.
The description below gives a quick synopsis of tools/practices privileged at
Clark High School organized by domain.
Importance of Writing as a Domain
An important distinction between the two school sites in the study was around the
domain of writing. The Clark English department and the district in which it was located
placed a strong emphasis on the domain of writing instruction. This emphasis on writing
was evident in the district and school assessment practices, privileged tools, and offerings
for professional development.
The district in which Clark High School was embedded administered a district-
wide writing assessment each April. The assessment was designed by teachers and
47
district administrators to be comparable to the English placement test given at the state
universities. The prompts and themes for the writing assessment varied by grade level.
The assessment was scored by district teachers who met to calibrate the scoring of the
assessments. The scoring was closely based on the College Board exam scoring system
for writing. The themes/prompts selected for the district-wide write informed teachers‟
choice of texts and writing prompts in their curriculum planning. Embedded in the
preparation and implementation process of the district-writing assessment was an
emphasis on writing assessment with rubrics, the importance of calibration, and
backwards planning from an assessment.
Practical tools for writing privileged at Clark included a running writing portfolio
and in-class journal writing. Clark High School had students keep a running writing
portfolio throughout their high school experience. Students selected and compiled pieces
to include in the portfolio at the end of each course/school year. As part of the portfolio
process, students wrote a reflection on themselves as a reader, writer, and thinker.
Another privileged tool for writing at Clark was journal writing in which students
“[could] write what they want” (Interview, 5/08/08). Susan noted that in addition to
journal writing, students are also asked to do writing “tied to reading” and “pre-reading
writing.” In this last statement, we see the integration of reading and writing instruction.
The course materials support this general conclusion. The materials passed on to teachers
in the department demonstrate a close attention to writers‟ choices/design in a text. For
example, one of the activities with Of Mice and Men was to analyze Steinbeck‟s word
choice in describing two characters. The importance of understanding “writer as an
artist/designer” is apparent in lessons/practical tools such as a Matisse papercut activity.
This activity, modeled by Susan and part of Jade and Janice‟s repertoire, was intended to
highlight the importance of making artistic choices. The teacher then would then draw a
parallel to choices made by writers.
The other course materials used by the teachers in the study and created by Clark
teachers, usually former Jennings graduates, demonstrated the availability and use of
practical tools that carefully scaffolded and supported student writing through a process
approach. Feedback procedures included departmental rubrics. In general, Clark took a
process approach to writing, closely integrating reading and writing in their units that
48
prepared students for the district-wide write. The school emphasized “reading like a
writer” which was a concept Jennings graduates had been exposed to in methods course
readings and discussions.
In addition to the practical tools, Clark‟s emphasis and approach to writing was
also supported through the departmental professional development opportunities
organized by Susan. The department head had a close relationship with the local writing
project and often sent her teachers to their writing-focused professional development
opportunities. Each year, Susan also sent teachers to a state-wide professional
development for English teachers.
Reading for Pleasure
Another significant domain of English-Language Arts instruction at Clark was
reading. In contrast to the strong emphasis on explicit strategy instruction we will see at
Highland, the emphasis at Clark was more on having students “reading for pleasure.” In
her interview on 5/08/08, the department head noted that students “reading books they
love” is a part of good English-Language Arts instruction. In speaking of reading, Susan
touched on the “social aspect of literacy” and stated that “choice is essential.” During an
observation of Susan‟s ninth grade class, the department head took a portion of class to
talk through new novels she had just read/purchased for her class library that might be of
interest to the students.
The importance of “reading for pleasure” was made explicit in department
documents and the practical tools used within the department. On the departmental
syllabi for English classes at Clark, there was a section specifically addressing “Reading
for Pleasure.” This 2-paragraph section outlined the purpose and procedures for outside
reading which was seen as “an essential part of [the] English program” (Ninth Grade
English Syllabus, Clark HS, 2007). The department assessed students‟ “reading for
pleasure” through the use of monthly reading logs in which students had to note the
number of pages read for a grade. Teachers also kept a running set of notecards on each
student on which students recorded the different books they had read over their time at
Clark High School. The notecards and reading logs were practical tools used throughout
the department.
49
The importance of reading was visible not only in the department but also in the
larger school community. The school participated as a whole in the practice of silent
sustained reading, allotting 35 minutes in the bell schedule three days a week for
independent reading time. The librarian also supported the emphasis on reading by
offering $5 gift cards to a local bookstore to students reading young Medal6 books.
The emphasis on reading and selecting texts that students can relate to and enjoy
was in line with the materials Jennings graduates read in their program. The practical
tools privileged at Clark highlighted the element of choice and pleasure which was at the
heart of practical tools such as the booktalks that were discussed, modeled, and enacted in
the Jennings methods course.
Importance of Backwards Planning
Both the district and Clark department head modeled “backwards design” as a
conceptual tool for planning. As mentioned above, the Literacy Toolkit teachers received
when they entered the district contained sample unit plans following the backwards
design model of Wiggins and McTighe (2005). The units were organized around themes
and essential questions that related closely to the possible prompts for the district writing
assessments. The prompts/themes for the district-wide write informed the curricular
choices and texts chosen by the teachers. As Susan mentored both Jade and Jessica,
Janice‟s CT, I asked Susan about her approach to mentoring. In talking about her
mentoring of new teachers, Susan touched on her approach to the practice of planning:
I did some units for Wiggins and McTighe – backward planning –
“Understanding by design” I guess is the new term for it. And it‟s very helpful to
say, “here is an overwritten unit over a number of days with these expectations
and these measurements.” “Do you want to cannibalize it?” That helps to be able
to hand over a whole unit of material… (Interview, 5/08/08)
These model units passed on by both the district to new teachers and Susan to her
student teachers demonstrated careful scaffolding of tasks throughout the unit that
integrated reading and writing. The “during reading” tasks done while reading the focal
6 The California Young Reader Medal Program is a program that encourages recreational reading by
California students. Students both nominate and vote for the recipients of this award. The website states
that the interest and enthusiasm of students has demonstrated the program‟s effectiveness in meeting it‟s
goal of introducing students to “the enjoyment of reading purely for pleasure” (http://www.cla-
net.org/awards/cyrm.php).
50
text for the unit often helped students collect quotes and commentary in preparation for
the final essay. The plans and course activities often also included opportunities for
student reflection. The unit plans demonstrated integrating the different domains so as to
develop students‟ abilities as “readers, writers, and thinkers” (Ninth Grade English
Syllabus, Clark HS, 2007).
It is important to note that the Clark units were planned around full texts as
opposed to textbooks. In talking about planning, the department head said:
I‟m not a believer in anthology based instruction. I think we need to parallel real
life as best we can and that means I‟m not ever going to say to students or say to
somebody “I do chapter 3 and then 7.” So I‟m practicing the expectation and set
of principles myself. (Interview, 5/08/08)
In addition to the district wide write, planning at Clark was also influenced by
other common assessments. Clark High School had common midterms for 9th
and 10th
grade, the AP classes, and the Honors classes. The use of common assessments further
highlighted the close collaboration and alignment of instruction throughout the Clark
department.
Little Emphasis on Grammar/Vocabulary
Although there were specific and well-articulated conceptual and practical tools
for the domains of reading and writing, Clark had few shared tools for vocabulary
instruction. In her interview, Susan noted that the department/district was moving
towards incorporating academic vocabulary throughout the K-12 curriculum “so that kids
would learn the definition for academic words as ninth graders that the 10th
grade
teachers would rely on” (Interview, 5/08/08). However, at the time of the study the move
to an emphasis on isolated academic vocabulary instruction was still in the planning
stages.
As for grammar instruction, there was no mention in the interview with the
department head of department-specific tools or practices for the teaching of grammar.
Little Emphasis on Discussion
51
In contrast to other settings that will described later, the department head and
district teacher induction materials at Clark did not mention or provide specific tools for
literary discussions.
Summary
In summary, Clark High placed a strong emphasis on explicit instruction and
instructional scaffolding mostly for the domain of writing and added a few distinctive
characteristics in its strong and emphasis on “reading for pleasure,” the use of models for
writing and final products, opportunities for student self-assessment/reflection, and the
place of art in the curriculum. In later chapters, we will see how the privileged tools at
Clark overlap or complement the approach to English-Language Arts instruction
presented in the Jennings Teacher Education Program.
Highland High School
The primary methods course instructor at Jennings University identified Highland
High School as a less-reinforcing7 site for the practices privileged in the Jennings English
methods course. Although as a professional development school site Highland High
School as a whole had a close relationship with the Jennings program, there was not a
close relationship between the Jennings methods course instructors and the English
Department at Highland High School.
Although the two schools in the study were similar in size and general
demographics, the significant distinction between Clark High School and Highland High
School was the student achievement context. As Highland did not meet the state progress
goals the year prior to the study, there was concern, particularly at the school level,
regarding the threat of the school falling under program improvement policies of the No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. The policy context was noteworthy in that it
affected school and departmental decisions and practices around specific domains of
English-Language Arts.
7 Although the school as a whole has a close relationship with Jennings, the methods course instructor did
not view the Highland English Department as closely aligned with the conceptual and practical tools
privileged in the Jennings methods course. During the course of the study, data showed that the English
department at Highland High School supported a few of the key concepts and tools from the Jennings
Program, specifically around the domains of reading and discussion. Therefore, rather than a non-
reinforcing site, Highland is in general a “less-reinforcing setting” for Jennings students/alumni when
compared to Clark High School.
52
A feature of the Highland setting that was related to the concern regarding
Program Improvement was the implementation of school-wide five year plan. The
principal‟s five year plan included a Literacy Initiative, which though aimed at the whole
school, had a significant impact on the English department. Most notably, the Literacy
Initiative included sending teachers to a Literacy Workshop/Professional Development
series. Many tools mentioned by the study participants at Highland were tools privileged
in the Literacy Workshop. Although reading was the primary focus of the workshop, the
workshop also provided participants with tools for other domains of Language Arts such
as fostering discussion. Secondly, the Literacy Initiative also meant a departmental focus
on the interpretive essay and logical form in writing as opposed to a concentration on a
breadth of genres. As part of the emphasis on writing instruction, administrators had
asked the English department to create rubrics for writing. During the year of the study,
the department was engaged in creating and refining these rubrics. The Literacy
Initiative also had school-wide implications that impacted the practices of the English
teachers. At the school level, the different departments agreed to support the Literacy
Initiative by having students write for 10 minutes a day. As such the English teachers
were to do a ten minute opener at the beginning of each class. In addition to the cross-
subject emphasis on writing, literacy strategies were distributed across the whole school
to help address the fact that many of the students‟ reading levels were below grade-level.
In contrast to the long-standing instructional influence of Susan at Clark, the
Highland department head, Harry, had taken over the position of department head 2 years
prior. Harry came into this role upon the retirement of the former department head. In
contrast to Susan who exerted instructional leadership along with her other administrative
duties, Harry saw his role as mostly administrative. He took care of issues such as
ordering supplies and served as the liaison between the department and the administration
and other departments.
Prior to retiring, the previous department chair at Highland had pushed to
coordinate the lesson plans for the Freshmen and Sophomore English classes. As part of
this effort, the former department head had created binders for the 9th
and 10th
grade
containing detailed day-by-day lesson plans and activities. Harry said that previously
many teachers felt “stifled” by the binders (Interview, 3/06/08). In contrast to the
53
previous approach in which people were scared to move far from the binder, the
Highland department now encouraged, but did not mandate, that teachers follow the
binders.
Instead of co-planning for their different courses as they did at Clark, Highland
teachers worked in grade-level teams (all 9th
, all 10th
) and also domain-specific teams
(e.g. reading, writing). Organizationally, Highland built time into the schedule on Friday
mornings to meet as a staff. Half of the time was designated as departmental time. This
time was sometimes used for departmental meetings and at other times for grade-level
meetings. According to the study participants, the grade-level meetings were generally
used to just check in and see what other teachers were doing and where they were at in
the current unit. When the department met as a whole, the focus was on whatever issues
were coming up such as developing protocols for looking at student work or presenting
departmental training on literacy strategies. During this time, the department also created
required content/skills benchmarks by grade level but Harry stated that the lists of skills
were fairly general. The only common assessment at Highland was an in-class essay on
Romeo and Juliet for 9th
graders that was to be used as a diagnostic assessment for
writing.
According to the department head, there were no formal policies for instruction.
Instead all activities were “suggested.” Below I describe Highland‟s “suggested”
approaches and tools by domain.
Reading as the Central Focus
As noted earlier, there was a strong emphasis on reading as a domain at Highland
High School. Most of the common practices at Highland fell into this domain. One of
the suggested practices specifically mentioned by the department head was to have
students “talking to the text” (textual annotation) as a tool for engaging students in the
reading.
The Highland department also suggested outside reading books done as some
variation of literature circles. The binder materials included roles and assignments for
literature circle but Harry said that he had seen more and more teachers move away from
using formal literature circles, a mandated practice under the old department head.
According to Harry, teachers were now doing variations of the practice. For example,
54
teachers were doing book clubs in a format similar to literature circles but with a less
formalized structure. Although teachers tried to give students some choice in their book
club selection, there was not a strong emphasis on student choice or the push for “reading
for pleasure” that was apparent at Clark High School.
As noted earlier, the emphasis on reading was part of the Highland‟s Literacy
Initiative. As part of this initiative, a group of teachers were attending the Literacy
Workshop. The Literacy Workshop was a 4-day professional development opportunity
provided by an outside professional development group that provided both conceptual
and practical tools for the teaching of metacognitive reading strategies for adolescent
learners. The framework for the professional development series was centered around
“metacognitive conversations” that make visible “the invisible meaning-making process
of reading by showing how readers ask questions, form images, make analogies, make
predictions, and identify areas where they are having trouble and need to use strategies to
restore comprehension.” (Literacy Workshop Materials, p.1) The tools presented in the
workshop included “think-alouds,” reading strategy lists, double and triple entry journals
for readings, and “talking to the text” which “capture the reading process in writing” (p.1)
Within the trainings, facilitators generally modeled the tools with teachers in the role of
students. The workshop also provided guided practice opportunities done within the
professional development setting before teachers were asked to enact the tool in their
classrooms. Teachers from the Highland English department who attended the
workshop came back and passed on what they had learned to the department through
formal presentations. In the department meetings, the focus in the presentation was on
how to enact the practices. Harry described the focus as “here‟s how it‟s done”
(Interview, 3/06/08). This focus on enactment indicated an emphasis on the instructional
routines in absence of the theoretical underpinnings of the strategies. At the time of the
study, two thirds of the teachers had attended the 4-day training and participation in the
training was not mandated by the school.
Writing as a Neglected Domain
Compared to Clark High School, Highland had a less explicit and defined
approach to writing as an instructional domain. Course materials in the curriculum
binders created by the previous department head included descriptions of assignments but
55
gave little attention to writing instruction or scaffolds for the final task. In fact, there was
often not a clear final writing task or emphasis for the unit. For example, for the short
story unit, the 9th
grade binder included handouts describing two very different final
assignments for the unit. The first was to create a “Growth Chart” poster. For this
assignment, the handout alluded to one of the “universal questions” for the unit which
was “How does an adolescent become an adult?” On the “growth chart poster” students
were to make a poster illustrating where they would place four adolescents or children
from the stories by their maturity level. (Someone of more height would be more
mature.) Students were to include a paragraph on each character explaining the
placement and providing evidence from the story supporting their evaluation of the
character‟s maturity. The second assignment for the short story unit was to write a 2-3
paragraph essay on “What does it mean to be an effective parent?” It was not clear from
reviewing the curricular materials what skills were to be emphasized or what instruction
provided. Although the handouts for the unit assessments included allusions to a process
approach to writing in that there were dates for drafts and revisions, the binder did not
include handouts or materials to help develop or strengthen specific aspects of student
writing. In general, the resources in the binder for writing instruction were handouts that
provided information on format or organization for a type of essay. These materials were
often discrete and generic handouts that were not specifically tied to a unit or text.
In contrast to Clark where model texts and scoring rubrics were readily available
to teachers, the Highland binders did not include scoring rubrics for essays. Although
the department had recently developed writing rubrics for each grade level at the
principal‟s request, interview data and classroom observations revealed that none of the
study participants were using the generic departmental rubrics for instructional purposes.
The course description in the binder and the journal topics in the lesson plans
indicated that journal writing was a privileged tool at Highland High School. In contrast
to the goal of journal writing at Clark, journal writing at Highland was more concerned
with helping students process or move into the topic for the day‟s lesson than
encouraging self-expression through writing. For example, during the short story unit,
the lesson plans included journal writing time as an activity to take place after the class
went through a handout entitled “Good Readers/Poor Readers.” The journal prompt was
56
“Which techniques do you practice regularly? Which ones do you need work on?” This
prompt was representative of most journal prompts in that they were often closely
connected to the lesson for the day. In the binder, the self-evaluation form for journals
stated: “Journals will be graded on both quantity and content. On most topics you should
have enough to write at least half a page.” Although the handout went on to say that
students could write more at home, the paragraph ended with the caution that “Your
teachers will not be fooled by large handwriting or extremely wide spacing” (Journals:
Self-Evaluation, Highland High School). The use of a specific topic and emphasis on
minimum length for journal entries contrasted sharply with Clark‟s motive of creative
expression with journal writing.
Discussion
As noted earlier, the school binders included practical tools to support the use of
Literature Circles. Materials from the Literacy Workshop and interview data revealed
that teachers who attended the Literacy Workshop and BTSA trainings were also exposed
to other tools/formats for discussion such as Socratic Seminar and Fishbowl. There was
no indication in either departmental materials or teacher practice that the materials from
the workshop were widely distributed or used by teachers beyond those who had attended
the Workshop.
Grammar/Vocabulary
The materials in the binder indicated that both grammar and vocabulary were
taught in isolation. Few lessons addressed grammar and the handouts in the binder that
touched on grammar topics such as teaching suffixes and prefixes did not integrate
closely with the unit in which they were embedded. Handouts included generic
worksheets such as one entitled “Quotations in Narrative” which showed an example
from a comic strip and then generic sentences to illustrate how to punctuate the quotation
in the context of a narrative.
Both the 9th
and 10th
grade curriculum binders included lists of vocabulary to be
taught and corresponding quizzes. Quizzes were generally fill-in-the blank sentences
with a word bank at the bottom.
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Planning
In contrast to Clark High School, lesson plans and curriculum for 9th
and 10th
grade courses were clearly articulated and readily available in binders which were
centrally housed in the Highland English Department office. In contrast to the model unit
plans in the Literacy Toolkit distributed to new Clark teachers or available from the
department, the Highland curriculum binders read like “scripted” curriculum in that they
included day-by-day lesson plans and all supporting materials for the lessons. The lesson
plans in the binder were not organized around essential questions and there was little
evidence of close scaffolding to the final products. At the time of the study, the former
and more hands-on department head had been gone for two years and returning teachers
were enjoying the autonomy and freedom from the 9th
and 10th
grade binders. Similar
materials did not exist for the upper grades and elective English courses such as
Mythology.
Similar to Clark, the Highland English department did not use textbooks but
instead assigned novels and short stories. The department had agreed on core novels by
grade level but the texts were not mandated.
Highland as a Changing Activity Setting
Although there was little conceptual overlap in the departmental materials
available to Highland teachers and the tools privileged in the Jennings English methods
course, there were multiple and ever growing connections between Jennings and
Highland that seemed to be bringing about a change in the instructional approach and
privileged tools in the Highland activity setting. The relationship with Jennings was
strengthened through the growing number of Jennings student teachers and graduates at
Highland and the leadership of Jennings alumni in the department. For my particular
study, this was important mostly in the English and History department who were starting
to work together for the piloting of a humanities-like course entitled “World Studies.”
The creator of the course was a Jennings graduate, John Houston. During the year of the
study, John not only sat on in the World Studies planning meetings but was also serving
in a new role as the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) support
provider for the new teachers at Highland. John‟s “charges” included all the study
participants at Highland, including the Jennings alumni.
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Another important factor was the collaborative nature of the Jennings graduates
within the department. During the year of the study, there were three Jennings teachers
working in the Highland English department who were often planning together and
collaborating with other new teachers in the school. Two of the three Jennings alumni,
worked on the 9th
grade team that was working on reorganizing Highland‟s 9th
grade units
around essential questions and skills. Over the course of the study and especially into the
year following the study, there was a notable shift to more practices privileged by the
Jennings program such as the increased use of rubrics and emphasis on strategic reading
instruction that I address more fully in Chapter 6 and 7.
Instructional Differences by School Site
Although similar in the number of students they served and the texts taught at the
different levels, Clark High School and Highland High School differed in their approach
to the teaching of English-Language Arts. Table 4.1 (See page 59) highlights these
differences. Most notably, the two schools provided differential support for the teaching
of reading and writing. The prominence and support for developing writing instruction at
Clark High School through instructional materials that would prepare students for an
annual district-wide writing assessment contrasted with the reading-focused professional
development opportunities and tools (e.g. “talking to the text”) emphasized at Highland
High School in hopes of decreasing the achievement gap on state tests. This difference
highlights again the importance of the accountability settings the schools were embedded
in. There was also a strong contrast in the support offered at each school in the domain
of instructional planning. Although Highland‟s curriculum materials, particularly for 9th
and 10th
grade courses, were more readily accessible through the binders, the Clark
materials shared through the setting of co-planning and working with colleagues provided
more coherent and more carefully planned models of English-Language Arts instruction.
Both Clark and Highland High Schools had relatively weak approaches and limited tools
for the teaching of vocabulary and grammar. Neither Clark nor Highland privileged the
explicit teaching of norms and tools for student-led discussions, an important pedagogy
in English classrooms.
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Table 4.1 Privileged Tools for English-Language Arts Instruction by School Clark Highland
Writing Conceptual tools: Integrated and
scaffolded writing instruction through
process approach
Practical tools: Journals focused on
expression, mini-lessons, rubrics for
feedback, model texts
Conceptual tools: Process approach
Practical tools: Lesson focused journal
writing, Isolated and discrete handouts
for writing instruction
Reading “Reading for Pleasure”
Practical tools: SSR, Teacher
booktalks, monthly reading
log/calendar,
Strategic Reading Instruction
SSR/Book Clubs
Discussion No specific tools Book clubs with less formal structure
than literature circles
Tools modeled in the Literacy
Workshop: Fishbowl
Planning Backwards designed around essential
questions, plans work towards a
specific writing assessment
Day by day plans with isolated and
discrete materials, multiple “universal”
questions and emphases for units
Vocabulary
/Grammar
Little attention to vocabulary but
moving to Kinsella word lists at district
level
Little attention to grammar
Isolated vocabulary lists and
corresponding quizzes
Little attention to grammar
Features of School Settings that Influence Tool Appropriation
Aside from the differences in approaches to particular domains, the two schools
also differed qualitatively in the tools available for teacher learning and the norms
surrounding the tools and the norms around collaboration.
Although less accessible by not being available in binders, the practical tools
available at Clark High School encapsulated the conceptual approach to English-
Language Arts instruction articulated by Susan at the beginning of the chapter. Rather
than a series of isolated and discrete handouts for instruction found in the Highland
binders, the curricular materials at Clark had an undergirding set of principles that were
articulated and supported and explicated through the department head and professional
development settings. In addition, the artifacts of practice became a living and embodied
60
set of resources through the co-planning process and modeling provided at Clark High
School. The instructional handouts and activities created by Susan and other Jennings
graduates carried in them an integrated and scaffolded approach that moved students
from “reading as writers” to “writing like readers.” For example, the materials for the
teaching of Of Mice and Men had students look at Steinbeck‟s word choice to help
prepare them for doing a comparison essay on how the characters contrasted in terms
their roles in society. In contrast, the Highland materials were organized chronologically
by text, incorporating reading strategies seemingly at random. The units were often more
activity driven and the plans did not make explicit how the activities were moving
students to develop a series of connected skills or knowledge. The availability of weak
and discrete curricular materials at Highland would make the training and the background
of the teachers using the materials more important. We will see the difference in
appropriation of tools in the upcoming chapters.
The induction of new teachers into the English department at Clark was further
supported through the embedded setting of co-planning with more experienced peers. All
three new teachers at Clark were either paired with the department head or another
teacher, often other Jennings alumni, who shared the same approach to English-Language
Arts instruction. For instance, Jade was paired with both Susan (the department head)
and Janice (a Jennings peer) to plan for her AP and 9th
grade English classes in her first
year of teaching. Hiring from the student teacher pool also ensured that the new teachers
were already familiar with the school materials and had seen some of the lessons modeled
in the same school context prior to becoming the teacher of record.
The co-planning was particularly useful to teachers who came in from other
school settings. Barbara, a second year teacher but first year teacher at Clark, was paired
with Judith, a Jennings alumna, who introduced Barbara to tools such as Socratic
Seminar and shared all her course materials with her. The emphasis on collaboration
contrasted sharply with the emphasis on the norms of autonomy at Highland. As noted
earlier, although there was time allotted for team meetings, Highland‟s departmental time
was often used to share what teachers were using rather than a co-planning setting where
there was detailed discussion of the tools and implementation.
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In looking across the features of the schools and embedded settings that foster or
hinder the learning of new teachers, one of the most notable differences between the two
school sites was Clark‟s emphasis on collegiality around a clear instructional philosophy
as opposed to Highland‟s emphasis on teacher autonomy. This difference was also
reflected in the different roles played by the two department heads. Susan clearly saw
herself in a role of instructional leadership through the collaborative structures put in
place and the use of common instructional and assessment tools. In contrast to an explicit
discussion and institutional support of domain specific tools by the Clark department
head, Harry used the term “suggested” to describe the tools privileged by the department.
