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UBRARY i
Michigan State «
University

 

 

This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

COMMUNITY COLLEGE TEACHER EDUCATION
PATHWAYS: A MICHIGAN STUDY

presented by

Mary Colleen Belknap

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for the

Ph.D. degree in Higher Adult and Lifelong
Education

 

 

 

 

MSU is an Afﬁrmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

 

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PLACE IN RETURN BOX to rernove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.
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5/08 KzlProj/AocsPresICIRC/DataDue.indd

COMMUNITY COLLEGE TEACHER EDUCATION PATHWAYS:
A MICHIGAN STUDY '

By

Mary Colleen Belknap

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Higher Adult and Lifelong Education

2009

ABSTRACT

COMMUNITY COLLEGE TEACHER EDUCATION PATHWAYS:
A MICHIGAN STUDY

By
Mary Colleen Bel-knap

This study explored the components of six Michigan community college teacher
education programs that were members of Michigan Association of Community Colleges
in Educator Preparation (MACCEP) in 2006-2007. Data were collected from face to face
interviews and institutional resources. Each interviewee was an identiﬁed “champion” of
their respective teacher education program. Interview analysis and document data form
the detailed description of MACCEP teacher education program components.

Components of the community college teacher education studied are categorized
by: 1) Commitment; 2) Curriculum; and 3) Connections. Components in the categories
include: faculty; administration; students; courses; field experience; MACRAO
agreement; alignment to standards; state testing and credentialing preparation; student.
support; transfer and articulation; formal and informal partnerships; local, state and
federal governing organizations; and credentialing agencies. Identiﬁed as the Belknap
Model, a ﬁgure and table depict the interrelationship of categories and components.

This foundational study offers community colleges descriptive information for
teacher education programs. There is a range in program development from informal,
early developing programs with few components, to established formalized teacher
education programs with many components.

Every public higher education institution in Michigan is autonomous. It is within
this complex and open postsecondary environment that the results of this study may be

used to beneﬁt faculty and administrators committed to improving the teacher education

 

pathway in Michigan speciﬁcally, and in other states more generally. The findings have
implications useful to the following objectives: 1. Help to design strong curricula and
courses of study; 2. Increase communication among colleges and universities, which, in
turn will beneﬁt programs and students; 3. Increase respect and understanding of
community college teacher education programs due to the analysis of program
components; 4. Broaden potential transfer options among teacher education programs
especially in Michigan; 5. Help ensure a high quality teacher education workforce that
may lessen the impact of teacher retirements in the next decade in Michigan; 6.
Strengthen instruction at all levels, to maintain a strong educational‘foundation for all
schools, that can help in the state’s economic recovery.
The Belknap Model serves as a starting point for further research and action in the

speciﬁc areas related to the improvement of teacher education practice, especially with

community colleges. This study and the Belknap model illuminate Michigan community

college teacher education programs with lessons learned for