Although there were clear domain-specific tools that were preferred by the school and the
English department, Harry viewed his role as more of a manager who did not want to
impose on the norms of autonomy within the department. The emphasis at Highland on
voluntary participation, especially in the area of professional development, would lead to
a range of knowledge around the tools privileged in the department and therefore allow
for a broad range of tool appropriation observed in teachers at Highland.
In this chapter, I have highlighted the two main school settings for the study,
noting in particular the privileged tools at each setting and the features of the setting that
influence the patterns of appropriation I will describe in later chapters.
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CHAPTER 5 JENNINGS GRADUATES
In this chapter, we look specifically at the preparation of the four Jennings
graduates and “the things they carried” into practice from the different activity settings in
which they learned to teach. In the sections below, I describe the Jennings methods
course and the preparation and practice of Jade, Janice, Jackie, and Joanna. The
interview and observational data of the Jennings graduates demonstrate that regardless of
their current school context, all four teachers appropriated many of the practical and
conceptual tools for the teaching of English presented in the Jennings methods course.
This occurred not only in Jade and Janice who began their teaching careers in a setting
aligned to their methods course but also in Jackie and Joanna who started their careers in
a less aligned setting. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of features of learning
settings such as domain specificity, the emphasis on conceptual tools, modeling, and
reinforcement across settings/enactment that fostered tool appropriation in the Jennings
graduates.
Jennings Methods Course
The Jennings Teacher Education Program is a 5th
year Masters and credentialing
program situated in the School of Education at a highly competitive private research
university. The one year teacher preparation program, certifying 75-80 students per year
across subject areas, begins in early summer and ends the following June. All candidates
seeking a credential in the secondary education program complete 9 courses including
traditional teacher education courses such as Adolescent Development and Learning,
Classroom Management, and a student teaching seminar in which they are supported by
their other classmates and their teaching supervisors. Most significant to the study as it
looks specifically at the teaching of English-Language Arts, the teacher candidates at
Jennings participate in a Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) course for the teaching of
English-Language Arts. In contrast to most subject-specific methods courses which are a
single course in the program, the teacher candidates at Jennings University participate in
a 3-quarter methods course, spanning from the first quarter in the summer through the
winter quarter of their credential program.
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In addition to coursework, Jennings‟ teachers are also involved in a concurrent
field placement throughout the program. During the summer, the teacher candidates
observe and assist teachers in a middle school summer school program in a nearby
district. Beginning in the fall, teacher candidates complete their year-long field
placement in a secondary school with the majority of students working in high school
English classrooms. This design allows for Jennings teacher candidates to be
consistently participating in overlapping settings of a methods course and an English
classroom.
Jade, Janice, and Joanna were all second year teachers who were members of the
same teacher education cohort at Jennings University. Jackie, a first year teacher, was in
the Jennings cohort of the following year. As the syllabi for the course remained fairly
stable, Jackie‟s experience in the methods course was fairly similar to the other three
graduates.
Course Features
The principal course instructor for the Jennings methods course, Dr. Sara James,
was a full-time faculty member whose research interests included English education and
teacher education. The other instructors for the course were graduate students with prior
experience as secondary English teachers who were seeking doctoral degrees in
Curriculum and Teacher Education. Dr. James designed and created the main course
design described in this section.
The Jennings methods course design was closely aligned to Dr. James‟
understanding of teacher development. When asked about how teachers learned to teach,
Dr. James said that teachers learn to teach “through a variety of ways” (Interview,
12/18/07). In addition to their prior experiences in educational settings, Dr. James
highlighted that graduates learn from underlying principles presented in the course and
the importance of “opportunities to kind of see those play out.” James went on to say
“that‟s one of the reasons we have the model lessons because we again can‟t count on
what they‟re seeing in their field placements.” In addition to providing in-class models,
James noted that the teacher educators “also try to make reference to what they [teacher
candidates] might be seeing.” Course instructors would often ask if the teacher
candidates had seen examples of the principles and tools privileged in the course in their
64
school settings. In addition to underlying principles, and modeling, James also thought
enactment was an important part of the learning process.
I think they learn by doing so I think it‟s very important that they have
opportunities to enact umm some of the practices that we are trying to teach them
so we give them lots of opportunities to get and then get feedback on them. So to
plan, to get feedback on that. To lead a discussion and get feedback on that.
(Interview, 12/18/07).
Noteworthy in James‟ description was that the Jennings methods course was intended to
be the primary setting for conceptual tools and models for English-Language Arts
instruction. Rather than depending on the student teaching placement to provide models
and opportunities for feedback, the Jennings course instructors embedded these elements
in the methods course.
The Jennings course closely mirrored the learning theory James outlined above.
In describing the course, Dr. James began with an articulation of the two important
principles or conceptual tools for teaching English which undergirded the entire three-
quarter sequence. The “central underlying principal across the three quarters is
scaffolding.” The course definition of scaffolding was drawn from the work of Lev
Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner. The other underlying principle of the course was “explicit
instruction” (Interview, 12/18/07). James described this principle saying, „It is not
enough to just tell kids how to do something. You actually have to figure out how help
them learn to do that.” The course instructors consistently modeled explicit instruction
and scaffolding in their own teaching by providing models, opportunities for guided
practice, independent practice, and feedback as part of preparing teacher candidates for
each course assignment. The two principles were further reinforced by the assignments
themselves as they required teacher candidates to demonstrate explicit instruction and
scaffolding in their own teaching in the different domains of English-Language Arts
instruction.
In addition to the two overarching principles, the course also presented conceptual
tools for each of the major domains of English-Language Arts. This was accomplished
through domain-specific units presented across the three-quarter course. During each
quarter length segment, the instructors focused on one to three domain-specific “units.”
65
Table 5.1 (See page 68) provides a description of the different tools and activities
presented in each unit. The activities for each unit were organized around a domain-
specific principle or conceptual tool (e.g.“teaching grammar in context”) and a major
assignment. For each unit, teacher candidates read and discussed articles intended to
provide a theoretical foundation and research support for the approach taken to the
domain. The conceptual tools/principles were then supported with course instructors
modeling practical tools that could be used with students in the secondary classroom.
Teacher candidates were asked to apply and practice the tools and embedded skills
through approximations of practice8 in the methods course. As noted above, each unit
culminated in an assignment in which teachers had to do a more integrated approximation
that brought together theory and practice and often asked teacher candidates to create and
enact tools that could be used in their student teaching placement.
Writing as a Representative Unit
A representative domain-specific unit was a unit on writing instruction that was
presented during one week into teacher education program. During this first
“installment” of the course, the class met every day for two weeks and focused
specifically on the teaching of writing. According to Dr. James, the domain specific
principle for the first course was the idea of “writing instruction rather than giving
assignments” and the major task/assignment for the writing domain was to create a
carefully scaffolded 12-step writing assignment that followed the writing process
(Interview, 12/18/07). In talking about the writing assignment task, the lead methods
instructor described how the overarching principles of the course play out in the writing
instruction assignment.
So the in the summer we had them do that [12]-step writing assignment partly to
kind of really get them to think what would you have to teach in order for students
to be successful…that you can‟t just give them the assignment, you actually have
to teach them things and secondly it introduced the concept of scaffolding and
where do you provide support and where are all the different places you could
provide support to students because students will be different.” (Interview,
12/18/07)
8 Grossman and her colleagues refer to as “approximations of practice” as “opportunities to rehearse and
develop discrete components of complex practice in settings of reduced complexity” (Grossman &
McDonald, 2008).
66
To prepare teacher candidates for this task, the course instructors had teacher
candidates participate in an entire sequence of the writing process with an
autobiographical narrative task. During this process, teacher candidates were writing
their own narrative draft and moving through the entire writing process including drafting
and revising. The course instructors modeled and provided tools that could help scaffold
student success in the writing process through setting clear expectations through the use
of model texts and scoring rubrics. The in-class activities also provided opportunities to
build up their knowledge and proficiency with embedded skills within the domain such as
creating writing prompts, providing feedback through rubrics, and conferencing with
students. During this quarter, teacher candidates were also asked to interview a student
about writing to get a better understanding of student misconceptions and difficulties in
the domain of writing. The in-class modeling and practice of the selected elements of
writing instruction were accompanied by course readings such as a educational research
article by Langer and Applebee (1986) on scaffolding. The readings and in-class
debriefing allowed teacher candidates to bring an analytical lens and teacher perspective
to the practice of teaching writing and a conceptual and research background to the in-
class models.
In addition to modeling the conceptual tools of scaffolding, process writing, and
explicit writing instruction, the summer course also provided specific practical tools.
Embedded in the “writing unit” were also practical tools or boundary objects that could
be directly “carried” into teaching such as the model Autobiographical Narrative task, the
task created by the teacher candidates, an activity on teaching the concept of imagery in
which the lead course instructor demonstrated a carefully orchestrated “gateway activity”
that had students use words to describe a emotion in writing and having their partner
guess the emotion. The practical tools also included different writing rubrics introduced
in the methods course such as the 6-traits rubric and materials created by the teacher
candidates for the unit plan assignment assigned in the last quarter of the course.
Summary
The writing unit, similar to other units, was based in the research literature and the
overarching principles of explicit instruction and instructional scaffolding providing
teacher candidates with a conceptual foundation on which to “hang” the practical tools
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introduced in the course. In addition to being practical examples of how to apply the
conceptual tools, the in-course models and related practical tools presented in each of the
units provided teacher candidates with a beginning repertoire of practical tools for many
of the major domains of English-Language Arts. Although the course addressed five
separate domains, each of the domains was not equally addressed. Dr. James admitted
that grammar and vocabulary though addressed, were areas that received less attention in
the course and would be potentially weak areas for Jennings graduates.
In the sections following Table 5.1, I provide a description of the Jennings
graduates and “the “things they carried” into their current school contexts.
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69
Jennings Graduates at Clark High School
I begin this section with a description and analysis of Jade Carter and Janice
Connelly. The two teachers are for analytic purposes quite similar in that they were
Jennings graduates who completed their student teaching and started their careers at
Clark High School, a school that privileged many of the same conceptual tools as the
Jennings program.
Jade and Janice’s Background
Jade Carter, a second year teacher at Clark High School, is in many ways the
“ideal” case in her strong content preparation and the close alignment of the tools
privileged across the settings in which she learned to teach. Daughter to an artist/art
historian and attending a Waldorf School till high school, a love of reading, writing, and
art were cultivated from a young age. For high school, Jade attended a public arts magnet
school due to her strong interest in drama. Upon graduating from high school, Jade went
on to major in English Literature at Jennings University. As part of her undergraduate
work she completed an honors thesis on a 12th
century poet, did a semester at Oxford
working specifically on a series of literary analysis essays, and worked as a Humanities
tutor helping fellow students with their writing.
Jade decided she wanted to be a teacher in her junior year of college. During her
senior year, Jade took Education 101and a young adult literature class with one of the
English methods course instructors in the Jennings Teacher Education program. Jade
entered the Jennings Teacher Education Program the following year. Jade completed her
student teaching with Susan Olanksi, the Clark department head. She was then hired as a
teacher at Clark High School.
Janice, a soft-spoken biracial woman in her midtwenties with short with curly
brown hair, was also in her second year of teaching at Clark High School during the
study. Similar to Jade, Janice‟s love of reading and writing stemmed from an early age.
Being very quiet and shy, escaping through books and expressing herself through journal
writing were an important part of Janice‟s childhood that continued into adulthood. For
high school, Janice attended a small private girls‟ school that privileged a more
traditional approach to English instruction. Janice recalled sitting in rows, having the
teacher tell them “truth” about the texts, and working through “prescriptive” lessons in a
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vocabulary workbook (Interview, 9/27/07). For college, Janice attended a large
competitive state university where she majored in English Literature and Language, a
program specifically designed for people interested in teaching English, and minored in
Education. Unlike Jade, Janice struggled and had limited support in terms of her
academic writing. She shared that she received a “C” on her first English paper in
college and felt inadequate in relation to her writing till she had a professor/advisor later
in her college career who finally helped her find her voice and appreciate her own
writing.
In contrast to Jade, Janice knew early on that she wanted to teach saying, “I had
known forever that I wanted to teach…I used to want to be a kindergarten teacher and
wanted to be a high school teacher I decided when I got to high school and realized that I
love English.” (Interview, 9/27/07). Having skipped a grade earlier in her academic
career, Janice felt too young to go directly into teaching after finishing her Bachelors
degree. As such, Janice decided to pursue the Masters and credential program at
Jennings. Like Jade, Janice student taught at Clark and then moved into a full-time
position after graduation. Her cooperating teacher was a former Jennings Teacher
Education Program graduate who had completed her student teaching under Susan
Olanski, the department head.
Teacher Education
Although Jade and Janice had different prior experiences in their high school
experiences with English with Janice coming from a more traditional approach to
teaching and Jade experiencing a more student-centered approach to English, both
teachers demonstrated a very similar approach to teaching. They both attributed their
approach mostly to their Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) course which was the title of
the Jennings methods course for the teaching of English.
In the teacher education card sort, I asked Jade to sort the courses from her
teacher preparation in terms of how they influenced her in terms of how she thinks about
the teaching of English. Jade responded, “Definitely C&I class is first” (Interview,
9/26/07). When talking about what she took from the class, Jade went into detail, noting
specifically the opportunities/assignments for approximations of practice in the different
71
domains and the practical tools she carried from the course into her practice at Clark.
The level of detail of her description can be seen in the following excerpt:
The backwards planning idea is huge and that‟s something that came mostly from
C&I although we did talk about it in I think practicum. That was one of the little
modules but C&I is where we really used it and practiced that with our unit. And
I also really practiced tying everything into some kind of learning target. We
learned a lot about how to lead discussion. That was I think Winter C&I…That
was really helpful especially because we had to videotape ourselves leading
discussion and then we led a discussion in C&I and practiced that. (Interview,
9/26/07)
In talking about the methods course, Jade also went on to describe very specific
practical tools that she carried from the course into her practice at Clark. Most of the
tools that became boundary objects or tools that spanned settings for Jade were modeled
by the instructors in the methods course. These included more generic activities such as
booktalks to more content-specific lessons such as the writing activity on imagery.
Janice‟s descriptions of her preparation were similar to Jade‟s. During the teacher
education card sort, Janice described the course as follows:
By effectiveness in terms of influence it had on me and my teaching …C&I was
the number one. I mean my field placement student teaching was great but I
would still put C&I above that anyways because I couldn‟t have done my student
teaching as effectively without C&I. (Interview, 10/03/07)
Similar to Jade, Janice noted the importance of the course assignments and
enactments saying. “I feel like that was the class where I felt like I learned the most and I
felt like I was doing something productive with every single assignment” (Interview,
10/03/07).
Student Teaching
Jade and Janice both completed their student teaching at Clark High School with
Jade working directly with Susan and Janice working with Jessica Chi who had student
taught under Susan a few years prior. Both Jade and Janice acknowledged conceptual
overlaps for English instruction between Jennings and Clark, mentioning specifically
conceptual tools for reading, writing, and planning. Jade said “Susan really emphasizes
that we are teaching students to be „readers, writers, and thinkers and that‟s a phrase that I
72
use a lot and I think that C&I class was based around that as well” (Interview, 10/03/07).
When asked to describe the image of good English-Language Arts she got from Jessica,
Janice responded, “well she came from Jennings so I think a lot of it was similar.”
Jade and Janice both described their student teaching as the second most
influential setting from their teacher education experience and attributed specific tools to
their work at Clark. In talking about what she took away from her placement, Jade
attributed to Susan specific conceptual and practical tools that were aligned closely to
Susan‟s description of practices and tools privileged at Clark High School. This included
larger concepts such as student self-assessment and reflection on their writing as well as
practical tools such as the Clark reading charts or activities such as the gallery walk.
Although Janice worked with a different cooperating teacher, Susan was still a strong
influence on her practice. Janice said “…Jessica follow[ed] really, really closely what
the head of the department Susan does” (Interview, 10/03/07). In addition to using the
same materials and seeing the same pedagogy modeled by Jessica, Janice also
participated in planning meetings with Susan which supported the appropriation of many
of Susan‟s practical and conceptual tools for English-Language Arts instruction.
Jade and Janice’s Current School Context
During the year of the study, Jade taught 9th
grade English, AP English, and
Journalism and Janice taught 9th
grade English, Intermediate ELD, and an AVID course.
For the purposes of comparability, I focused the observations and analysis on the 9th
grade course and observed Jade and Janice during the same four units. The two teachers
planned with one another for their 9th
grade class and participated in the professional
development opportunities offered by Clark High School such as local writing project
workshops. In line with the school practice of team planning, Jade and Susan co-planned
the AP course and Janice worked with another teacher in the school for her ELD course.
Jade and Janice’s Practice
Given Jade‟s coming out of a Waldorf school and feeling well supported and
confident in her writing abilities and Janice attending a traditional high school
emphasizing discrete vocabulary instruction and lacking confident in her writing skills,
one might expect very different classroom practice from these two teachers. However
this is not the case. Although Jade and Janice came from different “academic
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backgrounds” as far as their apprenticeships of observation, they both appropriate similar
tools with the slight variation being attributable to personal attributes such as Janice‟s
shyness or Jade‟s love of drama. The chart of classroom practices by teacher and school
in Table 5.2 (See page 76) demonstrate that both teachers appropriate tools from Jennings
and add in the complimentary conceptual and practical tools emphasized by their
cooperating teachers/department head at Clark such as the use of models or integrating
art into the language arts curriculum. Both teachers exhibit deeper levels of tool
appropriation and more consistent use of tools in domains where the tools were
privileged in both the methods course and the school setting such as planning and
writing. The two teachers enact a close appropriation of practical tools for discussion but
the limited use may be connected to the lack of reinforcement or availability of practical
tools in the student teaching placement and school setting at Clark. The minimal
attention to grammar and vocabulary in the classroom observations echo the minimal
attention given to these domains in both their methods course and Clark.
The plans for the Of Mice and Men unit are a representative picture of the general
patterns exhibited by Jade and Janice throughout the study and highlight the deep level of
appropriation of backwards design and the integrated nature of the units. Prior to the start
of the unit, I observed one of the planning meetings between Jade and Janice. During this
meeting, Jade and Janice decided to use a different essential question than they had used
in years prior. This decision was based on the similarity of responses they had received
in the previous year‟s essays and students not really understanding the essential question
focused on characters‟ dreams. The teachers decided on the following as the new
question: “How do the roles we play in a community determine the life we live.” As
they chose a different essential question from years prior, Jade and Janice had to plan
different activities from those used in previous years and create new materials for the
unit. The planning discussion demonstrated Jade and Janice‟s ability to create new
questions and then backwards plan around the new question.
For this unit, both teachers prepared students to write an analysis essay on social
roles of characters in the text by having them keep a reading log in which they collected
evidence on each of the main characters, participated in the “Taking a Stand” activity
modeled in the methods course, and completing a group activity in which students put
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characters on a “social ladder” (a graphic representing a social hierarchy) using textual
evidence to support their ordering. At the end of the unit, students would write an
analysis essay focused on social roles. During the unit, both Jade and Janice presented a
series of mini-lessons on quote integration, explicitly addressing and providing models of
how to insert quotes into interpretive essays. The unit also included a mini-lesson on
mood. Similar to the structure of the mini-lesson modeled in their Jennings course, the
lesson moved from a hook in which students described the mood in two paintings to the
presentation of a definition transitioning then to careful scaffolding of students to write a
paragraph on the mood in Steinbeck‟s novel. Jade and Janice‟s units were identical
except for the prompt for the final essay which altered some of the practical tools used in
supporting the essay writing process. Both teachers implemented the larger conceptual
tool of a process approach to writing by providing opportunities for pre-writing,
presenting mini-lessons replete with models on appropriate topics such as writing thesis
statements, and providing feedback through rubrics. In this unit, Jade and Janice
demonstrated their appropriation of other conceptual tools from Jennings such as
integrated reading and writing instruction, explicit writing instruction, and attention to
discussion in a backwards planned unit. They also scaffolded student learning at both the
lesson and unit level towards their expected outcomes. The unit also showed the
appropriation of specific practical tools such as the “Taking a Stand” activity in which
Jade and Janice both paid attention to norm setting and language for discussion and
carefully scaffolded mini-lessons that moved from guided to more independent practice.
Similar to their general practice, the unit described above highlights the
appropriation of most of the conceptual tools and some practical tools from Jennings with
their deepest appropriations being in the domains of reading and writing where similar
tools were reinforced across settings. Being placed in a highly reinforcing student
teaching and teaching setting provided Jade and Janice with more models and
opportunities for enactment of the practical and conceptual tools privileged at Jennings.
As such, one counterargument to my claim that features of the program fostered tool
appropriation might be about the importance of the student teaching setting. Another
counterargument might be that the teachers appropriated these tools from the school
setting itself. To address these counterclaims, I now look to two Jennings graduates who
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began their careers at a less reinforcing school setting and vary in the degree of alignment
of their student teaching placement with the Jennings methods course.
In the next section, we look at the English department at Highland High School
and the practices of Jackie and Joanna, two graduates of the teacher preparation program
at Jennings University, who went on to teach at a less-reinforcing school setting.
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Jennings Graduates at Highland High School
In this section, I provide an analysis of the practices of Jackie Ha and Joanna
Harper, two Jennings graduates who went on to work at Highland High School.
Although Jackie and Joanna had varying levels of alignment in their own training and
their student teaching and the Jennings course, Jackie and Joanna‟s practice demonstrate
an appropriation of many of the tools in the Jennings practices, even when in tension with
the tools privileged at the school site.
Jackie Ha, an outgoing, East Asian woman in her mid-twenties, was in her first
year of teaching at Highland High School during the study. In contrast to Jade and
Janice, Jackie‟s beginnings with English began at age eight when she immigrated to the
US from an East Asian country. However by high school, Jackie, like Jade and Janice,
was in the higher tracked classes in high school, including AP English. She described her
school experiences with English as pretty traditional and remarked on the contrast
between her own experiences as a student and the view of English teaching presented at
Jennings. “When I got to Jennings, there wasn‟t anything that I said, “Wow, we did this
in high school! None of it was done in high school. So I had a very traditional
education” (Interview, 9/07/07).
After high school, Jackie went on to complete a BA in English with a minor in
Education at a large, reputable state university. Jackie recalled that her college courses
were “discussion based” and that she did not receive any formal writing instruction. She
said, “We were never formally taught how to write. It was just “here‟s the prompt, “go.”
(Interview, 9/07/07). As for the texts she read, Jackie describes her previous ELA
experiences as traditional, focused on the canon which she described as the works one
would find in the Norton Anthology. Jackie admits that she did not particularly
understand Shakespeare or Milton and connected more with the styles used by ethnic
authors that she encountered in college. Jackie said she connected with the ethnic authors
and texts in ways she did not get anywhere else. She stated that her love is “in things that
are non-traditional because I‟ve always had the traditional.” This last statement
demonstrates the pattern in Jackie‟s prior academic experience with English as a subject
area. Her high school and college training emphasized a traditional approach to English
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as far as text selection and discrete teaching of domains such as vocabulary. Her prior
experiences contrasted with the conceptual and practical tools for teaching English-
Language Arts introduced and modeled at Jennings, in both the methods course and the
student teaching placement.
Jackie‟s interest in teaching stemmed from her love of kids rather than her interest
in the subject area. She said she possibly discovered her love for teaching when taking a
class for the education minor that required field work. After completing her
undergraduate degree, Jackie worked for two years in an elementary school as a
paraprofessional, co-teaching 2nd
grade. She realized during this experience that she
could better use her degree and training with high school students. This led Jackie to
apply to the secondary English program at Jennings.
Joanna Harper, a vibrant, tall, African-American woman in her late 30s, was in
her second year of teaching at Highland High during the year of the study. Similar to
Jade and Janice, Joanna recalled loving to read from a young age. However, in contrast
to the others who had strong family support for literacy, Joanna said her love for
literature was mostly an independent venture and one that her single mother did not know
how to foster.
In high school, Joanna moved into honors classes at the suggestion of one of her
teachers who noted she was not applying herself in the lower tracked classes. Joanna
recalled reading “great stuff” such as Portrait of an Artist and Tess of the D’ubervilles
during her AP courses in her junior and senior year but also admitted that was usually up
late finishing her English papers at the last minute with the aid of Cliffs Notes. In terms
of writing instruction in high school, she recalled getting papers back with grades on
them with no real feedback or “if I got feedback, I ignored it” (Interview, 10/27/07).
Joanna participated in drama and debate while in high school but her involvement was
limited due to her religious affiliation which restricted her from participation in after-
school activities.
In contrast to the other teachers from Jennings, Joanna followed a very non-
traditional path to college and teaching. “I didn‟t go to college like everyone else went to
college. I had nobody else to show me” (Interview, 10/27/07). Due to low SAT scores
and lack of knowledge of the college system, Joanna did not pursue college after not
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getting into the one college she applied to. She married at age 19 and divorced a few
years later. As for her academic trajectory, although Joanna knew she wanted to teach
English due to her love of the subject around age 19, it took her many years to
accomplish this goal. Joanna started working as a legal secretary at age 20. At age 25,
Joanna returned to a community college taking one course at a time. It took her close to
4 years to complete the credits for an Associates degree. Around age 27, Joanna decided
to quit her job as a legal secretary to go to school full time at a community college. At
age 31, she transferred to an academically rigorous and reputable state school, double
majoring in English and Spanish.
Joanna‟s English coursework at the four-year university included traditional
seminar courses on topics such as World Literature or Comparative Literature in which “I
remember the professor lectured, we took notes, and then we spoke with a [graduate
instructor] about the details, our questions and they read out papers” (Interview,
10/25/07). Joanna also noted that “State University is where I first found out I was not a
good writer.” In contrast to the “formulaic five-paragraph essay with the thesis at the
end,” the “State Way” was “kind of a more holistic approach to writing, strengthening as
you go, draft after draft after draft.” While at the school, Joanna recalled an emphasis on
brainstorming and outlining that she now works on with her students but that she
consistently received Bs on all her papers.
After graduating with her Bachelor‟s degree, Joanna worked at a law firm. Two
years later, Joanna entered the Jennings Program to obtain her Masters degree and
teaching credential.
Teacher Education
In contrast to Janice and Jade, Joanna and Jackie varied on their descriptions of
their learnings from the Jennings methods course and student teaching experiences. As
we noted earlier, Jackie mentioned that the model of teaching presented in the Jennings
methods course was very different than the more “traditional” approach to English-
Language Arts instruction she experienced as a student. Reflecting on her methods
course, Jackie admitted that she did not like the course and that she had a hard time with
the assignments. She felt that the course advocated practices that would not work in “real
schools with real kids” (Interview, 9/07/07). Although Jackie had a hard time in the
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program and admitted specific differences of opinion with the program around domains
such as teacher feedback, she also highlighted important and fundamental learnings from
the program that are central to her current practice. Jackie‟s attributions echo the larger
conceptual tools such as explicit instruction and instructional scaffolding and more
practical tools such as the use of rubrics or timed writing assignments for writing
instruction. “I can take something and break it down…Again that‟s something I didn‟t
have before Jennings. I can anticipate [students‟] needs. If I am going to expect them to
do something, always have an example, rubric (they know what her expectations are),
(Interview, 9/07/07). She also stated, “I can teach anything and a lot of that confidence
comes from Jennings.” Even though Jackie was explicit in her complaints about the
course such as the fact that she felt the coursework should have been “differentiated
based on [their] placements,” when asked what she took from the course she said, “I
mean just the process of lesson planning, creating calendar, being organized, calibration-
like calibrating timed writing…” Though hesitant to admit it, Jackie‟s descriptions above
highlight important take-aways from her methods course particularly in the domains of
planning and writing.
In contrast to Jackie who was hesitant to appropriate her current practice to the
methods course, Joanna credited most of her practice to the Jennings methods course.
During the teacher education card sort interview, Joanna stated, “Without [C&I], I would
not have been able to make it through” (Interview, 4/17/08). When prompted to talk
about what she learned, Joanna began, “Tacit learning versus explicit learning. Student-
led discussion which has become one of my core essential teaching practices…Unit
planning which I am still struggling with working on, backwards planning, teaching
drama, teaching Shakespeare…” Similar to Jade‟s description of the methods course
quoted above, Joanna‟s discussion of her take-aways from the course aligned closely to
the main emphases outlined by Dr. James, the Jennings methods course instructor.
Joanna‟s response highlighted domain-specific conceptual tools such as backwards
planning around standards and the importance of classroom discussion. Joanna‟s detailed
description of what she learned from the methods course also implied the appropriation
of practical tools for teaching drama, a self-created unit plan for the commonly taught
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text To Kill a Mockingbird, a commonly taught text, and specific tools for literary
discussions such as literature circles.
Although Jackie and Joanna differed in their acknowledgement of their
knowledge growth in teacher education, in general both teachers attributed the most of
their principal practices to the Jennings course. For Jackie, this was in terms of writing
instruction and planning for instruction. For Joanna, the focal areas of practice were
planning and classroom discussion.
Student Teaching
The student teaching placement is the setting in which Joanna and Jackie
experienced drastic differences as far as alignment to the Jennings course. Jackie
completed her student teaching at Cunningham High, which similar to Clark High
School, had a close relationship with the English methods course at Jennings. Jackie‟s
cooperating teacher, Jessy, was a Jennings alumna with a Ph.D. and Masters in English.
During her time at the program, Jackie‟s cooperating teacher also served as one of co-
instructors for the Jennings “Heterogeneous classrooms” course. As such, Jessy was not
only Jackie‟s cooperating teacher but also her professor. These overlapping roles
provided a reinforcing setting for the conceptual and practical tools presented at Jennings.
However, the overlap in the settings had a negative effect on Jackie affectively. Jackie
stated that the cooperating teacher (CT) made her insecure. “She was my judge, jury, and
lawyer at the same time.” (Interview, 9/07/07). She went on to say, “I always felt like
there was extra set of eyes upon another set of eyes because she was my CT and my
professor.” Even though Jackie shared that she felt uncomfortable and scrutinized in the
placement, she often cited the student teaching setting as where she learned the most
about teaching her subject area.
Jackie‟s student teaching placement with Jessy was in a course similar to the 9th
grade literature and writing course she taught during the year of the study at Highland
High School. In an interview at the beginning of her first year of teaching, Jackie said
she was grateful for the student teaching experience “because it definitely informed this
year” (Interview, 9/07/07). “I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I‟m very
comfortable with the ninth grade class.” As she was teaching the same course at
Highland, Jackie was able to use many of the practical tools from her student teaching
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placement in her new position, making the specific curricular tools boundary objects that
moved from Cunningham to Highland High School.
In contrast to Jackie who had access to many models, practical tools, and
opportunities of enactment for the practical and conceptual tools privileged in the
Jennings program, Joanna completed her student teaching in a mixed 9th
and 10th
grade
Humanities class that was mostly History focused and offered few tools or models for the
teaching of English-Language Arts. In her placement at Justice High, Joanna worked
with her cooperating teacher, Angie, and a team of teachers that were mostly Social
Studies teachers. In describing her student teaching experience Joanna said, “I didn‟t
start learning about real English stuff - I wasn‟t learning real English - I was learning
about doing really good Social Studies activities that obviously transferred into the
English as well” (Interview, 6/09).
When there was more overt attention to English instruction, Joanna shared that
Angie modeled discrete and isolated writing and grammar instruction rather than the
more integrated approach supported at Jennings. In describing Angie‟s practice, Joanna
said, “Angie was sort of teaching discrete skills. On one hand, it was helpful but on the
other hand I can see the harm. She was teaching from separate worksheets which is
something we weren‟t trained to do” (Interview, 6/09). Joanna also noted that Angie‟s
Angie had gone to a specific state college “so she had completely different ideas” about
teaching (Interview, 4/17/08). In her interview data, Joanna noted some tension around
Angie‟s plans which she described as sometimes “outdated” and not language focused.
Although Angie provided few models of the kinds of tools privileged at Jennings,
Joanna‟s placement at Justice High, a professional development school with a close
relationship to Jennings, allowed her the freedom and opportunities to enact what she was
learning without having full responsibility for the class. As such, the object of the setting
was to try out what she was learning in her methods course. Joanna‟s interview data
points to the fact that her cooperating teacher possibly learned about how to better
integrate grammar instruction and titles of alternative texts students might read from
observing Joanna in action. As such, Joanna was not just learning from her student
teaching placement setting but actually changing it.
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Even though the history emphasis in the placement provided limited examples of
English specific tools and models in the student teaching placement, Angie‟s openness to
Jennings practices made the Humanities teaching experience an overlapping activity
setting in which Joanna could approximate the practices and apply what she was learning
at Jennings in a less high stakes environment. In describing the relationship between the
settings, Joanna said, “I was always doing mini-lessons. There was never anything I
couldn‟t do that wasn‟t from C&I” (Interview, 6/09/09). As she had few models and
tools from within the placement, Joanna drew most of her tools from her C&I course.
Right after the previous quote, Joanna said, “I mean I was a fish out of water [meaning
any English thing she did had to be from C&I – her only English specific teaching] so I
just did whatever they [methods course instructors] gave me and whatever I felt
comfortable with – whatever I liked” (Interview, 6/09/09). In contrast to Jackie who
credited most of her tools to the student teaching placement, Joanna repeatedly described
the importance of the work at Justice High School in relationship to the methods course.
Below Joanna talks through the rankings she gave to her field placement and methods
course in the teacher education card sort interview:
Field placement obviously getting the one on one experience…definitely had to
have field placement. But couldn‟t have successfully done or understood what
was going on in the field placement without obviously curriculum and instruction
in my content area which is learning how to teach English and that pretty much
was the best place for me to get it. Everything adds to practice from Curriculum
and Instruction. (Interview, 4.17.08)
Joanna‟s description of the methods course echoes closely the Janice‟s description of the
course.
Jackie’s current school context and practice
In her first year of teaching, Jackie was assigned to teach three sections of 9th
grade Literature/Writing, an ELD course entitled “Global Literature,” and was also
coaching badminton in the Spring semester. Jackie also served as a sponsor for a club
focused on empowering and fostering leadership potential in young women. Having
taught summer school at Highland prior to the start of her first official year of teaching,
Jackie felt very comfortable and like part of the community at Highland when the
academic year started. Similar to the procedure followed with other participants, I
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focused my observations on the 9th
Lit/Writing survey course rather than the ELD courses
for comparability.
During the year of the study, Jackie participated in the first year of Beginning
Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program with a school based mentor, attended
district wide ELD planning meetings and professional development, and went to the
weekly 9th
grade team meetings. When talking about her stance on her departmental
interactions for the first year, Jackie stated, “My main goal for this year is not [to] make
any noise in the department” (Interview, 10.12.07). In expanding on this comment,
Jackie said that she did not feel she had enough expertise to provide insight on what to
do. She had decided to take handouts, process them, and then decide if she wanted to use
them or not which seemed to align with the norms of the Highland department which
presented tools as merely “suggested” activities.
Her practice from her first year of teaching demonstrates that similar to the other
Jennings graduates, Jackie appropriated many of the conceptual and practical tools
privileged in her methods course. However, in contrast to her counterparts, Jackie
attributed most of her learning to her student teaching placement rather than the methods
course. Jackie‟s classroom observation and interview data provide evidence that she
appropriated many of the practical tools used in her student teaching placement and
blended them with selected tools from Highland High School. Although Jackie attributed
much of her teaching practice to her student teaching placement, her interview data also
show that she used conceptual tools from her methods course as general decision rules on
which tools to appropriate from the new setting. This occurred mostly in the domains
(e.g. writing and vocabulary) in which the tools from Highland were in tension with those
emphasized at Jennings and the student teaching placement.
Jackie‟s level of appropriation shows a close implementation of the tools from
student teaching with some adaptation attributed to the current context such as the
incorporation of activities from the “binder” and other Highland teachers. However, the
level of appropriation shows a less developed understanding of the undergirding
principles behind some of the tools such as rubrics than we saw in the practice of Jade
and Janice who were in a highly aligned student teaching placement/school setting. In
addition, Jackie‟s practice again provides evidence of the alignment of weaknesses across
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the settings of teacher education and the student teaching placement, particularly in terms
of practical tools for grammar and vocabulary instruction.
Joanna’s current school context and practice
During the study, Joanna was in her second year of teaching and taught three
sections of American Literature and two sections of 9th
Literature and Writing. As she
had only worked with freshmen and sophomores in the previous year, the 11th
grade
American Literature was her new course during the year of the study. As both courses
were survey courses incorporating both literature and writing similar to those taught by
others in the study, I included and analyzed data from both of Joanna‟s courses.
Within Highland High School, Joanna participated in a number of embedded
settings in the arena of the school including formal grade level team meetings,
department meetings, district selected professional development, and informal
discussions with Jennings graduates in the English department. During her first two
years of teaching, two overlapping/embedded settings Joanna identified as significant for
her practice were a professional Literacy Workshop and her Beginning Teacher Support
and Assessment (BTSA) induction support seminars. According to Joanna, both BTSA
seminars and the Literacy Workshop settings provided her with tools that reinforced tools
that were privileged in the methods course, particularly in the domains of discussion and
reading.
Classroom Practice of Jennings Graduates at Highland High School
Although the two teachers had very different student teaching placements, one
more closely aligned to the methods course than the other and then went on to work in a
less reinforcing school site, both Jackie and Joanna still demonstrated at least a level
basic level of appropriation of the major conceptual tools from the Jennings course. The
classroom observations and interview data revealed an appropriation of integrated writing
and reading instruction with units following the Into/Through/and Beyond model for
instructional units presented in their Jennings course. Both centered their units around
essential questions, that similar to Jade and Janice, were always posted and visible in the
classroom. The teachers often started units with supplemental texts or “Into” activities
modeled in the Jennings such as Anticipation Guides, followed by Through activities
such as reading logs, journals, or diaries, and ending with a culminating writing
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assessment. Although in general there were fewer instances of writing instruction,
Joanna‟s and Jackie‟s lessons still privileged explicitness, a process approach, and the
provision of feedback via rubrics. Both Jackie and Joanna implemented rubrics from
their methods course and/or placement even though Harry, the department head noted
that very few teachers were using the newly created departmental writing rubrics.
The two teachers are notable in that they maintained their Jennings practices even
when in direct tension with tools privileged at the school. This was particularly
significant in the domain of vocabulary and grammar instruction. Although Highland
privileged isolated vocabulary lists and quizzes, both Jackie and Joanna chose instead to
integrate vocabulary usage into daily use, citing the conceptual tool of teaching
vocabulary in context that was emphasized in the Jennings program. Jackie highlighted
this tension in her interview data. When asked about the 9th
grade team meetings, Jackie
responded as follows:
Every time we meet, we go over vocabulary lists. So they want the kids-so you
do a word each day. And then at the end of the week, you give a vocabulary
quiz…I‟ve read Marzano - again it‟s me being Jennings. That‟s not how
vocabulary is [taught]. (Interview, 06/09/09).
Similar to Jackie, Joanna‟s interview data and pedagogical choices demonstrated
a “conceptual override”9 of the isolated and disconnected approach to vocabulary
instruction privileged at Highland. Instead of quizzing students on the words that
appeared in the pre-existing lists, Joanna chose to take the more integrated approach
favored in her methods course, incorporating grammar and vocabulary instruction into
the larger literature-based units. For instance during a unit centered around Cisneros‟
House on Mango Street, Joanna started the unit with a poem entitled “Moving.” Joanna
had students work through the poem in groups of three or four, looking up and defining
words they did not understand that were present in the poem. During the unit on The
Crucible in her 11th
grade class, Joanna mentioned in her preobservation interview that
they would be doing a new thing she called “buzz words” which were intended to “boost”
the students‟ vocabulary. The words would include: bias, objectivity, subjectivity.
9 “Conceptual override” is a term used to describe when a teacher uses the conceptual tool from one setting
in choosing not to appropriate a tool(s) from another setting.
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Throughout the lesson/class discussion, there was evidence of student uptake of the “buzz
words” such as “bias” and “scapegoat” as they discussed the different characters in the
play.
Although there was limited evidence of grammar instruction across both teachers,
this domain again highlighted the importance of conceptual tools from Jennings as a filter
for Highland practices. In talking about her approach to teaching parts of speech, Joanna
stated:
Number one I come from Jennings. I was not trained to teach worksheets, teach it
as discrete, separate I‟ve always been taught to teach it as part of the writing
experience and at this point and juncture in my practice, it – needs to be more
than taking their papers and asking them what they did wrong.” (Interview,
6/09/09).
This quote was remarkable in that discrete and isolated grammar instruction was also
modeled in Joanna‟s student teaching placement. Although she had few models outside
of the course, the Jennings methods course gave Joanna domain specific tools that acted
as a conceptual override of tools in direct tension with the Jennings model.
The example above is representative of an important pattern. There was a
repeated discussion by both Joanna and Jackie of instructional tools that they associated
with “coming from Jennings.” Although Jackie and Joanna had contrasting student
teaching experiences as far as alignment with the methods course, both had a clear sense
of the conceptual tools and enacted a repertoire of practical tools attributable to the
Jennings program. The fact that both teachers carried these tools into the new setting
even when under fire points to the strength of the pedagogies and models utilized in the
methods course.
Although both teachers appropriated tools from the Jennings course, the
differences between the levels of appropriation and consistency of use between the two
teachers relate to the opportunities for modeling and enactment there were available to
Jackie and Joanna in their student teaching placements. For example, Jackie, although a
first year teacher, implemented strong backwards designed units around essential
questions and included careful scaffolding in her writing instruction. There were two
domains for which modeling and opportunities for enactment were present in her student
teaching placement. Jackie was the only teacher in the study that did not use SSR or give
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much attention to reading strategies. Although this was discussed and modeled in the
Jennings methods course, these were not tools or domains that were privileged in her
student teaching placement. As such, Jackie had limited opportunities to see the tools
implemented in a school setting. Similarly, Joanna‟s strengths and weaknesses coincided
with the domains for which practical tools were modeled and enacted in the student
teaching placement. As she was in a history placement, Joanna had more “exposure” to
tools for discussion but less models for scaffolded and writing instruction. I will return to
this issue of reinforcement across settings as a factor for appropriation later in Chapter 7.
In the next section, I explore in depth the features of the course that supported the
“carrying of tools” across the boundaries of teacher education into the school context.
Program Features that Foster Appropriation
Table 5.2 (See page 76) presents a thumbnail sketch of the practices of the
participants of the study over the course of the year. As noted throughout the chapter,
patterns in the classroom practice of Jennings graduates reflect a close alignment to all
the domain-specific conceptual tools and practical tools presented in the teacher
education methods course. The practices and interview data of the four Jennings teachers
demonstrate a pattern in the attributions and practices that align with specific design
features of the course detailed at the beginning of this chapter. This pattern suggests that
tools provided in the context of a methods courses organized around explicit conceptual
tools, providing both conceptual and practical tools by domains of instruction, models,
and opportunities for enactment are more likely to travel to new settings.
In looking across the preparation of the four teachers, we see a consistent
discussion of learnings from the methods course in terms of specific instructional
domains. Three out of the four teachers ranked their methods course as the most
influential on their current teaching of English-Language Arts, placing it before their
student teaching placement. When prompted to discuss the course, Jade, Janice, and
Joanna launched into detailed and domain specific descriptions of the course and its
influence on their practice. All three highlighted the influence on their planning
processes and Jade and Joanna touched on the importance of the discussion unit. The
fourth teacher, Jackie, ranked her student teaching experience as most influential, but
even Jackie who was hesitant to credit her knowledge growth to the methods course,
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admits that the course provided her with both conceptual and practical tools for domains
such as planning and assessment.
Although no causal claim can be made, the teachers‟ attributions and the stark
similarity of tool use across domains and settings speak to the strength of the domain-
specific model of teacher education. Of particular importance in the “things they carried”
were the conceptual tools explicitly stated and modeled for the Jennings candidates. This
was particularly significant in the case of teachers who went on to teach at a school site
that had a less coherent and principled approach to the teaching of English. Joanna and
Jackie‟s discussions of tools they would not appropriate due to their identity as Jennings
graduates pointed to the importance of conceptual tools as decision rules or “filters” for
less than desirable practices in school settings.
The appropriation patterns of Jade, Janice, Jackie, and Joanna also point to the
importance of modeling as a feature that supported boundary crossing/appropriation.
Many of the tools that were modeled in the Jennings course often carried over and were
attributed to the methods course. Table 5.3 shows the use of these modeled tools by
Jennings teachers across both school settings.
Table 5.3 Practical Tools Teachers Attributed to Models from Jennings
Tools Modeled at
Jennings
Clark High School Highland High School
Autobiographical Writing
Task
Jade, Janice Joanna
Gateway Activity on
Imagery
Jade Joanna
Mini-lessons Jade Janice Jackie
Feedback Process for
Writing
Joanna
Booktalks Jade, Janice Joanna
Think-alouds Joanna
Levels of Questions Joanna
Quaker Reading Jackie
Crossing the Line Activity Jade, Janice Janice
Anticipation Guides Jade, Janice Jackie, Joanna
Essential Questions Jade, Janice Jackie, Joanna
Improv Tools for Drama Jade, Janice Jackie, Joanna
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What is interesting to note is that many of the tools were implemented by Jackie
and Joanna in the less-reinforcing setting and most by Joanna who had few models to
draw from in her student teaching setting. As the data suggest that modeling seems is a
powerful tool, it is important to note the features of the Jennings models. The tools
modeled in Jennings class, including conceptual tools such as explicit instruction or
scaffolding, were always explicit in that even if teacher candidates experienced the tools
as students first, it was always followed by a debriefing in which they were asked to
identify and discuss features and applications of the tool as teachers. The thinking behind
model lesson activities was further made explicit by providing teacher candidates with
detailed lesson plans or instruction in which teacher thinking and the parts of the practice
were made clear. The models included not only models enacted by the course instructors
but also videos or artifacts of practice highlighting expert practice. I outline these
features of the Jennings models as they contrast with the models presented in the methods
courses I describe in the next chapter.
One example that is representative of the implementations I saw across teachers
was Joanna‟s appropriation of the booktalks which was modeled by the Jennings course
instructors in the course. During one of the classroom observations, 3 of Joanna‟s
students presented booktalks on texts of their choice. The format for the booktalks in
Joanna‟s class followed the exact structure of the booktalks modeled in the Jennings
course. Joanna even used the exact handout provided in the Jennings course.
The booktalks also highlight another important aspect of the Jennings course that
teachers cited as important. In addition to modeling the booktalks in the course, the
instructors had each of the teacher candidates present and react to a booktalk within the
fall quarter of the methods course. As such, the teachers required teachers to enact the
practices they were learning within the course and often also in their student teaching
placement. Each teacher cited the importance of specific course assignments/enactments
in their development of practice in specific domains. All four teachers, including Jackie,
talked in depth about the culminating unit planning assignment and its importance in their
planning processes. In three out of four cases, the unit plans created for the assignments
became boundary objects in that they were implemented in the new school setting. Jade
specifically cited the importance of the discussion unit and assignment. Joanna also
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noted the importance of the discussion unit as providing her with a principal part of her
practice.
In the next chapter, we will look at the practice of teachers whose formal
preparation to teach English included less domain specific conceptual and practical tools
and opportunities to approximate practices for teaching secondary English classes. In
contrast to Jennings graduates, the Abbott and Bennett graduates demonstrate a broader
range of practices aligning more to their current school setting than their methods courses
or student teaching placements.
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CHAPTER 6 ABBOTT AND BENNETT GRADUATES
In Chapter 6, I provide an analysis of the preparation and practices of Andrea,
Abby, and Barbara who completed their teacher education programs at Abbott and
Bennett State Universities. In contrast to the Jennings graduates whose practices were
fairly similar and aligned to their preparation experiences, the classroom practices of the
Abbott and Bennett graduates aligned more closely to the settings they participated in at
their school settings than their methods course and/or student teaching experiences. I
argue in this chapter that the goal/object to the methods course and division of labor in
these programs for teacher learning prepared teachers to look to outside settings for their
tools, making teacher candidates more vulnerable to the features of the settings within
each school.
I begin the chapter with an analysis of the Abbott and Bennett State methods
course and how the goal and pedagogies contrast with the Jennings course. I then move
into a description of the preparation and practices of Andrea, Abby, and Barbara, noting
the relationship between their current practice and the settings outside of teacher
education in which the three teachers learned to teach. The three cases highlight the
limited learning from their methods courses, the resultant range of teacher practice even
within the same school and program, and the features of both school settings that fostered
or hindered the appropriation of tools for the teaching of English-Language Arts.
Abbott State College and Bennett State University Teacher Education Programs
Abbott State College, where Andrea and Abby completed their teacher credential,
serves approximately 30,000 students annually and is located in the heart of a large urban
area. The secondary program offers both a single subject credential program and an
intern single subject teaching credential. Teachers in the former take classes full or part
time and complete two student teaching experiences under the supervision of a resident
teacher. These experiences include a short five-week placement with three weeks of
teaching and a long-term placement in which teacher candidates teach two
courses/preparations for a semester. Teachers seeking a credential through the intern
program work at least 60 percent as the teacher of the record under the supervision of
coach of an “onsite coach” and a university faculty member while completing their
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coursework. The Secondary English methods course, which serves both the single
subject and intern students, has between 18 and 20 students per semester averaging at
least 36-40 students credentialed each year.
Barbara graduated from Bennett State University, also a large school that serves
approximately 30,000 students per year. In contrast to Abbott, Bennett is located in a
rural area with relationships with local school districts, many of which are under program
improvement and use prescriptive curriculum. The Bennett School of Education offers a
5-quarter credential and MA program. For their Master of Arts in Education degree,
Bennett graduates are required to do a Masters project. The project, completed during
two or more quarters after the credential year, is an inquiry project based on a teacher
research or action research model. Similar to the Abbott graduates, teacher candidates at
Bennett participate in two student teaching placements, one short-term placement, often
at the middle school level., and a long term placement usually at the high school level.10
.
In contrast to the larger, less cohesive structure of Abbott, the Bennett English group
averages 18-20 students annually who move through the program as a cohort, meeting
weekly with their supervisor throughout the year.
Although there are some basic programmatic differences between the programs,
the analysis for this study focuses on the preparation of the teachers for the teaching of
English. In this regard, the two programs are strikingly similar.
Course Instructors
Similar to the Jennings instructors, the Abbott and Bennett instructors had deep
content knowledge and years of experience which they brought into their role as course
instructors. The Abbott methods course had been taught for over twenty years by Dr.
Michael Anderson. Anderson, whose scholarly preparation was mostly in writing
education, said his perspective on English teaching was influenced by important names in
English instruction such as Lucie Calkins and Peter Elbow. In addition to serving as the
methods course instructor, Anderson co-directed the local writing project which provided
writing focused professional development and served as a supervisor for teacher
candidates in the program.
10 Teachers who want to teach middle school might opt to switch the placements and do their long-term
placement at a middle school.
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The Bennett instructor, Penny Barrow, was a veteran teacher from a nearby
school district who came to the position at Bennett 17 years ago through her professional
development connections with the local writing project. In addition to serving as the
methods course instructor, Penny helped place and supervise the Bennett English teacher
candidates in their student teaching placements. Although not of the same academic
preparation as the Jennings and Abbott instructors who held or were pursuing doctorates
in the field, the Bennett instructor had many years of classroom teaching experience and
had served in various support positions for Language Arts teachers in school districts.
Methods Course Structure
Both Abbott and Bennett required that candidates take a series of courses on
general topics such as cultural diversity and literacy development for second language
learners. Similar to Jennings, Abbott and Bennett relegated the specific preparation for
the teaching of English-Language Arts to a subject specific methods course. However,
unlike Jennings, which offered a three quarter course that corresponded with a student
teaching placement, the Abbott and Bennett courses were much shorter and offered at a
time when opportunities for modeling and enactment from the student teaching
placement were limited. In addition to basic differences in sequence and duration, the
Abbott and Bennett courses also contrasted with the Jennings course in terms of the
course goals and the division of labor within the program for teacher learning.
In contrast to the Jennings course goal of providing teachers with domain specific
conceptual and practical tools for teaching English-Language Arts, the Abbott and
Bennett programs had as the goal of the methods course to present broad overviews of
key concepts and processes for the teaching of English. The Abbott course syllabus
stated explicitly that the purpose of the course was to “introduce [teacher candidates] to
classroom practices suited to the teaching of English at the middle and high school levels
in California, with particular attention to working with English Language Learners.”
(Anderson Syllabus, 2008). Similar to the Abbott course, the objective of the Bennett
methods course was for students to “construct a broad understanding of current research
in the teaching of language arts” (Barrow/Bennett Syllabus, 2007).
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Unlike the Jennings course that incorporated readings with models of practical
tools of how the conceptual tools would apply in the classroom, the Abbott and Bennett
courses presented the broad principles or conceptual tools for teaching through a series of
course readings debriefed and discussed through student presentations without
accompanying models of practical tools. Anderson stated that the “basic content” or
“knowledge base” for the Abbott course was supposed to be laid out through course
readings debriefed via student booktalks/chaptertalks (Interview, 4.29.08). The instructor
referred to this the use of booktalks as a “very quick” and “superficial” way to give
students an overview on readings that ranged from chapters from the state standards to
the introductory chapters of a text entitled Shakespeare Set Free containing detailed
practical tools for teaching different Shakespearean works. The Abbott
booktalks/chaptertalks were presented over the course of the beginning three weeks of a
semester long course and were not arranged thematically. The talks were presented back
to back, with as many as 4 presentations in a 2.5 hour class session. During this broad
overview portion of the course, teacher candidates read about tools and concepts such as
literature circles and book clubs, 6 traits writing assessments, and integrating technology
in the English classroom but were not given chances to observe or enact the tools
presented.
Rather than booktalks on texts read by secondary students, teacher candidates at
Bennett were asked to do 30-minute presentations that would “engage the rest of the class
in some activity that [would] illuminate key concepts and understandings from the
assigned reading” (Bennett/Barrow Syllabus, 2007). Although the Bennett class sessions
were organized thematically by focusing on a topic/domain such as “language
development research” or “understanding and applying literature research and theory,”
similar to the Abbott course, conceptual tools were still not accompanied with many
models or practical tools.
Abbott and Bennett’s Division of Labor for Teacher Learning
Similar to Dr. James at Jennings, both Anderson and Barrow stated that teachers
learn to teach through models and that teachers learn to teach by teaching. However, the
three programs took different stances on the responsibility for modeling and providing
opportunities for enactments. Due to the inability to know/control what teachers would
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see in the field, the Jennings methods course instructors strived to provide models and
opportunities for enactment within the methods classroom. In contrast, the instructors at
Abbott and Bennett looked to practicing teachers and peers to provide most of the
modeling and the student teaching placement to be the principal setting for enactment.
Although specialists in writing and reading instruction, Dr. Anderson and his
colleague Dr. Martha Ansell, felt teachers who were currently in the field were better
models of instruction. In talking about how teachers learn to teach, they cited their own
distance from the classroom and highlighted the importance of the “practicing teachers”
for teacher development. Regarding the importance of practitioner models, Dr. Ansell
shared the following:
All of us, [Anderson] and I, and the retired high school teachers [supervisors] are
getting farther away from our high school teaching…nor were [we] necessarily in
the same context. I have said (in reference to ELLS) I want someone who is
working with English language learners right now… (Interview with Anderson
and Ansell, 4.29.09).
In the course of a 17-week course, Dr. Anderson presented one workshop on his
own with activities for engaging students with the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird.
The workshop materials provided an agenda and student reflections on a previous
presentation of the workshop rather than detailed lesson plans. Rather than thoughtful
models such as those presented and debriefed by the Jennings course instructors, the
majority of models and practical tools came from invited practitioners or peers.
Although the presentation by peers and practitioners could have been fruitful, the lack of
debriefing or connecting of the models or practical tools to a larger frame did not provide
novice teachers with a schema for how to categorize or evaluate the tools presented.
Unlike the Jennings instructors who provided thoughtful and detailed models
accompanied with handouts detailing teacher thinking, Anderson invited practicing
teachers into the methods classroom to present a series of workshops on topics such as
“Using Multi-genre writing in the classroom” or “Blogging in the classroom.” The
workshop materials were more focused at the practical tool level and there was no
indication of explicit debriefing either in the workshop materials or in the course
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discussion of how the teacher presentations connected to the course readings and larger
conceptual tools.
In addition to four weeks in which practitioners presented models, there was an
additional five weeks in which peers presented demonstration lessons on assigned scenes
from Romeo and Juliet. The demo lessons presented by Abbott teacher candidates
included lessons by experienced teachers seeking a formal credential after years of
teaching to teacher candidates with no classroom experience. The demo lessons lasted
from 20-40 minutes each with length depending on if students worked in pairs or not.
Anderson stated that he tried to more closely approximate real time practice by placing
up a large clock to indicate “bell to bell” instruction and had the teacher candidates play
assigned roles to create a “mixed ability” 9th
grade classroom. During my course
observations, the presentations moved in scene order through the play and there was no
running conceptual thread through the lessons. This made the presentations another
venue for transmitting practical tools and reinforced the idea of lesson planning over
backwards designing unit plans. The lessons that seemed to be of higher quality were
from teacher candidates who already had extensive classroom experience. Although the
lead activity with the demonstration lessons was to provide an opportunity for an
integrated enactment of course principles, the presentations also served as models of
specific practical tools the teacher candidates could use in their own classrooms. Again,
there was no explicit debriefing of if or how the models drew on course materials or
principles presented in the first 3 weeks of the class.
Similar to Dr. Anderson at Abbott, Penny Barrow at Bennett also felt that
modeling was important and a feature of teacher preparation that was under the purview
of practicing teachers and peers. Barrow‟s response regarding how teachers learn to
teach is below.
I think the modeling and working closely with other teachers is a big part of it…I
would like to think that supervisor feedback is also a part of that but I think
honestly we‟re just a small part really. I think they get a lot more, because they
spend a lot of time with the resident teachers, certainly a big influence. Also
working with peers is a big influence too. (Interview, 5/09/09)
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Rather than bringing practitioners into the methods classroom, Barrow thought
teachers would get models, which in this case seemed to be a synonym for practical tools,
from their student teaching placements and from informal collaboration with peers.
In terms of “learning by doing,” the Jennings course had teacher candidates
approximate practices such as such as facilitating a think-aloud or a classroom discussion
in both the methods course and their student teaching placement. In contrast, the Abbott
and Bennett methods courses were offered before all the teachers in the course might
have had prior teaching experience or a concurrent teaching setting in which to enact
tools presented in the course. Instead enactment was supposed to come as part of the
student teaching placement. The few opportunities for enactment integrated into the
Abbott and Bennett courses gave more attention to the domain of planning. Although this
seems logical given that planning demonstrates an integration of other conceptual and
practical tools in the course, the focus in both the Abbott and Bennett courses were
planning at the lesson level. The Abbott course privileged the Objective, Set, Procedures,
Evaluation (OSPE) structure for lesson planning. The Bennett methods course and the
accompanying seminar course focused their attention and feedback on weekly lesson
plans. The concentrated attention to planning provided graduates with few practical tools
for other domains of practice. Table 6.1 (See page 100) summarizes and provides
additional details on significant contrasts between the methods courses at Jennings,
Abbott, and Bennett.
Summary
The methods courses at Abbott and Bennett provided teachers with a “quick” and
“superficial” presentation of concepts for teaching and few strong and clear models of
how to enact the conceptual tools in practice. The dependence and use of practitioners to
provide practical tools in learning settings where conceptual.tools were not highlighted
implicitly taught Abbott and Bennett graduates to look to their settings for needed tools
and to appropriate practical tools with little attention to conceptual tools. The Abbott and
Bennett courses also did not provide opportunities for enactment beyond the domain of
planning. As such, Abbott and Bennett graduates entered the classroom with few tools
and domains “under their belt” and looking to the school setting for domain specific tools
with few explicit conceptual tools to guide their choices as they moved across settings.
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This course design also did not provide teachers with a basic repertoire of tools should
the school not have a well articulated and privileged set of tools for important domains.
In summary, the two programs did not provide teachers with the basic essentials they
would need as they traveled across settings nor clear principles on how to choose what
tools might be the best for the journey. In the next section, we look at the practice and
preparation of Andrea, Abby, and Barbara, who in contrast to their Jennings counterparts,
attribute most of their current tools to the school setting.
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101
Abbott and Bennett Graduates in School Settings
In this section, I analyze the preparation and practices of the three Abbott and
Bennett graduates. Table 6.2 (below) highlights the principal settings for teaching
learning as identified by the participants. Table 6.3 (See page 102) presents a thumbnail
sketch of the practices of the three graduates as they compare to the school and to the
Jennings graduates. In this chapter, I address three interesting patterns. In general, all
three teachers appropriate many of the tools privileged in the school with little attention
to the quality of the tools. For example, all three appropriate isolated vocabulary
instruction even when their Jennings peers do not. A second notable point is that there
are more gaps by domain in the Abbott and Bennett graduates than in the Jennings
graduates. A third and very noticeable pattern is the contrast between Abby and Andrea.
Although these two teachers completed their coursework at Abbott and then both went on
to work at Highland, they exhibit a range of classroom practice that includes one of the
strongest (Andrea) and weakest (Abby) instantiations of English-Language Arts
instruction in the study. It is here that I start my discussion. After a detailed analysis of
Andrea and Abby, I provide a brief description of Barbara Casper at Bennett as an
additional example of the patterns we see in Andrea.
Table 6.2 Principal Settings for Teacher Learning for Abbott and Bennett
Graduates
Teacher Academic
Preparation
Embedded School
Settings
Principal settings
for current
practices11
Andrea H. BA in English,
Creative Writing
Emphasis
Co-Planning setting
with history
teachers, Team lead
for 9th
grade group,
Literacy Workshop
Literacy Workshop,
Planning with
colleagues
Abby H. BA in English,
minimal training
Mandatory team
meetings
Highland -
Curriculum binder
Barbara C. BA in Comparative
Literature, MA in
Education
Co-planning
meetings with
Judith, Professional
Development on
writing, department
meetings
Co-planning with
existing Clark
curriculum
11 Attributions are from teachers themselves.
102
103
Abbott Graduates at Highland High School
Andrea Haggart, a soft-spoken but confident woman in her midtwenties, was in
her second full year of teaching at Highland High School during the year of the study.
Andrea entered Highland at mid-semester after completing all her credential requirements
and multiple teaching experiences including student teaching placements at two separate
local high schools as part of the Abbott program. Abby Halston, a confident woman in
her early 30s, was also in her second year at Highland during the study. Abby, a second-
career teacher completed her coursework, including her methods course, while working
at Highland. Entering as an emergency hire, Abby entered her own classroom at the time
when she should have been starting her long term student teaching assignment. Similar
to an Abbott intern, Abby received supervisory support from the teacher education
program during her first semester of teaching. The cases of Andrea and Abby highlight
the range of practices that result from a methods course such as Abbott‟s should teachers
move into a school that is equally less-specified or offers tools of varying quality. The
contrast between Abby and Andrea‟s subject matter preparation and prior experiences in
the classroom also suggests how prior learning settings and experiences might influence
what teachers can take from the same school settings.
Apprenticeship of Observation/Prior Experiences with English
Although both Andrea and Abby majored in English, Andrea and Abby differed
greatly in their prior experiences with English with Andrea receiving more explicit
instruction for the process approach to writing and opportunities to enact the types of
critical thinking and analysis privileged in the secondary English-Language Arts
curriculum.
Andrea loved reading and writing from early on in her school experiences. In
high school and college, Andrea specifically described many opportunities to learn to
write within a process approach. For instance, in high school, Andrea spoke at length
about her senior level AP teacher. This senior course was “time [she] remember[ed]
learning to write the most” (Interview, 9/27/07). She noted that the teacher really had her
look at her “writing and the steps of writing.” The AP course also developed Andrea‟s
literary analysis skills. The teacher would have students read poems and write analysis
paragraphs, encouraged students to reduce the length of the writing to encourage
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preciseness. The attention to writing in high school was further supported in Andrea‟s
undergraduate preparation.
After high school, Andrea went to a small, private, and reputable women‟s
college where she completed a degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing.
As the school was so small, Andrea said the professors knew her by name and could
reference specific things she had written. With the creative writing emphasis, Andrea
took a core series of classes that moved students from the short story, to short novels, to
supporting them through their thesis writing in which they had to create/complete a piece
of writing. For Andrea‟s thesis, she revisited a story she had written in 4th
grade and took
it to “it‟s adult phase,” completing a section of it with a longer prologue for the course
(Interview, 9/27/07). In addition to her thesis, Andrea‟s college experiences also
included many opportunities to write the types of interpretive essays she now asks her
students to create. Andrea noted that some of the courses were more mainstream in that
she would read a novel and then write an essay. Of these courses she said, “It was good
and I always felt like I was prepared. [The courses] always pushed me.” She recalled
doing seven or eight drafts of an essay “to make it perfect.” Andrea said she really loved
college because it gave her an “excuse to read and to do what I love with [texts] which is
analyze and write about them.”
Abby‟s description of her prior experiences in English contrasted greatly with the
passion for the content and level of preparation present in Andrea‟s account. Noteworthy
in Abby‟s content preparation is that she attended Highland High School as a student.
Having completed her short and only student teaching experience at Highland, Abby‟s
only model or experience with high school English teaching was the setting she herself
attended. In high school, Abby took the standard courses that are still offered at
Highland. This included courses such as 9th
grade Literature and Writing, American
Literature (Am Lit), Public Speaking, and British Literature. Abby did not take AP level
courses and shared that she did not understand Macbeth and faked reading Canterbury
Tales with the Cliffs‟ Notes in her British Literature course. In talking about her current
teaching, Abby mentioned that she had kept notes from high school she thought might be
useful such as her interactive notes from her high school Am Lit class. “When I actually
taught American Lit last year, I used my notes that I had I taken on F. Scott Fitzgerald
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and based my lecture on that because I figured not a ton had changed” (Interview,
9/25/07). This quote demonstrated that much of Abby‟s thinking of high school English
teaching was predicated on the model she had experienced at Highland and also
highlighted that the setting for her “apprenticeship of observation” overlapped with her
current school setting, perhaps limiting her thinking about practice.
After high school, Abby attended a local community college. Upon completing
her Associates‟ degree, Abby transferred to a larger state university with plans of
becoming an elementary school teacher. Part of the elementary school program at the
state college was to take courses in multiple subjects. At the time she decided she did not
want to teach elementary school and needed to focus on one subject area for her
secondary credential, Abby was taking an English course she liked and as such decided to
major in English. In talking about this decision, Abby said, “I think if I had had a real
inspirational history teacher at that time, I would be teaching Social Studies right now”
(Interview, 9/25/07). Shortly after changing her major, Abby transferred to Abbott State
College where she would later complete her credential. In describing what she
remembered about her literature classes at this school, the teacher said, “I didn‟t like most
of the ones I took at Abbott State College. They were boring and I didn‟t do the
reading.” She went on to say “there w[ere] more people in the Abbott State classes”
which made it harder to have the kind of discussions she had like in her initial college
English course. In talking about her Abbott English experiences she referred to “really,
really old literature” taught through “more lecturing and writing papers and no real
activities.” When prompted, Abby mentioned that she had taken a mandatory writing
class in which they “did a lot of practice before they lead up to the paper” and that every
class had some paper you had to write but that they tended to be more research based.
Abby mentioned few examples of writing assignments and that most assignments
involved turning in one final version which contrasted with the multiple drafts of
interpretive essays mentioned by Andrea in her own preparation. In general, Abby‟s
description of her courses privileged the types of activities and creativity used by the
teacher more so than the content of the courses. In summary, Abby‟s subject matter
preparation reflected a traditional, regular track preparation in high school followed by a
college experience that reflected little interest in literature and weak content preparation.
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Entry into Teaching
Like many of the study participants, Andrea knew she wanted to teach early in
life. She officially decided she wanted to teach language arts in her junior year of high
school and went into college wanting to study English with the explicit notion of being a
teacher. Unlike the other teachers in the study, Andrea had a wealth of experience in
classroom settings before formally entering a teacher education program. Andrea began
teaching in a summer school math program in her junior year of high school. Andrea
worked as a teacher and program assistant for the program serving low-income, urban
youth from high school through college. These experiences, in addition to an
undergraduate teaching internship in a local high school English classroom in which she
assisted for 3-4 class periods (ELD and American Lit) every other day for a couple of
weeks, made her feel ahead of fellow teacher candidates in her teacher education courses
at Abbott.
In contrast to Andrea, Abby did not decide she wanted to teach until college.
Abby entered teaching more for her love of working with children than the subject area.
In her discussion of the teachers she thought were best, one of her criteria was the
teachers care/concern for students. When asked about the kind of teacher she wants to be,
Abby first mentioned wanting her classes to be a little more rigorous but that academics
was not her primary concern. “First and foremost I want [students] to know that people
do care about them…I think I am willing to sacrifice academic rigor in order to make
sure they all know that” (Interview, 9/25/07).
Methods Course
When asked about the methods course, both Andrea and Abby felt the course was
useful as it was the only course specific to English teachers. However, their descriptions
highlighted the limitations of the course structure and the emphasis on practical tools and
student models/enactments of instruction.
Both Andrea and Abby noted that the course provided specific practical tools
mostly for Romeo and Juliet. Andrea shared that the course was useful because
“[teacher candidates] created lessons that [they] could take right into the classroom and
use” around texts they would probably teach (Interview, 4/23/08). Andrea gave the
specific example that the course was focused on Romeo and Juliet “which most [of us]
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had to teach so we were willing to do it.” Abby also commented on the presentation of
materials for a specific text. However in contrast to Andrea, Abby felt the emphasis on
specific texts was less useful or transferable to other settings. In describing the course,
Abby said, “The [course] didn‟t go into specific books other than R&J which I‟ve never
taught…so anything that I got for a specific story is useless to me” (Interview, 4/23/08).
The contrast in these descriptions of the same feature of the course highlighted not only
the difference between teacher candidates and their aims for the course as they related to
their overlapping settings (e.g. did they have to teach Romeo and Juliet?), but more
generally highlighted the importance of debriefing the conceptual tools embedded in the
practical tools for a specific text.
Andrea and Abby‟s interview data also confirmed that the course offered little in
terms of conceptual tools specific to English-Language Arts instruction. When asked
about the conception of good ELA teaching the methods instructor held, Andrea
responded, “Umm it‟s organized, and deliberate, should have high expectations, should
be interactive and engaging, and it should be flexible depending on the students that you
have” (Interview, 5/01/08). When asked if there was a particular approach to reading and
writing supported by the course, Andrea responded, “I don‟t think so. …just like the
same as starting with an outline or pre-write and then doing it and revising it and then
turning in a final.” Although the course was taught by Dr. Anderson, an expert in writing
instruction, Andrea left with mostly a generic picture of English-Language Arts
instruction. The emphasis on generic rather than subject or discipline specific conceptual
tools for teaching was even more evident in Abby‟s responses. In talking about her
subject specific methods course, Abby said, “I mean it was useful but it wasn‟t like „this
is the most useful class I‟ve ever taken in my life‟ so no I guess I don‟t think there‟s too
much to know about ELA teaching specifically” (Interview, 4.23.08). When asked about
her take-aways from the course, Abby responded, “I don‟t know that I took away a lot
specific to teaching English. In some ways, I still feel like I‟m not all that good at
teaching English.”
Both Abby and Andrea also commented on the models of teaching presented in
the course, noting the range of quality in the models presented by their peers which
comprised almost a third of the total instructional time in the course. Andrea and Abby
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noted that the quality of the demonstration lessons for Romeo and Juliet depended on the
prior teaching experience of the teacher candidates in the class at the time. Andrea stated
that the course was not as useful at some points because the teacher candidates in the
class were at different levels of familiarity with the classroom with some teachers being
veterans clearing their credentials alongside “people who had never stepped foot in the
classroom” (Interview, 5/01/08). Abby noted this same pattern and described the quality
of the models as a “crap shoot” (Interview, 4/23/08). She said she was lucky the year she
took the course as many of the people in her class were in the intern program and were
“teaching in some capacity already.” “That was a lot more helpful than people who had
no classroom experience or people who were doing their Phase I student teaching (only 3
weeks in front of students).” Abby went on to say that some of the lessons worked with
adults who were humoring the teacher candidate but would not have worked with high
school students. (This pattern was true of the models I observed in the Abbott methods
course during the year of the study.) Abby stated that the workshop presentation by the
professor and the feedback and evaluation on the student lessons from Dr. Anderson were
useful. She went on to say, “[Anderson] knows a lot but for whatever reason thinks it‟s
better for the students to share…I would have gotten a lot out of a lecture from him if he
had chosen to do that.”
In general, Andrea and Abby‟s interview data support the argument made here
regarding the Abbott methods courses‟ division of labor (emphasis on models from peers
and practitioners) and limited attention to providing conceptual tools for the teaching of
English-Language Arts. There is an inherent irony in that Andrea and Abby felt the
methods course was more useful when experienced teachers were in the course. Their
data points to the need to for explicit debriefing of expert models and the limited role in
teacher learning of novice enactment of demonstration lessons within the methods course
setting.
Student Teaching
One of the notable differences between Abby and Andrea was Andrea‟s extensive
experiences in classrooms prior to and during her credential program. When she entered
teacher education, Andrea said, “I felt like in some ways that I had been doing it
[teaching]…so I felt like I had been in the classroom for about five years by the time I
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entered the teaching credential program” (Interview, 9/27/07). Prior to college, Andrea
had worked as a teacher and program assistant in a summer math program. She began
this job starting from her junior year in high school and continued each summer through
college. In addition to this annual summer experience, during college Andrea had also
interned at a high school in a struggling urban high school, taking primary responsibility
for the class.
As part of her credentialing requirements, Andrea observed and taught in
classrooms of three English teachers in courses ranging from 9th grade to senior level
English courses. In talking about her student teaching placements, Andrea stressed the
range of explicitness, modeling, and practices exhibited by her three cooperating
teachers. Her short-term placement with Penelope at Wilson High School was notable in
that Andrea worked in a “Teaching Academy” in which students in the class were
aspiring teachers. Andrea said that this experience made her more reflective about her
planning process as she and another student teacher had to provide students with the
agenda and rationale for each of their lessons, making their planning process visible to
the students in the class. A second significant placement was Andrea‟s work with Ginny
at Freedom High School. In addition to providing Andrea with a wealth of curricular
resources for texts often taught in the high school curriculum, Ginny would make explicit
the philosophy behind her teaching. As such, Ginny not only provided Andrea with
practical tools but made explicit her thinking about the tools and larger conceptual tools
for teaching. Andrea‟s overall take-ways from the placements included a plethora of
curricular materials for commonly taught English-Language Arts texts and a strong level
of reflection for planning decisions. As for domain-specific learnings, Andrea noted that
all three teachers varied in their use of the writing process with two of the three simply
assigning papers without opportunities for revision. She said that the feedback processes
for writing modeled were “loosey goosey” with teachers generally providing feedback
based on “intuition” (Interview, 6/15/09). Even though Andrea had the most prior
teaching experience of the study participants, classroom observation data and Andrea‟s
attributions of her current tools aligned more closely to the tools privileged at Highland
than to her student teaching placements.
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As noted earlier, Abby‟s only student teaching experience prior to starting as a
teacher at Highland was a short term student teaching experience also completed at
Highland. As part of this experience, Abby observed and worked with a World
Literature12
teacher who was about to retire from Highland. In describing her learnings
from this short and singular student teaching experience, Abby said, “A lot of what I took
away was sort of his personality because he‟s always so calm and so mellow so it was
kind of nice to sort of see that” (Interview, 4/23/08). As part of this student teaching
placement, Abby said she did not have to lesson plan but followed the cooperating
teacher‟s practice of using the curriculum and materials from the Highland 10th
grade
World Literature binder. As such, Abby learned early on to draw indiscriminately from
the existing materials and had few examples and opportunities to plan instruction prior to
entering Highland as the teacher of record. During the time when Abby should have been
student teaching, Abby interned at Highland in both World Literature and American
Literature and admitted that she struggled with planning. She said, “I really stuck to the
binder of curriculum for World Lit that semester.” She continued on to note there was
not a binder for American Literature. “I would wing it. [I ] got some stuff from other
teachers to the extent that I could, some off the internet, [and] just kind of put together
lesson plans that way really” (Interview, 4/23/08). Classroom observations of Abby
during the study confirmed the continued use of the binder as her primary resource for
planning even into the second year of teaching.
Although there was a strong contrast in the number and quality of student
teaching experiences between Andrea and Abby, neither teacher had a placement that
consistently modeled the conceptual tools privileged in the course readings for the Abbott
methods course.
Current school settings
Both Andrea and Abby had a quick transition into their positions at Highland.
Andrea completed her credential in December and was a mid-year hire. Abby was hired
the following fall as an emergency hire two weeks into the school year. Both teachers
admitted a strong dependence on the existing materials/binders (when available) in their
first year of teaching. By the time of the study, approximately two years into their
12 World Literature is the title of the 10th grade English course.
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careers at Highland, Andrea and Abby were involved in very different settings within the
school arena.
Although Andrea‟s primary support when she entered the school was the existing
curriculum, by the time of the study Andrea had moved from a dependence on the binder
to becoming a leader for curricular change at Highland. According to Andrea, she
“like[d] talking about teaching and therefore volunteer[ed] for lots of things” (Interview,
6/15/09). During the study, Andrea was teaching both 9th
Grade Literature and Writing
and a pilot World Studies class. As part of her work on the pilot class which was also
part of an inclusion effort for special needs students, Andrea met weekly with a team of
five teachers which included a history teacher, his/her student teacher, and two special
education teachers. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Andrea was also the team
lead for the 9th
grade team. Her responsibilities as team leader included putting together
the curriculum plan and structuring meeting times. As part of this position, Andrea was
working with the team to reorganize the existing day to day curriculum in the binder
around essential questions and “suggested activities.” During the study, Andrea was also
participating in the Literacy Workshop professional development supported by the
Highland department. I included observations from both Andrea‟s 9th
and 10th
grade
classes as they were comparable to the other teachers in the study.
In contrast to Andrea, Abby participated in few of the settings for teacher learning
that were embedded in the Highland English department. Abby did not participate or
volunteer for positions aside from those mandated by the department. Abby noted that in
her first year of teaching, she seldom left her room or collaborated with other teachers.
During the year of the study, Abby attended only the mandatory departmental and team
meetings. As she was no longer on an emergency/intern certificate, Abby was also in her
first year of support/mentoring through the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment
(BTSA) program. Although BTSA support from John Houston, a Jennings alumnus, was
also a support provided to the other teachers at Highland, Abby was the only teacher who
attributed tools observed during the study to the BTSA mentoring setting. The most
notable feature of Abby‟s current settings was that during the study, Abby had not yet
participated in the Literacy Workshop series that was a central component of Highland‟s
Literacy Initiative. During the year of the study, Abby was teaching 10th
grade World
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Literature and Mythology, an upperclassmen elective course. For the sake of
comparability, I observed Abby‟s 10th
grade World Literature class.
The contrast between Andrea and Abby described here highlights how Highland‟s
emphasis on teacher autonomy allowed for a range of participation in the different
professional development opportunities and settings available at Highland.
Andrea and Abby’s Practice
As noted earlier, Andrea and Abby‟s practice represents one of the strongest and
weakest instantiations of English-Language Arts instruction in the study. Although this
might be related to the differences in their content preparation and interest or prior
teaching opportunities, in this section, I highlight how their individual areas of strength
and weakness align with their professional development experiences at Highland.
In looking back at Table 6.3 (See page 102), we see that Andrea appropriated
many of the tools suggested by the Highland English department. This included tools for
strategic reading instruction, isolated vocabulary instruction, and the use of book clubs
for independent reading. In addition to school practices, Andrea also placed an emphasis
on student-led discussions. Most notably, Andrea‟s practice reflected the school‟s
attention to reading over writing even though Andrea‟s own apprenticeship of
observation included a strong preparation for writing instruction. The most notable
features of Andrea‟s practice were her close attention to strategic reading instruction and
the scaffolding and support for student led-discussions. Both of these were supported
through Andrea‟s participation in the Literacy Workshop and her planning meetings with
the World Studies team.
One of the “staples” of Andrea‟s practice was her strong emphasis on strategic
reading instruction. Andrea used many of the conceptual and practical tools explicitly
addressed and modeled in the Literacy Workshop. Most noticeable was her use of
practical tools directly from the workshop. Similar to Joanna, Andrea used many of the
materials from the workshop to frontload strategy use/instruction in the first few weeks of
school. Andrea also consistently encouraged the use of SSR, metacog logs, and “talking
to the text.” Her close fidelity to the model presented in the workshop is represented in
how Andrea implemented Silent Sustained Reading. Andrea began 9 of her 10 observed
classes with 15 minutes of silent sustained reading (SSR) time, at times modeling the
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behavior herself by sitting at the front of the room and reading a book. After the silent
period of reading, Andrea gave students five to six minutes to write in their “metacog
log.” The “metacog log,” a handout asking students to reflect on their reading process,
was an exact replica of a form in the professional development materials. This
appropriation of tools from the Literacy Workshop was further represented in her
consistent use of previewing and scanning the texts.
The other “staple” of Andrea‟s practice was her attention to student-led
discussion. Andrea attributed this to her work with the history teachers on the World
Studies teachers who privileged tools such as Socratic Seminar but also to the Literacy
Workshop that emphasized the conceptual tool of the importance of student/peer
discussion to improve reading comprehension. Similar to Joanna, Andrea often had
students “talk to the text” and create levels of questions as a way to prepare for in class
discussions. Andrea mentioned that she had been introduced to “fat and skinny”
questions in her methods course but primarily attributed her current use of these more
practical tools such as the levels of questions to the modeling and enactment
opportunities present in the Literacy Workshop.
Although Andrea paid careful attention to reading instruction which was
supported through her participation in the Literacy Workshop, she was less attentive to
writing instruction. As Highland did not have a clear and detailed approach to writing
instruction in either its materials or professional development opportunities, Andrea
followed the general process approach modeled in her undergrad and student teaching
experiences, providing feedback based on intuition. Andrea‟s wholesale appropriation of
isolated vocabulary instruction and lack of tools for feedback on student writing point to
the gaps in her practice for which Jennings graduates drew from the conceptual and
practical tools from their teacher education program.
Abby, who self-reported a lack of rigor and expertise in teaching English-
Language Arts, was generally the weakest teacher in the study. The classroom
observations revealed little in terms of defined practices. The most common and
consistent elements of Abby‟s practice were isolated vocabulary practice, activity
focused instruction, and the use of book clubs all of which were supported through the
disparate practical tools available in the binders. The most consistent practical tool in
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classroom observations of Abby was a “Vocabulary Jeopardy” game which had the goal
of helping students memorize/match words in preparation for their weekly vocabulary
quizzes. Having attended the departmental and team meetings, Abby had heard about the
suggested tools from the Literacy Workshop such as “talking to the text” or “levels of
questions” but had not had access to models or the conceptual tools undergirding the
Literacy Workshop. As such, her appropriations barely captured even the surface level
features. For instance, during one of the classroom observations, Abby had students
create and share their questions about a text on the board. The teacher went through the
questions on the board, not differentiating between types of questions nor providing a
format or structure for students to further their comprehension through discussion and
answering the questions themselves. Her lesson demonstrated a lack of attention on how
to scaffold the creation of questions which was modeled for Jennings graduates and those
who attended the Literacy Workshop.
Conclusion
Both Andrea and Abby reported little content specific learning from their methods
course which implicitly prepared the two graduates to look for practical tools for teaching
within the school setting with no clear conceptual tools to guide their selection. The
emphasis on teacher autonomy at Clark through providing suggested activities through
optional professional development opportunities led to a large range of practice within
the school illustrated most clearly by the large variation between Andrea and Abby.
Andrea is one of the strongest teachers in the study. Although her teaching is
probably supported by her strong content knowledge and numerous teaching experiences
prior to entering teacher education, Andrea‟s attributions of the tools she appropriated
point to the importance of the models and conceptual tools provided in the professional
development settings and resources embedded at Highland High School, specifically the
Literacy Workshop and her collaboration with colleagues. Andrea‟s case is an instance
of where the school setting seems to have generally provided and supported Andrea in
her appropriation of more research based tools for the teaching of English-Language
Arts. Although we cannot know if Andrea‟s appropriation patterns are related to her
strong content preparation or prior teaching experiences, the alignment between her
strengths and weaknesses with the settings she participated at in Highland suggest that
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these embedded settings such as the Literacy Workshop that included an emphasis on
conceptual tools, models, and enactments supported tool appropriation, at least for
teachers with strong content and pedagogical backgrounds.
Similar to Andrea, Abby had limited exposure to practical and conceptual tools
for teaching in the methods course. In addition, Abby had few chances for enactment or
modeling by not completing a long term student teaching placement leaving her even
more susceptible to the tools available at the school site. The emphasis on individual
autonomy over clear and coherent support for specific tools within the Highland
department allowed for Abby to not appropriate Highland‟s suggested tools. Abby‟s
case highlights the limitations of depending on the school as the primary setting for
learning to teach in one‟s subject area, particularly when the opportunities for
professional development are optional. Although we cannot know if Abby would have
demonstrated tool appropriation had she participated in the same embedded learning
settings as Andrea, her data reveal that the school features at Highland are fostering a low
level of appropriation of weak tools for teaching for a teacher who self-admittedly has
few subject specific tools for practice and a weak content preparation.
An additional pattern to consider is the alignment between Abby and Andrea‟s
weaknesses and how they align with the domains addressed in the settings where they
learned or are learning to teach. Abby and Andrea‟s weaknesses in the domain of
vocabulary and writing point to the gaps in their methods course preparation and the tools
available in the school setting. In contrast, Jennings graduates at Highland could draw
from the conceptual and practical tools from their teacher education program when there
was a domain related gap (e.g. writing instruction) for practical and conceptual tools at
the current school setting.
Bennett Graduate at Clark High School
In this last section, I provide a brief description of the case of Barbara Casper to
further illustrate patterns highlighted above. Barbara, a tall, confident woman in her mid-
twenties, came to Clark the year of the study after completing her first year of teaching at
a middle school within the same school district. Similar to Abbott graduates, Barbara‟s
tools reflected more closely the approach to English-Language Arts instruction at Clark
than those of her student teaching experiences or methods course. Barbara‟s
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appropriation of the Clark tools were facilitated by the setting of co-planning in which a
Jennings alumna shared and debriefed the practical tools used in the department.
Apprenticeship of Observation
Similar to most of the teachers in the study, Barbara‟s trajectory to teaching
included a strong content preparation in English-Language Arts. Although she began her
English studies when she immigrated to the US from Russia towards the end of the
second grade, by high school, Barbara was enrolled in the International Baccalaureate
program at her school. After high school, she went on to major in comparative literature
at a competitive state university working with texts in Russian, French, and English.
Barbara noted that her college courses followed the standard format of “read the book,
lecture, and then write analysis” (Interview, 9.12.07). In her freshman and sophomore
years in college, Barbara took seminar classes in which they taught you how to write. In
these classes, “the professor would actually sit down and go over with you what you did
well and not so well.” Like many of the other participants, Barbara experienced a fairly
standard English curriculum, with the assignments and courses privileging literary
analysis and interpretive essays.
Entry into Teaching
Barbara stated that her interest in teaching stemmed from the fact that she loved
literature and working with children. Barbara began taking coursework in education
during her sophomore of college. In speaking of this coursework, Barbara only discussed
one course in particular on advanced composition writing that was more of a writing
course that had to be focused on an issue of language. A more directly related experience
was that prior to entering teacher education, Barbara spent the year teaching English in
France.
Methods course
Similar to the Abbott graduates, Barbara‟s descriptions of what she learned in
teacher education were not very detailed nor very content specific. When asked what she
learned from teacher education, Barbara responded, “Just how to design curriculum,
how/when to call a student out and sometimes let it go, just sort of that playing the
teacher role” (Interview, 9/12/07). Barbara stated that the methods course “taught
[them] how to create lesson plans, how to keep standards in mind and the goal in mind.”
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Barbara said that the methods instructor‟s image of good English-Language Arts teaching
would be one in which “everyone would be involved” and where the teacher would
“catch everyone because in a big class everyone‟s at a different level.” In addition, the
methods course instructor‟s image of good teaching included the fact that the teacher
should be able to relate to everyone and should know how to teach the various standards.
Although these responses alluded to English specific topics such as how to teach to the
different standards or connect literature to students‟ lived experiences, Barbara did not
mention any specific or practical tools presented in the course. In contrast to the detailed
descriptions given by Jennings graduates also in their second year of teaching, Barbara
said she could not remember what had been taught in each course in her teacher
preparation.
Student teaching
Barbara‟s teacher preparation experience included two student teaching
placements. According to Barbara, her short term placement in the fall at a middle
school was not “a very good experience just based on the master teacher” (Interview,
9/12/07). “My master teacher was I think mentally not there. She made me go in front of
the class but then when it was supposed to be my unit, she would have to regain her
authority always…and I mean yeah, it was not very good” (Interview, 5/21/08).
Barbara‟s second student teaching placement was a long term placement at a large
comprehensive high school that was under program improvement status. This placement
was a dual placement in an ELD class and a junior level American Literature class. The
experience, though providing with her extensive teaching experience for the full Spring
semester, did not provide her with much modeling or feedback from her cooperating
teachers. She describes her long term placement below:
Now my long term placement, both of the teachers are like – „oh you‟re doing a
great job!‟ and that was it. It was like a free time for them so I didn‟t really get
advice. That helped me with the projects I had to do for school but there was no
like real observation – „here‟s what you‟re doing well…, here‟s where you‟re not
doing so well...” “Oh well you‟re a natural. Go ahead.” (Interview, 5/21/08)
The methods course instructor/supervisor, Penny Barrow, noted that during her
long term placement, Barrow placed Barbara with a young “strong” teacher but as
“Barbara didn‟t need much” they “just let her go” (Interview, 5/09/08).
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In addition to lack of teacher modeling or feedback, the long-term placement also
did not provide Barbara with the opportunity to create or enact original units. Both the
ELD and American Literature classes were textbook driven. For her ELD class, Barbara
said, “There was a textbook. I just worked from the textbook” (Interview, 5/09/08). As
for the American Literature class, Barbara shared that she had to use prescribed
curriculum because the school was “government regulated.” Barbara had to teach from
the HOLT textbook and outside literature included The Crucible and To Kill a
Mockingbird. When asked what she took from this experience in terms of teaching
English, the teacher responded, “I‟m sure I took a away a ton. What exactly? I‟m not
sure.” When prompted again to talk about the focus of the English-Language Arts
program she was doing with HOLT, the teacher responded that the focus was “just the
standards…We had a research unit, we had a literature unit.” This prescribed curriculum
contrasted greatly with the text/theme based curriculum Barbara would encounter at
Clark High School.
Similar to her discussions of her methods course, Barbara‟s interview data on her
placements revealed more general take-aways regarding teaching. This does not preclude
the possibility that Barbara was exposed to particular tools for Language Arts teaching
but does reveal that these were not significant experiences for the teacher candidate.
Current School Context
As noted earlier, Barbara began her teaching career teaching in a middle school
whose students would feed into Clark High School. She reported getting little help or
support at the school beyond “a binder with a skeleton of what she should be doing”
(Interview, 5/09/08) and support from a literacy coach that gave her some reprieve from
teaching as she was finishing up her Masters project for Bennett. When asked about what
she took from working with the literacy coach, Barbara replied that she had taken a lot
from the experience but could not describe any specific conceptual or practical tools.
During the year of the study, Barbara was in her second year of teaching but her
first year at Clark High School. Her job assignment included teaching a year-long 9th
grade honors class, and semester long Mythology and Expository Writing courses.
Barbara was given curriculum on CD for her expository and mythology classes. As per
the departmental policy, Barbara worked with Jenny, a veteran teacher and Jennings
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alumna, to plan for the 9th
Honors class. Also per departmental policy, Barbara
participated in the district inservice in which the teachers calibrated the district wide
writing assessment. Barbara also attended the English specific professional development
opportunities arranged by Susan that focused on topics such as writing instruction and the
use of art in the classroom. In contrast to the more open curriculum at Highland, the
semester exam and the district wide writing assessment were common assessments used
at Clark that influenced teachers‟ choices of themes and texts and assignments.
In the final card sort activity, Barbara mentioned that she had learned and
developed the most in her practice from working with her colleagues and from her own
teaching. The pre- and post-observation interviews revealed that the most significant
activity setting as far as observed practices was her co-planning setting with Jenny.
During these weekly meetings, Jenny would discuss lesson plans and share instructional
materials with Barbara. The handouts and materials passed on to Barbara by Jenny gave
the new teacher access to materials created by colleagues, many of which were created by
Jennings graduates. Through these meetings, Barbara mentioned learning about many
practical tools she had not been exposed to before like Socratic Seminar or reading logs/
dialectical journals. This sharing of practical tools was also accompanied with
opportunities for modeling and more explicit explanation of the tools used. For example,
when sharing materials for the Of Mice and Men unit, Jenny provided Barbara with an
accompanying handout detailing the thinking behind a Socratic Seminar and offered to
have Barbara come and observe her enact the tool. The norm of collegiality extended
beyond the co-planning setting. In addition to watching Jenny, Barbara was also
encouraged to observe other teachers such as Susan, the department head, for important
lessons or activities such as how to teach “show, not tell” writing. Rather than simply
having access to the practical tools as was done through the Highland binders, the co-
planning setting and the norm of collegiality provided Barbara with access to the thinking
behind the tools and when possible modeling of the tools.
Barbara’s Practice
As noted above, Barbara taught three different courses in her first year at Clark.
In order to maintain comparability with teachers both within and across school sites, I
focused on the data from the 9th
grade English course. The nine classroom observations
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spanning three different units revealed that Barbara was moving away from the isolated
and anthology based instruction she enacted in her student teaching placement to
instituting many of the conceptual and practical tools outlined by Susan as privileged
tools at Clark. This included journal writing, carefully scaffolded and integrated writing
instruction replete with models, teaching around full texts, and supporting “reading for
pleasure” through providing time and reading logs for Silent Sustained Reading. These
were the tools that were made explicit through the practical tools shared and explained by
Jenny through the co-planning setting and mandated for use by the departmental norms.
Below I describe one unit to illustrate Barbara‟s appropriation of many of the conceptual
and practical tools at Clark.
“Of Mice and Men” as a Representative Unit
When asked about what she had taken into considerations for the unit around Of
Mice and Men, Barbara noted that the focus for the unit and the lessons observed was
characterization and setting. She said she had chosen this because the relationships
between characters were crucial and related to the features of the setting such as
stereotypes and racism. Barbara also mentioned that the planning considerations
included the standards and the emphasis on literary analysis in the ninth grade. When
asked where she got the ideas for the lessons observed, Barbara noted that she had
planned her unit with Jenny. Unlike Abby at Highland who was unable to say much
about her planning process, Barbara could explain the thinking behind the backwards
design of the unit and the emphasis on character and setting.
The unit plan followed closely the Jennings model for unit planning, moving from
Into activities in which Barbara had students read shorter texts by Steinbeck and
background readings about the time period. Right before starting the novel, Barbara had
students complete an “Anticipation/Reaction Guide” in which students recorded their
opinion on themes/topics that would arise in the novel. Similar to the pattern in the units
of Jade and Janice, the two Jennings teachers at Clark, Barbara‟s unit carefully integrated
reading and writing and scaffolded students towards the final writing goal, a literary
analysis focused on characters and setting. While reading of the novel students were
asked to complete an assignment entitled “Follow that character!” Students were to keep
a “passage and response” journal on three characters in the novel noting quotes that
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provided responses to questions such as “What does the character look like” or “what do
others say about the characters.” The directions stated that the assignment would then
help students to “complete a larger chapter study project and a final literary analysis
paper” (Casper Course Materials, 2008). Later in the unit, students were asked to do a
close analysis of two related excerpts from the text describing Curley‟s wife at the
beginning of the novel and later in the text. The directions drew students‟ attention to
Steinbeck‟s choice of words to prejudice or encourage sympathy in the reader for the
character. Students then filled out a guided paragraph in which the sentence starters cued
students to discuss how Steinbeck portrayed the character differently in the two passages.
For homework, students were to find and analyze another pair of excerpts on a character
and write another paragraph, independently this time. The entire activity and homework
assignment was a preparatory exercise for the final assessment for the unit, a literary
analysis on characters in the novel. Students in Barbara‟s class moved through the full
writing process from prewriting to publishing with the literary analysis paper.
Barbara‟s unit on the Steinbeck text also included a Socratic Seminar around the
question “Was it ethical for George to kill Lenny?” Students spent the day prior
preparing for the seminar by looking at texts that discussed the definition of ethics and 5
different sources of ethical approaches and whether ethics can be taught. The day of the
discussion, the journal prompt was for students to write about how they were going to
participate in the discussion. Prior to starting the discussion, Barbara debriefed the
journal responses and reminded students briefly about language to use and norms for
participation. After the discussion that lasted eleven minutes, students returned to their
seats. The teacher then provided a few comments on the process and content of the
discussion before having students fill out a reflection on their participation in the
discussion. Though not expert, Barbara‟s facilitation included attention to language and
an opportunity for reflection that was common to the teachers at Clark.
The Of Mice and Men unit reflected closely the backwards design and integrated
and scaffolded instruction for writing privileged at Clark High School. Although
Barbara‟s practice demonstrated a lower level of appropriation of the tools in that she was
mostly using artifacts from previous years, her ability to describe the purpose of the
activities and implement them in a logical and coherent manner demonstrated that the co-
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planning setting and other supports within the department was supporting a fairly strong
appropriation of the main conceptual and practical tools privileged at Clark. This is
notable given the lack of previous models or opportunities for enactments of these tools
in Barbara‟s preparation experiences.
Summary of Abbott and Bennett Graduates
The cases of Andrea, Abby, and Barbara highlight that all three attributed little of
their current tool use to their methods course and instead looked to the school settings for
tools for the teaching of English-Language Arts. For Andrea and Barbara, the models
and practical tools with a strong conceptual foundation available through the professional
development and co-planning led to a strengthening of practice. In contrast, Abby, who
did not choose to participate in settings that provided models and conceptual tools,
appropriated the weak tools available through the Highland binders. Although the
contrast between Abby and the other two teachers in terms of content preparation and
teaching experiences may explain some of the variation, this drastic contrast in outcomes
of the three teachers points to the need to better understand the features both within and
across settings that can better prepare teachers before and after teacher education.
The fact that Barbara and Andrea‟s classroom practice begins to resemble that of
the Jennings teachers even though their preparation experiences were so different
suggests that it is not where teachers are introduced to tools but the context of learning
around the tools themselves that are worthy of focus. The following chapter looks across
all seven cases to better understand what features within and across settings can support
tool appropriation.
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CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION OF CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS
In Chapters 4-6, I outlined the practices of the seven teachers in terms of their
preparation to teach in both preservice and inservice settings. I highlighted key features
of the two school settings, Clark and Highland High School, that hindered or fostered the
appropriation of privileged tools for the teaching of English Language Arts. In Chapters
5 and 6, I focused on features of the methods courses at Abbott, Bennett, and Jennings
and the relationship of the learning features of the program setting with the patterns of
appropriation demonstrated by their graduates.
In this chapter, I further explore the patterns highlighted in previous chapters by
looking across the various settings in which teachers learned to teach and discussing in
more depth the features that fostered the “carrying” of tools into the classroom. The
chapter begins with a description of features that occur within settings focusing mainly
on the importance of conceptual tools, transparency, modeling, and enactment in teacher
learning and development. The latter part of the chapter presents features of learning
across settings that fostered deeper levels of appropriation of tools in beginning teachers
both within and across domains for the teaching of English-Language Arts.
Within Setting Features that Foster Tool Appropriation
In looking across the seven cases, teachers attributed most of their current
instructional tools to three principal settings in the study: the Jennings methods course,
Clark High School, and the Literacy Workshop professional development offered to
teachers at Highland. Table 7.1 highlights that there were four features that were
common to these three settings. These four features included a foundation of conceptual
tools, the use modeling as a principal pedagogy, transparency around the rationale or
implementation of artifacts of teaching, and a requirement for enactment either within or
in an overlapping setting. The shaded rows indicate the settings in which all participants
attributed tools the setting. In each of the sections that follow, I give examples from both
preservice and inservice to illustrate how these features are present across both teacher
education and school settings and how these instantiations may differ by setting.
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Foundation of Conceptual Tools
In Chapter 2, I defined “conceptual tools” as “principles, frameworks, and ideas
about teaching, learning…that teachers use as heuristics to guide decisions about teaching
and learning” (Grossman, Smagorinsky, Valencia, 1999, p.11). In this study, I use the
term to refer to the larger conceptual tools presented in the various settings such as
instructional scaffolding or backwards design but also to refer to the domain-specific
principles presented in the various settings such as a process approach to writing or a
metacognitive approach to reading instruction.
The emphasis on conceptual tools was particularly visible in the Jennings
methods course. Dr. James, the lead instructor at Jennings, described the course in terms
of the two foundational principles of instructional scaffolding and explicit instruction.
She also then outlined the domain specific principles for each unit such as “teaching
grammar in context” or the need to scaffold students to participate in classroom
discussions. The primacy of conceptual tools for teaching was made visible not only
through course readings and discussions but was additionally supported through the
instructors‟ consistent and explicit attempts to connect course models and tasks to the
larger overarching conceptual tools. For example, in their lesson plans, Jennings
instructors cued themselves to remind students of the main conceptual takeaways from
class tasks and assignments. In talking about strategic reading instruction, the instructors
included a note in their plans to stress “the fact that the special purview of Secondary
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English teachers” was to “teach students how to read and understand the art of literature”
(Jennings Lesson Plans, 2007). Immediately following the explanation of the special
purview of teachers to teach students how to make meaning of literature, the instructors
explained how the think-aloud assignments was connected to this larger concept/heuristic
for thinking of English teaching. In addition to verbal connections, the course materials
such as course assignments explicitly connected the task to the larger conceptual tools by
including rationales in the written assignment descriptions. In addition to this written and
verbal connection of theory to course activities, Jennings further privileged theory
through the process of providing models to show how conceptual tools can be
transferred/applied in the classroom.
As far as teachers‟ practice, the importance of the conceptual tools was most
visible in areas where there might be tensions across settings regarding privileged tools.
As noted in Chapter 5, both Jackie and Joanna noted that they chose not to appropriate
the tools for isolated vocabulary instruction privileged at Highland referring back to their
identity as “Jennings graduates” who had been taught that grammar and vocabulary
should be taught in context. Instead Jackie and Joanna chose to integrate academic terms
and vocabulary into their classroom instruction. For instance, during the unit on The
Crucible in her 11th
grade class, Joanna mentioned in her pre-observation interview that
they would be doing a new thing she called “buzz words” which were intended to “boost”
the students‟ vocabulary. Throughout the lesson/class discussion, there was evidence of
student uptake of the buzz words as they discussed the different characters in the play.
Jackie also chose not to use the vocabulary lists and quizzes in the binder choosing
instead to use academic terms more consistently in the context of class discussions of
literary texts. Jackie and Joanna‟s discussion of this choice highlighted an instance of
how explicit principles for instruction worked to provide a conceptual override of
incongruent practices as teachers moved across settings.
Similar to the Jennings course, the Literacy Workshop also explicitly highlighted
the conceptual basis of the practical tools they presented throughout the course. The
course readings and supplementary materials made clear the “apprenticeship framework”
undergirding the course, defining and highlighting the importance of metacognitive
conversations in the classroom and the importance of “making the invisible visible.”
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Similar to the Jennings course format, the modeling of practical tools for teaching were
modeled/nested within units on broader topics such as schema or questioning. The
materials and agendas from the Literacy Workshop demonstrated the primacy of theory
and conceptual tools for teaching both in the written materials in the organization of the
professional development meetings themselves. For example, the materials in the
Workshop binders were organized around concepts rather than just being a resource
binder full of plans for lesson activities.
The emphasis on the larger concepts in the workshop was evident in the way
Andrea and Joanna discussed their practice. For example, when talking about the
influence of the Literacy Workshop and tools such as the levels of questions, Andrea
stressed how this connected to helping students “create their own meaning.” Andrea‟s
practice, such as her consistent use of tools such as scanning and previewing and having
students share strategies, provided evidence of her understanding of the larger conceptual
frame of metacognitive conversations. For Joanna and Andrea, these conceptual tools
supported teachers and particularly, Andrea, as she decided which tools to use and how to
adapt them for use in her classroom. For example, Andrea noted in later interviews that
she did not think she would use all the materials from the course again at the beginning of
the year, but appropriated the more overarching concept of the importance of student talk
for comprehension which she incorporated through the use of the questions to foster
student discussion in both small and whole group formats. As such the conceptual tools
from the workshop were helping her negotiate how to re-contextualize the tools from the
course within the school setting.
“Model Models”
All three methods course instructors privileged modeling as a pedagogy for
teacher learning as did the Literacy Workshop. However, classroom observations and
teacher interview data revealed that the modeled tools that were appropriated were mostly
attributed to the Jennings methods course and the Literacy Workshop. In this section, I
describe the combination of features that comprise what here is referred to as “model
models.” In contrast to the models presented at Abbott by practicing teachers or near
peers, the models that most supported appropriation were enacted by experts, were
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explicitly connected to the conceptual tools for teaching Language Arts, and were “ready
to carry” directly into the classroom.
One of the distinguishing features of models in the Jennings course and the
Literacy Workshop was that they were enacted by experts. In contrast to the Abbott
course that privileged demonstration lessons presented by near peers, the Literacy
Workshop and Jennings instructors presented the models themselves, having teacher
candidates experience the tools as students before asking them to debrief the tool as a
pedagogical tool. Although the Abbott course also had practicing teachers who worked
with the local writing project present workshops for the beginning teachers, data did not
indicate that the practical tools were actually modeled/enacted within the methods course
or connected to conceptual tools as was the case with Jennings models and the models
presented in the Literacy Workshop. The primacy of conceptual tools was not
highlighted in the Abbott discussions and was more left to chance in the Bennett course
design which relegated models of practice to the student teaching setting. It would be
dependent on the cooperating teacher‟s approach to mentoring whether teacher
candidates would be supported in connecting theory or conceptual tools to the pedagogies
and practical tools modeled in the classroom. The problem with this approach is visible
in Barbara‟s case in which she actually had few opportunities for modeling or feedback in
either her short or long term placement. The enactment by experts allowed for a
thoughtful connection to the conceptual tools of the program which is another feature of
“model models.”
In contrast to the practical tools presented and modeled in the Abbott methods
course by peers which were not explicitly connected to the larger principles presented in
the first three weeks of the course, the models at Jennings and in the Literacy Workshop
were always presented as examples of practical tools that helped teachers better
understand how to enact the conceptual tools in the classroom. In the Jennings course,
the models were embedded in domain specific “units” that were organized around very
explicit conceptual tools for the teaching of Language Arts. For example, the modeling
of a think-aloud occurred after students had read about the importance of explicit strategy
instruction for students for whom the invisible process needed to be made visible. In
another lesson, the Jennings instructors presented a model of a mini-lesson on active and
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passive voice. The mini-lesson model was a practical tool that could be used as a way to
teach grammar in context of a larger instructional unit. The modeling followed course
readings and discussions of excerpts from Constance Weaver‟s text Teaching Grammar
in Context. This same pattern occurred in the Literacy Workshop. The sessions were
divided into topics and the models presented within those topics. The continual emphasis
on the core topics kept the conceptual tools in the foreground.
A third common feature of the models that were appropriated across settings was
that they were “ready to carry.” Being “ready to carry” included two central features.
One aspect of being “ready to carry” was that the concepts and texts used for models
were those that were common to most high school curriculum or reading levels. For
example, the Jennings course model lessons were around topics such as active and
passive voice or involved texts such as Kate Chopin‟s “Story of an Hour” or Charlotte
Perkins Gillman‟s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Literacy Workshop provided teachers
with model lessons and activities that were set at reading levels appropriate to high
school classrooms. Teachers could take the materials directly into the classroom to help
students identify and practice needed reading strategies. For example, Joanna used a
reading selection on a famous Native American hero directly from the Workshop to work
on reading strategies with her 11th
grade students. In addition to being closely related to
the content taught in high schools, “ready to carry” materials were also representations of
practice that gave more access to the teaching thinking and moves needed to implement
the practical tool. For example, the Jennings instructors always provided teachers with a
lesson plan outlining the steps and needed resources for an activity or unit. The
lesson/unit plans were this created to be boundary objects that would help teachers recall
not only the steps of the activity but the embedded conceptual components of the model.
This was also true of the Literacy Workshop materials given to the participants.
To better illustrate the features of a “model model,” I now turn to the Jennings
model of a mini-lesson. After discussion of readings on teaching grammar, one of the
course instructors role-played a mini-lesson on the active and passive voice in the context
of the methods course. The teacher candidates played the role of the students. The
instructor presented a mini-lesson on active and passive voice that started with a hook
and carefully moved students from a hook to independent practice. After the lesson, the
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instructors debriefed the mode, focusing on how the model connected to the discussion of
teaching of grammar in context and the conceptual tool of scaffolding. Teacher were
then given a handout of the lesson plan as a resource. The lesson plan was organized
around the following headings:
I. Provide a Hook to Introduce the Grammatical Concept to Students
II. Offer Positive and Negative Examples of the Grammatical
Concept
III. Come to a Clear Definition of the Grammatical Concept
IV. Offer an Opportunity for Guided Practice of the Grammatical
Concept
V. Provide Opportunity for Independent Practice of the Grammatical
Concept
VI. Offer Suggestions for Use of Grammatical Concept in Future
Work
(Jennings Lesson Plans, 2005)
Under each heading, the instructors provided an example appropriate to a mini-
lesson on active and passive voice. For example, the hook was a passage written in
passive voice. After this, the plans provided questions to foster student discussion of the
passage. The third step was provide an example of an active-voice passage from a
Stephen King novel. In this discussion of defining the terms, the instructors cued
possible areas of student confusion, areas to focus on, and the use of a definition from a
resource text. Step 4 was to have students practice sentence transformations of two
sentences from passive to active voice. Then students were asked to transform an entire
paragraph on their own. Finally the teacher would give the students an opportunity to
incorporate the structure into their own writing. The handout given to the teacher
candidates described not only the steps of the lesson but used headers that made clear the
structure of a mini-lesson, the clear connection to the conceptual tool of scaffolding, and
the practical tools that could be used for this specific lesson. The handout also made
clear the importance of anticipating and adjusting for student misconceptions and
connected to the larger conceptual tool for the domain of teaching grammar in context.
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The Jennings mini-lesson had the three components of being enacted by an
expert who connected the practical tools to the larger conceptual tools, and was “ready to
carry” in that it focused on active and passive voice which is a topic that is often taught in
secondary writing, and was accompanied by a handout that made clear the structure of
the practical tool and how and why to use it. Both Jade and Janice enacted mini-lessons
that followed this careful structure of scaffolding within their own classrooms on a
different grammar topic indicating not just the use of a practical tool but a higher level of
appropriation that could modify and adapt the mini-lesson tool presented at Jennings.
As noted above, the Literacy Workshop was similar in that the professional
developers often modeled an activity in class and then provided participants with a
materials binder included clear, step by step descriptions of how to implement practical
tools such as fishbowl or levels of questions. The descriptions of specific practical tools
came only after a description of the larger conceptual tool and included a section entitled
rationale. For example, one of the handouts for the Literacy Workshops was entitled
“Modeling and Practicing Think-aloud with Text.” This handout was part of a larger
packet on “Metacognition: Making Thinking Visible” The description of the purpose
included how the lesson fit into a scaffolding process for moving students from talking
about thinking to using metacognitive conversation with academic tasks. The handouts
from the Workshop contrasted greatly with the handouts collected from Dr. Anderson‟s
workshop on To Kill a Mockingbird that listed the practical tools involved but did not tie
the model back to larger conceptual tools or provide the rationale for particular decisions.
Instead, Anderson‟s materials provided models of the reflections on the workshop from
candidates of previous years which was seemingly included to help teacher candidates
craft their own written reflection.
The purpose and features of the “model models” presented in the Jennings
methods course and the Literacy Workshop played out differently in the context of a
school setting. I describe this below.
Transparency in and Around Artifacts from Practice in School Settings
In the section above I described how Jennings instructors and the Literacy
Workshop used models to help teachers see and understand how to enact practical tools
for the teaching of English-Language Arts in the context of larger conceptual tools. The
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important features of “model models” that helped teachers connect practical tools to
conceptual tools and helped teachers get a sense of how to enact tools were provided at
Clark through the transparency in and around artifacts of practice. The Clark approach to
reading and writing instruction was clearly visible in the departmental materials such as
course syllabi, privileged tools such as reading logs and student writing portfolios, and
the professional development opportunities that presented practical tools for supporting a
process approach to writing. The conceptual tools of instructional scaffolding for writing
and integrated reading and writing instruction were encapsulated in the existing
curriculum materials. For example, the handouts for Barbara‟s Of Mice and Men unit,
described in more detail in Chapter 6, included assignment sheets for collecting quotes on
characters and worksheets that moved students from working as a whole class in
discussing Steinbeck‟s word choice to a guided practice opportunity in which student
filled in sentence frame to create an analysis paragraph on Steinbeck‟s description of the
characters. The handout ended with a homework assignment to select and write about
contrasting quotes independently.
Although Andrea was able to use the handouts, it is clear that the co-planning was
also supportive of tool appropriation. Abby, who had access to the Highland binders,
was not able to articulate the thinking behind or even expertly wield discrete and
disparate tools for instruction. In contrast, Barbara who was a first year teacher at Clark,
was able, with the explicit debriefing of the practical tools provided by her co-planner,
Jenny, to describe the backwards design of her units and her implementation carefully
scaffolded students towards the larger unit goals and assessment. As noted earlier, the
co-planning meetings were collegial settings that went beyond the simple hand off of
practical tools to more detailed discussion of new tools and how to implement them in the
classroom. This included providing access to teacher models of the tool when necessary.
Although Barbara was new to the school, she was quickly able to appropriate both the
practical and conceptual tools privileged at Clark mostly through her co-planning setting
with Jenny whereas Abby admitted not understanding tools such as “talking to the text”
although she had been at Highland for two years and sat through presentations of how to
enact the practical tools presented in the Literacy Workshop. Required participation in
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aligned professional development settings also supported the understanding of larger
conceptual tools present in the Clark materials and approach to instruction.
The norms for Clark High School created a setting in which Barbara had access
not only to artifacts of practice but thinking behind it and Jenny‟s description of how to
implement the tools. This contrasted strongly to binders available to Abby and Andrea at
Highland High School. Abby and Andrea had multiple handouts and practical tools
from both the Highland binders and the workshops presented by practicing teachers
during their Abbott methods course. However, Abby and Andrea did not consistently nor
expertly appropriate these tools. The fact that the isolated tools were seldom
appropriated suggests that it is not about the artifacts themselves but features of the social
context for learning around these tools that foster appropriation.
Required Enactments
Modeling in both Jennings and the professional development were followed by
what I refer to as required enactments. These enactments often take the form of what
Grossman and her colleagues refer to as “approximations of practice” which are defined
as “opportunities to rehearse and develop discrete components of complex practice in
settings of reduced complexity” (Grossman & McDonald, 2008). In talking about
“enactments,” a key component is that there should be an opportunity for collective
analysis of the practice (Kazemi and Hubbard, 2008).
At Jennings, the required enactments took the form of approximations of practice
to be performed in both the methods course setting and the student teaching placement.
For example, during the discussion unit, teacher candidates read about the different levels
of questions students could use to improve reading comprehension. Then in methods
course, teacher candidates were asked to create levels of questions for “The Story of an
Hour.” This moved into an in-class discussion with the instructors providing time and
support through a modified fishbowl discussion format to reflect on which questions were
most productive in the discussion. The required enactments also included course
assignments in which teacher candidates tried out the tools in the overlapping setting of
the student teaching placement. Jennings students were required to choose a tool from
the unit such as levels of questions or an “Anticipation Guide.” Students then recorded a
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piece of the enactment and brought back the artifact of practice to their teacher education
colleagues for a discussion of an element or remaining question regarding the enactment.
Similarly, the Literacy Workshop followed the modeling of tools such as the
Think-aloud or creating levels of questions with opportunities to practice the tools within
the professional development setting. Like the Jennings course assignments, the Literacy
Workshop assigned tasks for which teachers had to enact tools from the professional
development and collect student data on the utility of the tools. During one of the
observations of Joanna‟s classroom, she was trying out a strategy and getting student
feedback for the purposes of a required enactment task for the Literacy Workshop. The
Literacy Workshop followed a similar pattern to Jennings in that it modeled different
strategies such as think-alouds and creating levels of questions and then required that
teachers try out the tools within the professional development setting. Teachers were
then required to try out the tools in their classroom. Although not approximations of
practice in that the teacher had full responsibility for the class, the professional
development assignments/tasks served a similar purpose in that teachers could try out a
practice and reflect on how it had gone.
Although Clark High School did not require formal enactments such as the course
assignments, the use of common tools such as final exams, monthly reading logs, and the
element of co-planning in essence required that Barbara enact the tools privileged in the
Clark department. As such the Clark norm of collegiality fostered a form “required
enactment” which in a school setting might be shared practices. This is made more clear
when we consider the importance of autonomy at Highland High School. The
department‟s emphasis on individual autonomy and simply “suggesting” tools left room
for teachers to opt out of enacting tools that were thought to be instructional
improvements in the site. Abby, who demonstrated a very low level of appropriation of
just a few of the suggested tools at Highland, is the clearest example of where such a
policy might be detrimental to both teacher and student progress/learning.
Summary
The examples from Jennings, Clark, and the Literacy Workshop highlight the
constellation of in-setting features that supported tool appropriation in the seven
participants. The consistent attribution of tools to these three settings suggests the
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importance of an explicit and conceptually driven approach to teacher preparation and
development. For pre-service or professional development settings this plays out in
terms of an emphasis on conceptual tools through readings and course discussions and
course materials, additionally supported by modeling, and required enactments of
practical tools. For the school setting, departmental norms of collegiality in tandem with
coherent and shared practices for teaching can support appropriation. Data suggest that
these features were not as supportive of appropriation in isolation but were most effective
when all elements outlined here were present. In the section below, I discuss the features
of a learning trajectory across settings that supported deeper levels of appropriation.
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Features of Learning Across Settings that Support Deeper Levels of Appropriation
The points in the previous section highlight the features of settings such as Clark
High School and the Literacy Workshop that supported teacher learning. Table 7.2 (See
page 143) illustrates that the practice of teachers from Abbott and Bennett, namely that of
Andrea and Barbara, were mediated by their participation in the embedded settings of
professional development and co-planning. Andrea and Barbara‟s practice not only more
closely reflected the school setting but was also beginning to look more like the practice
observed in Jennings graduates. Although this gives hope that school settings and
carefully designed professional development can support teacher development in areas
where teachers have few conceptual or practical tools or models for practice, the study
also shows that the deepest levels of appropriation were demonstrated in the areas where
teachers had reinforcement of the same tools for teaching across settings.
In general, “reinforcement” at the school level consisted of the same features
discussed in first section of the chapter. Schools that reinforced the tools presented in
other settings provided novice teachers with access to tools in which the undergirding
principles were made transparent through collaboration, provided opportunities for
modeling, and required enactments of the practical and/or conceptual tools presented in
other settings such as teacher education or professional development. In a way, the
schools provided a “spiral curriculum”13
in that teachers were given multiple
opportunities to observe, understand, and enact tools for the teaching of English-
Language Arts.
In addition to illustrating which tools were appropriated, Table 7.2 also illustrates
the levels of tool use. The numbers demonstrate evidence of use either in interview or
observational data with higher numbers generally indicating a higher use or
predominance of the tool in the teacher‟s practice. The general pattern is that an overlap
in privileged tools across settings generally corresponded with a more consistent use of
the tool. Although not as visible in the chart due to a 3-point rating system, the
classroom observations showed a strong contrast in levels of appropriation when there
was reinforcement of the tools across settings. In Chapter 2, I outlined the levels of tool
appropriation we might see in the teacher candidates. The range could be from a minimal
13 This is an appropriation of Bruner‟s (1960) term that I will discuss more in the next chapter.
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appropriation of surface features of a tool within limited contexts to a flexible use of a
tool demonstrating an understanding of the conceptual underpinnings.
As the Jennings program was more able to choose student teaching placements
that aligned with the tools privileged in the methods course, I illustrate the patterns in
practice seen when reinforcement was provided across settings by comparing the levels
of appropriation in Jennings teachers in domains that were more or less reinforced over
the settings in which they learned to teach. I look specifically at the practice of Jade and
Joanna as they mark teachers with the most and least amount of congruence across all
settings. The patterns present in the case of Jade and Joanna illustrate patterns seen
across all seven participants.
The patterns regarding consistent reinforcement across settings was most evident
in the case of Jade who completed her student teaching at Clark with Susan the
department head before joining Clark after graduation. Table 7.3 (See page 144) shows
the continual reinforcement of the same tools across the settings in which she learned to
teach. From her apprenticeship of observation to her time at Clark, Jade had repeated
cycles of modeling of instruction for writing and the feedback process. She received
conceptual and practical tools for the teaching of English Language of Arts that were
privileged in her methods and student teaching, and then school setting. By working in a
co-planning setting with Janice, another Jennings graduate, this setting provided
additional exposure and opportunities to enact and reflect on the tools privileged at both
Clark and Jennings.
In looking across the settings in which Jade learned to teach, there was significant
overlap in the tools privileged in her teacher education and at Clark where she completed
both her student teaching and entered teaching. Her classroom observations
demonstrated deeper levels of appropriation where the tools were privileged across
settings. For example a conceptual tool that was explicitly supported at both Jennings
and Clark was backwards design. During the course of the study, I conducted ten
classroom observations that spanned four of the units taught in the English 9 class. The
units were usually organized around an essential question for the unit, often closely
connected to the final writing assessment. The essential question was posted on the wall
and was often cited on the handouts for the unit, consistently focusing students on the
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guiding question. The choice of text and essential question were connected to both the
district writing prompts and student understanding of text. The units integrated lessons
on close reading and writing with the essential question and class activities working in
service of preparing students for the final writing assignment or project for the unit. The
unit for Cisneros‟ House on Mango Street was representative of the general patterns in
Jade‟s unit planning.
The unit on House on Mango Street was organized around the following essential
question: As we grow up, what do our responses to life‟s challenges reveal about us? As
students read the text, Jade had students keep a reading log in which they noted evidence
and commentary on the challenges characters face and how the characters react to the
challenges. The log would then be used to write a comparison and contrast essay on how
2 characters react to life‟s challenges. Within the unit, Jade integrated lessons for writing
and reading that were connected to the final assessment and the features of the text. For
example, Jade presented the mini-lesson on making inferences (a reading strategy) to
help students make sense of Chapters 3 and 4 in House on Mango Street which contained
many instances of symbolism for which the strategy would be useful. During the unit,
Jade also presented a mini-lesson on comparisons/contrasts. The unit was so closely
planned that each lesson was directly connected to the unit goals. As the curriculum
available at Clark encapsulated backwards design it could be argued that Jade was simply
instantiating existing tools but the data included instances in which Jade and Janice
changed and adapted the curriculum indicating a deeper level of tool appropriation.
For example, during the study, I observed one of the planning meetings between
Jade and Janice. During this meeting, the two teachers both Jennings graduates, looked
at the lesson plans from the previous year and discussed adaptations they wanted for this
year‟s unit around Of Mice and Men. Although Jade and Janice were drawing from
existing tools, their discussion demonstrated their deep level of understanding of
backwards design as a process that started with the end in mind. The planning session
began with a discussion of changing the essential question for the unit. They noted that
students had not really understood the previous year‟s question which focused on the
importance of dreams and that the students‟ essays had been very similar. Jade and
Janice debated options of possible questions in terms of the breadth of responses it would
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foster on the final essay and how they could bring in issues of social status. The teachers
decided on the following as the new question: “How do the roles we play in a community
determine the life we live.” After deciding on a question, the teachers moved into talking
about the specific activities they would need to include to prepare students for the final
essay. As the teachers had taught the Of Mice and Men unit starting during their student
teaching year, the discussion demonstrated both Jade and Janice‟s ability to create new
questions and then backwards plan around the new question. The pattern of strength of
appropriation as related to reinforcement of privileged tools across settings was also
present in Joanna.
Joanna demonstrated a deep level of appropriation of tools for discussion that
were supported at Jennings, her student teaching at Justice High School, and then in the
Literacy Workshop. Classroom observations demonstrated that one of the main
pedagogies and strengths of Joanna‟s practice was her emphasis and comfort with
facilitating student led discussions around texts. True to her self-report of her own
practice, “student-led discussion” had become one of her “core/essential teaching
practices” (Interview, 4/17/08). During the six classroom observations, Joanna provided
an opportunity for student-led discussions around texts in three of the lessons. The three
classroom discussions were scaffolded and supported through the use of rubrics,
assessment sheets, and time for reflection. The tools for discussion were enacted in both
her 9th
grade Lit/Writing class and her 11th
grade American Literature class. Within the
six observations that spanned 4 units in two courses, Joanna enacted a number of the
tools presented in the discussion unit in the Jennings methods course, with students
obviously at ease with the practice of creating level 1, 2, 3, and 4 questions, a typology of
questions similar to the one privileged by the Literacy Workshop and her methods course.
Other tools intended to prepare or facilitate discussions included anticipation guides,
Socratic seminars, and a Broadway Chorus Line. In addition to whole class student led
discussion, Joanna also provided opportunities for small group discussions around texts.
Joanna also had opportunities to observe and enact classroom discussion in her student
teaching placement. Although the formats varied from those used in English classes,
Joanna noted that discussion was an important domain in the history course at Justice
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High School. Students were constantly using what Joanna referred to as an “inquiry
method” for classroom discussions.
Joanna‟s use of various tools for fostering discussion with different texts and in
two different grade levels demonstrates a flexible use of the tools. This flexibility
indicates a deep level of appropriation in that it reveals an understanding of the
undergirding principle of discussion as a tool that deepens comprehension through
providing students opportunities to “struggle” with texts and come up with multiple
interpretations. Her own attributions of her tools for discussion confirmed the
importance of the various tools from three different settings (Jennings, Justice High,
Literacy Workshop) in which she learned to teach.
Analysis of practice across teachers across five domains of teaching English-
Language Arts also highlighted the importance of looking of patterns of appropriation not
only across settings but also across domains. Although Jade demonstrated a deep
appropriation of tools for planning, Jade was less adept with tools for facilitating
classroom discussion which though emphasized at Jennings was not a privileged domain
at Clark High School. In the ten classroom observations, there was only one instance of a
student led discussion. This discussion activity, a “Crossing the Line Activity” in which
students shared and discussed their opinions on statements regarding a chapter in Of Mice
and Men, closely followed the format used by Jade in previous years. Although the
implementation of the tools went beyond just the procedures of the practical tool in that it
included important features such as setting language and participation norms for
discussion and including reflection, in general there was little attention in Jade‟s
classroom to student led discussion. This pattern was also true for Jade‟s approach to
vocabulary instruction. Although she mentioned academic terms in the context of mini-
lessons, there was little attention to this domain for which Jennings and Clark had
provided few models and practical tools. The varying levels of appropriation across
domains in Jade was echoed in the practice of all seven participants. In looking by
teacher by domain, we see that the tools that were not reinforced across sites through the
provision of additional models, tools, or enactments were often related to a lower level of
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use and appropriation.14
This pattern helps explains the gaps or areas of weakness visible
in Table 7.2 (See page143). The gaps occurred when there was a lack of spiraling of
features such as modeling or enactment for tools across settings. For example, Jade and
Janice had multiple opportunities to see models and enact the tools for a process approach
to writing because they had access to models and opportunities for enactment in both the
methods course and their student teaching and teaching at Clark.
The pattern regarding domain-specific differences in appropriation was also
visible in Joanna‟s appropriation of the conceptual tool of backwards design, which
though a significant tool in the Jennings course, was less supported in her student
teaching and at her current placement at Highland High School. Joanna admitted that her
first instance of backwards design was her unit plan assignment for the Jennings course.
Until then, she had only been required to enact plans created by the predominantly
history-focused teachers at her student teaching site. Upon entering Highland, Joanna
admitted drawing heavily from the Highland binder of disparate lesson ideas and plans.
Classroom observations and pre and post observation interviews revealed that although
Joanna knew the overall trajectory of the unit and included elements from the school
setting and the methods course she rarely knew exactly what the final assessment would
be or closely aligned the unit to a final assessment. Unlike Jade who spoke at length
about the significance of backwards design for her practice, Joanna admitted during the
study that she was just beginning to feel more comfortable with the practice in her second
year of teaching. Although Joanna‟s units included many of the practical tools privileged
in her various learning settings, the activities were not as closely aligned to the final
assessment as the units observed in Jade‟s classroom.
For example, in her 9th
grade class Joanna taught a unit on Cisneros‟ House on
Mango Street. The essential questions for the unit were: “How does my environment
shape who I am? Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Joanna‟s unit
included Into activities such as an anticipation guide and supplemental readings by
author. While working with the core text, students were to read most of the text at home
but were assigned to specific vignettes they were supposed to talk about in class. While
14 The only exception to this pattern was Andrea‟s consistent use of the tools from the Literacy Workshop
which I attribute to the fact that the Workshop paralleled many of the learning features visible at Jennings
that also fostered a strong level of appropriation.
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reading, students were to write reflective diary entries to Esperanza, the main character,
asking “level 2” questions. Students were also to note instances of figurative language
and identify the theme of each vignette. The culminating assignments for the unit were a
vignette notebook, an exam, and an in-class essay. Each assessment had a different
focus. The use of three different assessments stressed a range of goals that led to a less
cohesive unit that those in Jade‟s classroom. Joanna‟s lack of enactments and models for
backwards design seemed to yield a less developed practice.
Patterns in Jade and Joanna‟s data also highlight the need to consider what
weaknesses may remain unaddressed across settings. For example, in the case of
Jennings graduates, although they had a strong conceptual understanding of needing to
teach grammar and vocabulary in context, Jade, Janice, Jackie, and Joanna had few
practical tools for vocabulary and grammar instruction. This was not addressed in the
other settings teachers participated in learning to teach. As such, all four gave little
instructional attention to the domain. For Abbott and Bennett graduates, having had few
models and opportunities to observe or enact tools for the teaching of English in their
teacher preparation, they were more likely to pick up the tools available at the site.
Andrea and Barbara appropriated tools that were privileged in the embedded settings but
were weak in areas that were not explicitly addressed in the site. Abby‟s case best
illustrates the dangers of leaving teachers dependent on learning from embedded settings
at the school site. Although Abby completed the methods course which provided some
attention to conceptual tools, she had no access to “model models” or opportunities for
enactment through the Abbott methods course nor a student teaching placement. She was
left without a strong conceptual base and/or a basic repertoire of tools for teaching in the
subject area. She was left with a gap across most domains that was then not addressed
because she was allowed to opt out of professional development at Highland.15
The stark contrast between the practice of Jade and Abby highlight the importance
of thinking through not only how to create learning settings that are more supportive of
tool appropriation but also how to create learning trajectories across settings for teachers
that will enable them to develop a strong repertoire of tools across the range of domains
15 As noted in the last chapter, it is possible that Abby‟s participation in the Literacy Workshop would not
have led to appropriation. A future study might look at teachers with and without strong levels of content
preparation and student teaching experiences to compare patterns in levels of appropriation.
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for English-Language Arts instruction. In the next chapter, I discuss the implications of
the study for those concerned with the theory, practices, and policies concerning the
preparation and development of new teachers.
143
144
145
CHAPTER 8 IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY
Discussion The principal question driving the study was regarding the role of school context
on the practice of beginning teachers. Using an activity theory framework, the study
investigated the experiences of beginning teachers around specific conceptual and
practical tools for the teaching of Language Arts across settings in which teachers learn to
teach. The first two guiding questions for the study focused on identifying the practices
of beginning teachers and those privileged in the settings where they learned to teach.
The comparison of the practices of teachers to their teacher education setting and current
school setting highlighted differences in appropriation that corresponded to the types of
programs attended by the participants. Jennings graduates appropriated many of the
conceptual and practical tools from the Jennings course. This occurred even when
teachers entered a less reinforcing school site with Joanna and Jackie appropriating
Jennings tools even when there was a lack of alignment with tools/goals at Highland. In
contrast, Abbott and Bennett graduates attributed very few of their tools to their teacher
education programs and were more susceptible to the tools privileged in their school site.
For Barbara who went from a less defined program to Clark High School with a well
articulated set of tools, there was an appropriation of tools for Clark‟s privileged domains
of writing and reading. Andrea and Abby, the Abbott graduates, were also susceptible to
the tools at the school site with Andrea appropriating many tools from embedded settings
at Highland for professional development and Abby staying stagnant due to weak and
less articulated tools within the departmental setting.
The latter two research questions focused more closely on the factors that
influenced appropriation, focusing specifically on the relationship between degree of
appropriation and the degree of congruence across settings. Although patterns in
appropriation aligned with specific programs and school sites in which teachers learned
to teach, the most consistent and deepest levels of appropriation corresponded more
closely to the context for learning surrounding the specific tools than either the practices
in the methods courses or school settings. Comparison of the appropriation of tools from
the settings included in the study highlighted three main settings that supported
appropriation regardless of the other settings teachers participated in. These included the
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Literacy Workshop, Clark High School, and the Jennings methods program. The three
settings shared a set of features around how they presented tool that seemed to be factors
supporting appropriation. The “within settings” features included the following:
1. Explicit provision of a foundation of conceptual tools in support of teacher
learning
2. Provision of models that were enacted by experts who connected the tools to
their conceptual foundations and provided specific practical tools, such as
handouts, that made the strategies “ready to carry” from the teacher-centered
setting into the student-focused classroom
3. Opportunities for tool enactment.
Appropriation of tools was most common when all three of these features were present.
An additional factor that was related to the observed patterns in tool appropriation
was the congruence between tools privileged across settings. This was most apparent in
at the domain level. Teachers such as Jade and Janice demonstrated deeper levels of
appropriation of tools such as backwards planning and a process approach to writing that
were emphasized through modeling and required enactments across all three settings they
participated in.
The findings of the study contrast with previous literature that focused on the
abandoning of tools when teachers entered the school site. Instead, the study suggests the
need to look both within and across settings in which teachers learn to teach to better
understand and improve professional preparation and development.
Implications In discussing the implications of this study, I return to the current policy context
around teacher preparation. As noted earlier, with the 2001 No Child Left Behind
legislation there is an increased emphasis on having “highly qualified” teachers in the
classroom. Although we agree that content preparation is an important part of being
“highly qualified” to teach, there is less agreement on if and how to prepare teachers for
classroom practice. As such there is still debate about the effectiveness of teacher
education programs with policy makers increasingly supporting alternative certification
programs that relegate most of teacher preparation to “on the job” training.
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At a basic level, the findings of this study support that this is a precarious
proposition that can lead to a great variation in the practice of the beginning teachers as
teacher development will then depend on the supports available in the school setting.
The dangers of depending on the school setting for teacher education are highlighted in
the case of Abby. As a second career teacher who entered the classroom without a long
term student teaching placement, Abby‟s pathway to teaching most resembled the
pathway of teachers who are certified through alternative programs that do not require a
extensive coursework or a student teaching placement before they enter the classroom.
Her lack of exposure to conceptual tools and practical tools for the teaching of English-
Language Arts from the lack of a placement and her limited content knowledge was
further exacerbated by lack of intentionality around teacher development at Highland
High School. Although the school offered professional development through the Literacy
Workshop and had “suggested” practices, the lack of an explicit and coherent approach to
Language Arts teaching left Abby‟s practice stagnant with her appropriating tools that
were most easily accessible in the Highland binder such as isolated vocabulary lists and
quizzes. Although Andrea, with a strong content preparation and multiple student
teaching experiences, was able to make the most of the resources available at Highland
such as the Literacy Workshop, the variation in the two highlight points to importance of
the field experiences and vast disparity possible when depending on the school site for
teacher preparation.
The variation in outcomes in teacher practice from the Abbott and Bennett
programs as they contrast with the Jennings program also points to the fact that not all
teacher education programs are created equal. In contrast to the variation and
vulnerability in Abbott and Bennett graduates to the tools privileged at the school site,
Jennings graduates appropriated a basic repertoire of tools that were present in their
practice regardless of whether their current school setting privileged similar practices or
not. Noting that there would be a variation in school practice even during student
teaching, the Jennings program provided conceptual and practical tools for teaching
within the methods course. The practices of Jade, Janice, Joanna, and Jackie and their
attributions of their practice to the methods course provide evidence that teacher
education can and did send these teacher candidates classroom ready with practical tools
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for teaching and conceptual tools that could help them decide what practices to
appropriate as they moved across settings.
The findings of the study also point to the features that could potentially help
teachers reach deeper levels of tool appropriation earlier in their careers. Recent studies
have shown that schools are a “leaky bucket.” Although schools are able to recruit
teachers, they have trouble keeping them. According to the National Commission on
Teaching and America‟a Future (NCTAF)‟s 2003 report No Dream Denied, it is
estimated that almost a third of new teachers leave in the first three years and after five
years, almost fifty percent are gone. As such, we do not have the luxury of putting
teachers into classrooms to “sink or swim,” taking multiple years to help teachers get
their sea legs. The cases of Janice and Jade demonstrate the depth of appropriation that
can be achieved even as early as the second year for teachers whose settings for learning
to teach have consistently reinforced the same tools through modeling that make explicit
the connections to larger conceptual tools and provided opportunities for enactment.
These initial implications described above for how to think about the individual
settings in which teachers learn to teach are one way to think about the implications of
this study. Given the conceptual framework and design of the study, the findings of this
study are most significant in how they inform how we think about teacher learning in
ways that span across activity settings. The findings of this study suggest a
reconsideration of the traditional framing of the discussion of learning to teach in terms
of teacher education versus school contexts. Instead of focusing on the “traditional
nature” of schools as an isomorphic force that impedes the implementation of tools or
approaches to instruction favored in teacher education courses (Zeichner and Tabachnick,
1981), this study highlights the importance of the learning context (i.e. foundation of
conceptual tools, modeling, opportunities for enactment) around tools for teaching in a
subject area as a lens to understand why tools are more or less appropriated by new
teachers as they move across the various activity settings in which they learn to teach. As
a small case study of seven teachers from one geographic area of the nation,
generalizations to the larger population cannot be made. Even so the detailed and
qualitative nature of the nested case study can inform the broader discussion among
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policy makers and practitioners on how best to prepare and support the development of
new teachers.
The discussion of implications of the study that span across settings begins with a
framework for a professional learning continuum for new teachers. I then move into a
discussion of the implications of this framework for policy and practice. I conclude with
a discussion of implications of the study for future research.
A “Spiraling Continuum” for Professional Learning In her 2001 article, Feiman-Nemser proposed a framework for a professional
learning continuum for teachers spanning from preservice to the first years of induction
that support “reform-oriented” teaching (p.1015). In this article, Feiman-Nemser
outlined the central tasks of each phase of the continuum, focusing more on the general
content of these different phases and the features and examples of corresponding settings
that best support teachers with the tasks of each phase. One of the central tasks of the
preservice phase was to provide teachers with a beginning repertoire of tools for teaching.
In this section, I consider a framework that focuses on this particular aspect of
preparation for teaching. The proposed framework, building closely on the findings of
the study, outlines a learning continuum to support the appropriation of the conceptual
and practical tools not only across settings but within different domains of a subject area
such as English-Language Arts.
The framework proposed below is not based on a particular approach to the
teaching of English-Language Arts but tool appropriation in general. As the schools and
programs in the study generally privileged similar conceptions of Language Arts
instruction, I focus more on the features of the learning setting that support appropriation
rather than the tools themselves. As such, I make no claims regarding whether the tools
appropriated through such a continuum would be an improvement of practice as this is
relative to the conceptions of teaching and goals of the different activity settings in which
teachers learn and work. Having said that, given the nature of curricular trends in
education, most of the settings, when there was a particular approach to a domain,
favored similar tools such as Silent Sustained Reading or a process approach to writing.
In general, the hope is that the goal of the settings and the continuum would be to support
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teachers in their appropriation of tools that align with our current knowledge and
understanding of practices that best support student development in the domains
addressed in English-Language Arts courses.
Features to Support Appropriation Within Settings
Previous research on teacher education and professional development has studied
the features within these settings that best support tool appropriation. For example, the
literature on teacher education has highlighted the importance of features such as the
“conceptual coherence” across the different courses and experiences embedded in teacher
education or the inclusion of integrated field experiences (Feiman-Nemser, 2001;
Darling-Hammond, 2006). Prior research has also looked at effective pedagogies in
teacher education. For example, there has been a discussion of the types of assignments
and representations of practice such as video or written cases that best support novice
learning.
Similar to the teacher education research, work in the area of professional
development has identified characteristics of effective professional development. The
lists of characteristics generally address the nature of the problems that should be tackled
and/or features that relate to the process (Wilson & Berne, 1999). In their review of
“highly regarded research” on professional development, Wilson and Berne highlighted
common themes in contemporary professional development such as “redefining” what is
considered teacher practice, “teacher learning ought not to be delivered but activated,”
(p.194) and the importance of teacher interaction (p.195). There is less discussion in the
learning to teach literature about the types of pedagogies that are common to these
settings for teacher learning. Below I describe the features that are part of the
“scaffolding” for tool appropriation suggested by the study.
“Scaffolded” Learning16
The findings regarding the common traits between the Jenning methods course,
the Clark High School English department, and the Literacy Workshop suggest that tool
appropriation within a specific setting can be supported through explicit support of
16
I use the term “scaffold” to invoke particular elements of Vygotsky‟s model of scaffolding. The use the
term to foreground the enactment of models by an expert to help a learner move from more guided to more independent
practice,
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conceptual tools for teaching through modeling and provision of opportunities to enact
supporting practical tools through either sheltered approximations of practice and/or the
required use of tools in the classroom setting.
Previous research on teacher learning has found support for each of these
elements. For example, the work of the CELA studies has shown that conceptual tools
that were “buttressed” with practical tools were those that were most often appropriated
by the ten new teachers in a study of appropriation of tools across settings for writing
instruction (Grossman, Valencia, Evans, Thompson, Martin, & Place, 2000). The
importance of models or representations of practice has been highlighted not only in
terms of what they offer for teacher learning in discussions by scholars such as Little
(2002; 2003) but also in terms of how they support tool appropriation in a specific
domain or for a particular tool (Williamson, 2006; Cook, Smagorinsky, Fry, Konopak, &
Moore, 2002). For example, in Williamson‟s (2006) study of learning to teach with
discussion, he found that teacher candidates appropriated many of the tools that were
“explicitly modeled.” Tools that were explicitly modeled were accompanied with access
to pedagogical thinking about the “purposes and pitfalls” of the tool (p.204). Studies
have also demonstrated the importance of what Grossman and MacDonald refer to as
pedagogies of enactment. In their cross professional study of pedagogies used to train
therapists, clergy, and teachers, Grossman and her colleagues (2009) highlighted the
importance of “approximations of practice” in which novices are given opportunities
within the course to start enacting particular aspects of a practice. The researchers
provide a continuum of features of less to more authentic approximations of practice with
the more authentic approximations being closer to being conducted in real time with
more participation by the novice (Grossman et al., 2009).
In contrast to previous research that has talked about these different elements
individually, the findings of the study suggest that tool appropriation might be better
fostered when a foundation of conceptual tools and opportunities for modeling and
enactment are presented together. This suggests a framework for presenting tools for
new teachers that is similar to the structure of a mini-lesson in writing or other scaffolded
lessons that move from the presentation of a concept or idea to guided practice and then
more independent practice. This model, though seemingly intuitive, contrasts with the
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goals of methods courses such as those at Abbott and Bennett that are under time
constraints and structural constraints such as where the methods course falls in relation to
teacher candidates‟ field experiences. The study suggests that scholars and practitioners
who work in settings dedicated to preservice and inservice teacher learning might
consider depth over breadth and focus on providing teacher candidates with a clear
picture of undergirding conceptual tools by interweaving explicit discussion of concepts
with models and opportunities to enact practical tools that illustrate the selected
conceptual tools.
Domain-Specificity
The cases described in this study also point to need to look at teacher practice
through a more focused lens that looks at teacher‟s development and practice by the
different domains in the subject area. For English-Language Arts the domains might
include areas of language arts teaching such as reading and writing or “tasks in teaching”
such as planning or assessment (Grossman & Thompson, 2008, p.2016). Although at first
glance, Jade, Janice, and Andrea had many tools for teaching across domains, there were
specific areas for which they had less practical and conceptual tools for teaching. For
example, Jade and Janice paid little attention to vocabulary instruction which was not
addressed across the settings in which they learned to teach. Similarly, Andrea
appropriated many tools for reading instruction but appropriated fewer tools for writing
instruction. This suggests that those committed to teacher preparation and development
might think about teacher preparation and development in terms of specific domains
within a subject area. In her work on teacher community, Little (2002) talks about the
faces of practice and the transparency around those faces. The holes and gaps in the
practices of the seven teachers in my study suggest thinking about teaching preparation
and development in terms of what faces and aspects of practice the settings have made
transparent in terms of specific domains. Both teacher education programs and schools
might reconsider how they will support teacher development in each of these areas. This
could include considering what representations of practice they make available to
teachers and what aspects they have asked teacher candidates to enact. For example, the
Abbott and Bennett courses provided few opportunities for enactment beyond the domain
of planning. All three graduates demonstrated fewer tools for other domains of
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instruction than their Jennings peers who had opportunities to enact tools across domains
within their methods course and/or their student teaching placement.
Reinforcement Across Settings
As noted earlier, the deepest levels of tool appropriation demonstrated in the
study were by the teachers who had opportunities to observe and enact tools over the
different activity settings in which they learned to teach. The “reinforcing” settings
included both student teaching experiences that supported and expanded on tools
presented in the methods course and the current school settings and embedded
professional development opportunities where teachers began their careers. This finding
suggests the need to think about how to “spiral” the features mentioned above across the
different settings for teacher learning around domain specific tools.
Previous research on teacher preparation has highlighted the importance of
thinking of professional preparation continuums that span settings. For example,
Feiman-Nemser (2001) concluded her piece on a professional learning continuum with a
discussion of how to build a system in which teacher educators, schools, and unions
would work together to provide more “connective tissue” between the settings in which
teachers learn to teach (p.1049). The creation of professional development schools and
internship models in which teachers work in schools in which they would gradually
assume more responsibility are efforts intended to create closer ties and relationships
between the different settings in which teachers learn to teach. Building off the prior
discussion regarding domain-specificity, I propose that the reinforcement should go
beyond a shared ideology of the purposes of teaching and conceptions of learning to
agree upon subject and domain specific tools privileged across sites. Although Highland
High School was a professional development school for the Jennings program, the
English department did not privilege the same tools as Jennings, leaving Joanna stagnant
in her appropriation of the tool of backwards planning. In contrast, Clark, not a
professional development school, was a reinforcing site for English teacher candidates at
Jennings due to the overlap between the two settings in conceptual and practical tools for
the teaching of Language Arts.
As outlined in Chapter 7, “reinforcement” will vary in terms of what it looks like
in preservice and inservice settings but should include explicit attention to theory or
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conceptual tools that are supported with models or other representations of practice that
make clear the rationale and enactment of the tools. I refer to this continuum as
“spiraling” to invoke the Bruner‟s idea of being able introduce and develop concepts
across the learning cycle. Similarly, the concepts that are presented early in a teacher‟s
preparation should be repeated or spiraled across settings to support deeper levels of
appropriation and the features should also be spiraled across the different domains of
teaching. For example, in Jade and Janice‟s case they were given multiple opportunities
to observe and enact the tools for teaching writing and for planning that were first
introduced to them in the Jennings methods course. They demonstrated deeper
appropriations in these domains than in facilitation of discussion which did not have a
similar spiraling across the settings in which they learned to teach. Abby‟s case shows a
contrasting case of a lack of scaffolding both in teacher education and in her current
school setting at Highland across a range on domains.
In their work, Bickmore, Smagorinsky, and O‟ Donnell (2005) define the features
of a “conceptually strong program” (p.27) According to the authors, a conceptually
strong program includes having a common vocabulary for teaching with related activities.
The spiraling continuum proposed here is in some ways an expansion on this idea. This
scaffolding and spiraling proposed here would be akin to a “conceptually strong
continuum” which scaffolds the learning of conceptual tools with “related activities” such
as opportunities to observe and enact related practical tools. The continuum outlined here
that focuses on subject-specific and domain-specific tool appropriation is not meant to
replace continuums that support the other tasks and needs in teacher learning goals
outlined by scholars such as Feiman-Nemser. Instead I hope it builds on such work by
further specifying the pedagogies and goals that might best support and expand teachers‟
repertoire of tools for teaching.
Implications for the Policy and Practice of Teacher Preparation The scaffolded and spiraled continuum proposed above is in tension with the
common practices in teacher education and the increasing trend in policy to prepare and
credential teachers through alternative certification programs that relegate the majority of
teacher preparation to the school setting. If teacher learning is supported through the
features described above, policy makers, teacher educators, and professional developers,
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and school and departmental leadership might reconsider their current thinking and
practice to think about how to better spiral and connect the features across these various
settings in which teachers learn to teach. Below I describe implications for each of these
groups concerned with the preparation and support of beginning teachers.
Implications for Teacher Education Methods Courses and Subject Specific
Professional Development In activity theory, the conscious goal or object is what distinguishes/defines
human activities. As such I begin with the goals of these settings as a starting place.
Both Jennings and the Literacy Workshop offered at Highland focused on providing
teachers not only with a set of conceptual tools to guide their instructional decisions but
also a repertoire of practical tools that demonstrated how to enact the conceptual tools in
the classroom. As such, the courses included modeling and enactments as a part of the
course structure and design. This contrasted greatly with the goal of the Abbott and
Bennett methods courses which had as a goal to provide a general overview of the major
principles and theories, relegating modeling and enactment to other settings which would
then separate theory from practice.
In working towards a more scaffolded and spiraling continuum, methods course
instructors and professional developers might consider how to organize their course
syllabi and agenda around goals that privilege the appropriation of conceptual and
practical tools for teaching by specific domains. Articulating more domain specific and
conceptual course goals would then require a reconsideration of the course activities and
assignments. The emphasis on enactment would require a shift from the textbook and
discussion oriented methods course to one replete with more in-course models and
enactments. Alternatively, programs or workshops that focused only on strategies would
need to focus on the conceptual bases for the strategies they promoted. Course
assignments might also move from primarily reflective papers to theory informed
reflections on enactments of privileged tools in the setting and/or in the classroom setting.
In addition to rethinking goals and pedagogies of the course, a spiraled and
scaffolded continuum would also require a close alignment and relationship between the
student teaching placement and the methods course. As was present in the relationship
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between Clark and Jennings, teacher candidates, cooperating teachers, and course
instructors had a common vocabulary and “toolkit” for teaching that not only allowed
cooperating teachers to highlight the relationship between their practices and those
privileged at Jennings but also provided teacher candidates with additional models and
opportunities for enactment by virtue of the overlap. Teacher educators and cooperating
might also consider how they can support each other in making more explicit the
rationale behind teacher choices and how pedagogical decisions and practical tools
connect to larger conceptual tools for teaching.
Some professional developers have tried to create stronger relationships between
the school and the programs through preparing specific teachers who have participated in
the trainings to be onsite school leaders for those trying to implement the tools from the
program. Although this is one structural feature that helps create ties between the two
settings, professional developers might consider how to better equip the teacher leaders in
making the conceptual tools a foundation and starting place for thinking and talking
about implementation of practical tools.
Implications for School Settings A scaffolded and spiraled continuum also has implications for school leadership
and in particular departmental leadership and norms. As part of the continuum, the
school is another setting for scaffolded experiences with domain-specific conceptual and
practical tools. The contrast between the norms of the Clark and Highland High School
English departments suggest ways that schools and departments can better support the
appropriation of privileged conceptual and practical tools for the teaching of a subject
area. Clark‟s emphasis on collegiality around a shared set of conceptual and practical
tools for language arts instruction suggests the importance of articulating and requiring
the enactment of domain specific tools as scaffolds for new teachers. The Clark
department head was intentional and explicit in the creation and distribution of tools,
highlighting through the embedded co-planning settings, department meetings, and
professional development opportunities a shared conception of practice. These
embedded departmental supports resulted in appropriation of the school‟s privileged tools
for English instruction by all three novice teachers. In contrast, the Highland department
emphasized autonomy at the cost of teacher development. Although the curriculum
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binder provided teachers with artifacts from teaching, the weak nature of the
representation of practice in terms of the seemingly haphazard choice of materials with
little explanation for new teachers, was miseducative for Abby who came with few
conceptual tools to help guide her choice materials or how to figure out enactment.
The findings suggest that departments begin to see themselves as an important
setting for teacher learning that provides opportunities that mirror the “scaffolded”
learning described above. As such, departments must first come to a consensus on the
privileged conceptual and practical tools that best meet the department‟s instructional
goals. The consensus should move beyond global ideas of teaching in a subject area to
more specified tools within domains of teaching. Consensus on target domains would
most likely be based on school/student needs. For example, the principal‟s 5-year plan at
Highland is an example of a school based focus on literacy that focused the work of the
department on the domain of reading. The importance of models and practical tools for
tool appropriation also suggests the need to consider the representations of practice that
are made available for teachers and/or the norms around the distribution of the existing
tools for instruction. The Clark norm of co-planning was an example of how a
department can embed supports for teacher learning. Departmental implications might
also include choosing professional development that is aligned to the conceptual tools for
teaching outlined by the department.
In the study described here, both Highland and Clark recruited teachers from
preservice teacher education programs and had money earmarked for professional
development. However, in many school settings, and particularly in underresourced
schools, teachers often enter the classroom with less content and pedagogical preparation
and similar to Abby will have a higher need for professional development. These schools
are also less likely to have funding for professional development. The findings suggest
that funding for professional development is perhaps most important in these school
settings.
Implications for Policy Makers and Program Designers Importance of overlapping embedded settings
The importance of reinforcement across settings and the role of enactment in tool
appropriation suggests the need to include overlapping settings in which teachers can
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observe and enact conceptual and practical tools for teaching. At the teacher preparation
program level, this suggests the importance of having the methods course offered at a
place in the course sequence when teachers would have more access to models and/or
participation with the tools. The program structure of Abbott and Bennett actually
precluded this option due to scheduling constraints which as reported in Chapter 6 led to
few if any attributions or appropriations to the methods course or the student teaching
placements.
For policy makers, the need for reinforcement and enactment highlight the
importance of including overlapping and embedded settings such as student teaching
placements or internships as part of teacher preparation. As alternative routes to teaching
often bypass the field experience, program designers and policy makers might consider
how to provide practicing teachers with the scaffolding and spiraling that can strengthen
teacher‟s depth of appropriation. This might be through more focused professional
development opportunities. As noted in the preceding section, such an initiative might
include allocating resources for professional development to schools where teachers often
enter with the least preparation.
Recent policy establishing new teacher induction programs are an example of
where decision makers are creating embedded settings that can support tool
appropriation. In 1998, California passed SB 2042, which in tandem with other
initiatives for teacher preparation, restructured the credentialing system to include two
years of induction support as a requirement for obtaining a California Clear Teaching
credential. Although well intentioned, the results of the program have not shown to be as
promising as once hoped. The possible pitfalls of the BTSA design and implementation
arise in this study.
At noted in Chapters 2 and 3, the BTSA induction setting was originally included
in the study design. As such, I attended and interviewed teachers and support staff
regarding the tools presented and/or appropriated from this setting. Most of the
participants attributed very few subject-specific learnings from attending the BTSA
workshops or meeting with their mentors. The data include many instances in which
teachers and mentors (particularly at Highland) cited the lead activity of the settings as
filling out paperwork. Teachers at Highland noted that John Houston‟s support and
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feedback was focused on more generic aspects of teaching such as classroom
management. (This was not surprising given that Houston was a history teacher.) In
addition, Houston was new to the position and was self-admittedly also focused on
compliance rather than content support. Being a Jennings alumn, Houston felt that the
Jennings teachers had already entered with strong preparation for teaching and had
already completed many of the tasks included in the induction curriculum. In this case,
Houston‟s knowledge of the Jennings setting was in tension with using the tools from the
BTSA program.
The lack of attention to content area support was less acute at Clark where the
current induction mentor was an English teacher within the Clark department. In this
setting, I observed Jade and Janice meeting with their induction mentor to complete a
series of tasks around formative assessment. The mentor‟s commitment to the induction
model and purposes presented a strong contrast to Houston‟s paperwork-focused motive.
The Clark mentor also subscribed to Susan‟s vision of teaching which provided a
common framework for her work with new teachers at the school site. As such the two
school sites presented evidence of the large variation possible in BTSA support and the
need for content-specific support. In addition to recommending policies that provide
financial support for embedded settings dedicated to teacher learning, I include this
example as a reminder that the setting can mediate these efforts and that attention should
be given to the goal and support provided in such settings and the possible tensions that
can arise (i.e. the context of learning within and across embedded settings).
Building a Cross-Domain Toolkit
The appropriation patterns in the study demonstrate that teachers are not easily
categorized as “good or bad,” “progressive or traditional.” The findings of the study
reveal that the tools appropriated and the depth to which they were appropriated were
related to the individual learning trajectories of each teacher. Namely, the depth of the
appropriations seemed to deepen with the number of times they had to observe and enact
domain specific tools as they moved across settings. According to Feiman Nemser
(2001) teachers need a basic repertoire in the first phase of preparation. However, the
study revealed that this is not often the case. Although Jennings graduates appropriated
tools for most of the domains of instruction, Abbott and Bennett graduates were
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dependent on the opportunities and tools available at the the school site, leaving teachers
like Abby “tool-less” in certain domains. Jennings teachers who had been in aligned
student teaching placements had a fairly sophisticated level of appropriation of
backwards design but had few tools for contextualized vocabulary instruction.
As new teachers enter schools with varying depths of appropriation, policy
makers and induction program designers might consider allowing for teachers to choose
the learning experiences that will best help them “fill the gap” (See Table 7.2) in their
toolkit. In thinking about how “fill the gap” policy makers and program designers might
consider how/when all the different domains can be addressed. For example, induction
programs and departmental professional development policies might be designed to allow
flexibility by teacher to better target areas not addressed or minimally addressed in the
methods course or alternative certification program coursework. An example of a policy
that addresses the entering variation is this individualized goal setting the induction
model at the New Teacher Center in Santa Cruz (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). In this model,
new teachers create individualized learning plans with their mentors. Policies regarding
professional development selection might also benefit from a more individualized process
that allows teachers to target the areas of instructional need.
Implications for School Leadership The contrast between departmental features at Clark and Highland highlights the
role school and departmental leadership can play in the learning and development of new
teachers. Susan‟s strong instructional leadership in the creation and distribution of
common tools for teaching through co-planning and aligned professional development
provided beginning teachers with access to the tools and mandated enactments.
Observations of classroom practice revealed that all three teachers at Clark, including
Barbara whose student teaching had been in a high school using a prescribed textbook
series, had at least a surface level of appropriation of the tools favored by Susan and
Clark. This provided a strong contrast to Highland whose department head placed more
of an emphasis on teacher autonomy.
Although there has been discussion of the long-standing norms of isolation and
autonomy in teaching (See Lortie, 1975), work on professional community and
professional cultures by scholars such as Little and McLaughlin and Talbert has
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highlighted the role collegiality can play in teacher development and practice. For
example, Little (1982) found that students performed better in schools where teachers
worked as colleagues. More specific to new teachers, Kardos et al (2001) reported that
“integrated professional cultures” in which new teachers had sustained support through
working with colleagues from different experience levels were described as most
supportive of the learning of new teachers when compared to veteran or novice oriented
cultures. The article highlighted the role of the principal leadership in fostering
professional community. The findings of the study and particularly the contrast between
Abby and Barbara suggest that school leadership, specifically departmental leadership,
should provide strong instructional leadership in terms of curricular materials and
supports available to new teachers. This might include thinking beyond just scheduling
of time for meetings (as both schools had this) but more of an emphasis on the types of
collegiality found to be most supportive of new teacher learning.
I acknowledge that many of the recommendations outlined above will be hard to
implement given the goals and constraints of each institution involved in the learning to
teach process. The obstacles can range from concerns such as limited funding for
professional development to contrasting goals and privileged pedagogies given the
specific needs and priorities of each setting. Even so the continuum can help policy
makers and practitioners consider how they might move towards providing more
scaffolded and spiraled support for new teachers.
Areas of Future Research
Although the comparative case study presented here has suggested features both
within and across settings that support tool appropriation in new teachers, the study was
limited by the conceptual framework and design used to frame and conduct the study.
As noted in the conceptual framework in Chapter 2, activity theory and its emphasis on
collective activity settings makes it a useful lens for considering how school contexts
mediate teacher learning. However, this frame is one of many that can be used to
understand processes in learning to teach. A socialization frame or even work of scholars
such at Bandura who also looks at social learning theory, might have a different
explanation for the phenomenon described here. In particular, activity theory, though
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allowing me to consider patterns across groups, was less concerned with individual
cognition or the understanding of teaching highlighted in the teacher cognition and
decision-making literature. The descriptions provided here ignore teacher choices
between tools and gives little attention to the individual preferences and dispositions that
might have influenced their choices.
The study was also constrained by the design and tools used in the study.
Although interviews and course materials helped me better understand settings in which I
could not observe such as prior teacher education experiences, the ideal design would
have been a longitudinal study of the case study teachers from preparation through
induction. Additionally, the three-level coding scheme was too broad to capture the
levels of appropriation demonstrated by the teachers. Future research would more clearly
identify a smaller and more well-defined set of practices or tools with more specific
definitions of levels of appropriation. Having looked more closely with purposively
developed instrumentation for teacher learning settings would have allowed further
examination of the tools for teacher learning that supported appropriation.
The findings of this study suggest the need for additional research on the features
identified as supportive of tool appropriation. The three “within setting” learning features
require more observations and analysis, particularly in inservice settings. Returning with
a specified protocol to capture how departments, professional developers, and mentors
support tool appropriation will help provide practitioners with a clearer picture of how to
provide a foundation of conceptual tools, create and enact “model models, and plan
required enactments appropriate to the setting. As one of the distinctive features of the
study was that it traversed activity settings in which teachers learned to teach, in the
sections that follow, I outline future research that looks beyond a single setting.
Testing/Refining the Spiraling Continuum
As noted above one of the larger implications of the study for both theory and
practice is to view teacher preparation and development as a continuum that spans over
multiple settings. As such, policy makers, program designers, and practitioners should
work together to consider how to help strengthen teacher practice across the various
settings. We have commonly thought of theory as the purview of methods course which
should then scaffold teacher learning of tools from student teaching and school settings.
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This study suggests the importance of interweaving and connecting theory or conceptual
tools to more practical tools for instruction. A first area of research might be to study the
continuum itself. The case of Abby, a teacher with limited content knowledge and prior
experiences in teacher, raises an important question. Would Abby have appropriated the
tools from the Literacy Workshop as Andrea herself noted that was her wealth of
teaching experiences that allowed to pick up tools from settings as needed.
Another future area of research might be to look at which domains might be best
addressed when in the continuum or whether some more complex tools need multiple
cycles of observations and enactments before teachers can internalize them or
demonstrate a deep level of appropriation. More longitudinal studies spanning
preparation to practice on specific tools might help refine the continuum.
A related question would be would be to consider how the developmental needs
of teachers might influence the kind of scaffolding emphasized in each setting. For
example, is it the case that the conceptual foundation of scaffolding must occur in the
earlier phases of the continuum as we have traditionally done so teachers have a
conceptual frame on which to “hang” tools that they later observe? If so, how would we
then add on the layer of scaffolding and spiraling of related practical tools in an already
full methods course curriculum?
As this was a small study involving a small number of programs and school
settings, future research might look across a larger range of settings to consider what
other supports for tool appropriation might be possible or to further specify what the
supports such as “the importance of a conceptual foundation” look like, particularly in
school settings.
Tensions within the Continuum
The study presented here looked closely at the appropriation of tools presented in
the methods course, student teaching placement, and professional development sites.
Although the original study design incorporated looking at level of congruence and
tensions as factors influencing appropriation, the only direct tension observed was around
the privileging of isolated or contextualized vocabulary instruction. Highland‟s emphasis
on teacher autonomy provided Jennings teachers with the professional freedom to
override the tools used at the school site and continue to the use of tools privileged in
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their methods course. As such, it is hard to know if the appropriations demonstrated by
Jennings graduates would have occurred in more hostile territory. In this study, Highland
was not yet under Program Improvement and there were already curricular effects on the
English teachers due to the accountability context. The stronger emphasis on reading
rather than writing due to low reading scores was an indication of this. Future research
might consider how teachers fare in schools with similar and contrasting conceptions of
domain specific practices to see if the same patterns of appropriation hold. Studies
focused on understanding the role of tension and congruence might compare the
preparation and practices of teachers in school settings where there are more mandates or
common tools in school settings that are in tension with the tools supported in teacher
education. For example, the study of graduates from “conceptually strong” programs in
schools under constraints such as those enacted by program improvement would help
better explore whether it is the features of the learning setting or the lack of tension
between tools that best explains the tools that move across settings.
Bidirectionality and Transformation
One of the tenets of activity theory that distinguish it from socialization models is
that there is a bidirectionality between setting and subject. As such, the participants in a
setting can transform the setting itself. In her dissertation work, Jaquith (2009) explored
the role of “resource carriers” that spanned external and internal learning communities.
There was evidence in the data that the Jennings teachers were acting as “resource
carriers”for the Highland English Department as they were carrying practical and
conceptual from Jennings into the school setting. The appropriation of tools of Jennings
tools by Andrea suggests that the Jennings teachers were in fact changing the tools and
norms of collegiality of the Highland department.
The study presented here does not address how or if the carrying of tools from
other settings such as the Jennings methods course transformed Clark or Highland High
School. For instance, the Antigone unit implemented by Abby was passed on to her by
her BTSA mentor, a Jennings alumn. The mentor had these materials from a Jennings
student teacher he had worked with the year prior. An additional example was the use of
essential questions by Andrea who planned with Jennings graduates. The fact that
essential questions were not part of the tools for planning in her teacher preparation
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setting suggests that Jennings graduates were not only appropriating tools from their
program but also carrying tools into the school setting. Joanna acting as a resource
carrier of Jennings materials into her student teaching placement at Justice High School
provides additional evidence of bidirectionality. Such patterns suggest the need to look at
the role of new teachers as resource carriers to their school settings. Future studies might
look more in depth at the tools teachers bring into the settings and how and if the tools
are appropriated within the setting. Research might also explore what features in schools
and preparation programs support this kind of transformation.
As noted in the description of Highland in Chapter 4, Highland was increasingly
privileging tools used by Jennings graduates. A year after the study, Jennings hosted a
professional development workshop for local teachers. Many of the participants were
English and History teachers from Highland High School. These shifts in practices and
the increased connection to Jennings through the hiring of new graduates also suggests
the need for research on the process of transformation itself. Highland‟s history will be
an interesting one to watch to see if this bidirectionality will lead to a transformation of
features of the activity setting of Highland department beginning with the tools used at
the school.
Engeström‟s (2001) work on expansive learning is also related to the idea of
transformation. He posits the idea of “internal contradictions as [the] driving force of
change and development” (p.135). This leads one to wonder if the tensions experienced
by Jennings graduates and the tools they bring into the school settings will lead to a
transformation of the setting itself.
Conclusion The findings of this study challenge former assertions that teacher education does
not matter and challenge the growing support for teacher education to be relegated to the
school context. The comparative case study presented here, though limited in its
generalizability, demonstrates that tool appropriation is deepest when tools are reinforced
across settings in which teachers learn to teach. In addition, the study highlights the need
to look closely at learning to teach by focusing on specific domains of teaching across
settings. The learning features within and across settings identified here are still
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exploratory. Future research should focus on refining and describing the settings that
best support the learning and development of new teachers.
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APPENDIX A PROTOCOLS FOR BEGINNING TEACHERS17
Apprenticeship of Observation
Knowledge/Conceptions of English and Teaching English (From Grossman, 1990)
1. Can you tell me about your background in English?
Tell me about your courses.
Undergraduate and graduate
Favorite and least favorite
What areas did you concentrate on? Specialization?
What do you feel are your strengths in English?
What areas do you feel relatively weak in?
What areas were easy for you? Difficult?
Tell me about some of the most important English papers you wrote as an
undergraduate.
2. What do you think it means for someone to know English? If someone is a self-
proclaimed expert in English, what would you expect them to know?
3. Could you talk to me about the major areas that make up English as a field or
discipline? Tell me how the areas are related to each other. (Could you draw a map
of the different areas and their relationships?)
4. Now I‟d like to talk to you as an English teacher. What made you decide to become
an English teacher? [probe for both reasons for teaching and reasons for teaching
English]
5. Tell me about what you see as the reasons for studying English in high school. What
are your goals for your students? What areas would you want to cover in your
classes? [probe for conceptions if teaching both literature and writing]
Teacher Education Interview Guided by Courses Taken
(From Grossman, 1990)
1. I have written the names of the courses you said you took in college and the ones
you took in graduate school. Could you first sort the cards according to how they
influenced how you think about English? How did they influence your
understanding of English as a discipline?
2. Now could you sort the cards according to how they influenced your ideas about
how to teach English? How did they influence your ideas about teaching
English? [probe for both positive and negative influences]
3. Tell me about any other experiences you have had that that have affected how you
think about teaching English.
4. Tell me about the best and worst teacher you ever had.
5. Here are the titles of courses you took during your year of teacher preparation.
Could you sort them into categories that are meaningful to you? How have you
grouped them? Tell me about each pile. Are there other ways you might group
them? Tell me about the different ways.
17 Protocols for Pre and Post Observation Interviews and Final Card Sort were based on questions created
for the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy and Center on English Learning and Achievement
(CELA) studies that are referenced in the dissertation.
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6. Let‟s go through the titles one by one and talk about what you got out of each one.
[probe for both coursework and student teaching]
Pre-Observation and Post-Observation Interviews
Pre-Observation
1. What have you been doing in the class for the past week or so?
2. Describe what I will be observing?
3. How have you organized this lesson?
4. Tell me why you‟re doing this lesson.
a. What kinds of things did you take into consideration?
i. Why this content?
ii. Why this instructional approach?
b. Where did you get the idea for this lesson? This approach? (District, state,
school guidelines or materials, teacher education?)
5. How do you think it‟s going to go?
Post-Observation
1. What are your thoughts about the lesson?
a. What surprised you?
b. What was the most challenging for you?
c. How typical was the lesson? How does it compare to most other lessons?
2. Follow-up questions about specific aspects of the lesson…
3. At any point, did you change what you thought you‟d do? Why?
4. What do you think the kids got out of the lesson? How do you know? What
makes you think so?
a. What did you hope kids would get?
b. Which things (parts, ideas) did the kids get easily?
c. Which things (parts, ideas) were difficult for them?
d. Who do you think the lesson worked best for?
e. Who do you think the lesson did not work as well for?
5. What will you do tomorrow?
6. As you think ahead to next year, if you were teaching this lesson/unit again,
would you make any changes?
Tell me about your thinking behind that.
Final Card Sort
1. I have written on cards the following types of professional development:
Learning from your own practice
Colleagues
Individual reading or study
Professional publications
Conferences
School based inservice
University courses
Workshops of classes outside of the district
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District required inservice days/programs
District offered inservice days/programs
Other professional development
Teachers are asked to place the cards in a continuum based on how useful the
opportunities are. Then, teachers are asked to explain each type more fully.
2. What curriculum materials and resources have been most useful for you and why?
How have you used them? How often? Which have been most useful, and why?
Of these, what has been provided by the school or district? What have you found
yourselves? What, if anything, have you learned from these curriculum materials or
resources?
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APPENDIX B PROTOCOLS FOR OTHER PARTICIPANTS18
Protocol for Cooperating Teachers
1. Tell me a little bit about yourself?
a. What did you teach?
b. How long?
c. How did you become a cooperating teacher?
d. Did you work with a cooperating teacher?
e. What was that experience like?
f. Can you give me an overview of your role as a cooperating teacher?
Formal requirements? (observations, opportunities for practice, graduated
responsibility)
2. How do you think beginning teachers learn to teach?
3. From your perspective, what do you think are the biggest concerns/needs of
student teachers?
4. Tell me about how you worked with ____________ when she was a student
teacher?
a. What did you see as her strengths?
b. What things did you try to work on with ______________?
c. How did you decide on these areas?
d. What did you think was most important for her to work on?
e. Were there any particular ideas or strategies that you passed along?
f. Did _________ use any strategies/instructional approaches that were new
to you?
5. From your perspective what makes good language arts teaching?
(Prompt for reading, writing, literature, grammar/vocab)
6. What do you think a teacher needs to know in order to teach language arts?
7. What do you think are the challenges for beginning teachers in teaching language
arts?
Interview for Methods Course Instructors
1. Tell me a little about yourself and how you came to teach the course.
a. What did you teach?
b. How long?
c. How did you come to teach methods? How long have you taught the
course?
d. Can you tell me more about the program?
2. Is there anything that the program requires you to do?
3. What factors do you take into consideration when planning the course?
What is going on at the national or professional level that you pay attention to?
(state level or program level?)
4. How do you think teachers learn to teach?
18 Protocols listed here were based on questions created for the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy
and Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA) studies that are referenced in the dissertation.
171
5. What do you think a teacher needs to know in order to teach English/Language
Arts?
6. From your perspective, what does good Language Arts teaching look like?
(Prompt for teaching of reading and literature and writing)
Protocol for Department Heads
1. Tell me about yourself.
a. What do you do?
b. How long have you been here?
c. Tell me about how you came to teach at your school.
2. What are the hiring policies of your school?
Who participated in the decision to hire ____________?
3. What happened when your first year teachers arrived in the fall?
Were there any orientation activities for all teachers/first year teachers?
Probe: District/School level
4. Do you have any specific activities or practices/policies that are aimed at first
year teachers?
5. Is there anything that the district requires you to do? (e.g. evaluation)
6. How do you think beginning teachers learn to teach well?
7. What do you think are the biggest needs/concerns of first year teachers?
8. Was there any specific focus or particular school-wide activity at your
school/district this past year?
9. From your perspective what does good language arts teaching look like? (prompt
for domains like reading and writing)
10. Are there specific policies or practices at your school/department, either formal or
informal, that are focused on language arts?
a. Are there any instructional policies/practices? (Probe for grouping,
tracking, required instructional approaches)
b. What about curriculum? (Probe for materials, programs, required
content/skills?)
c. Assessment?
11. How are teacher assignments/schedules assigned?
12. What is going on at the district level that influences what you do or what you pay
attention to? (Probe: How about at the state level?)
Protocol for Mentor Teachers
1. Tell me a little about yourself.
a. What did you teach?
b. How long?
c. How did you come to be a mentor?
2. Can you give me an overview of the mentoring program in your district/school?
a. How does it work?
b. What are the formal requirements of the program?
c. What preparation are mentors given?
d. Who‟s involved in the program?
e. How many people?
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f. How many people per mentor?
g. What do you get from being a mentor?
3. How do you think beginning teachers learn to teach well?
From your perspective, what do you think are the biggest needs/concerns of
beginning teachers?
4. Tell me about how you worked with ___________ this year.
a. What do you see as _________‟s strengths?
b. What things do you try to work on?
c. How did you decide those?
d. What do you think was most important for them to work on?
e. Were there any particular ideas of strategies that you passed along?
f. Did ____________ use any strategies/instructional approaches that were
new to you?
5. From your perspective, what makes good language arts teaching? (prompt for
domains)
6. What do you think a teacher needs to know in order to teach language arts?
7. What do you think are the challenges of beginning teachers in teaching
language arts?
8. What is going on at the district level or central office the influences what you do
and what you pay attention to? How about at the state level?
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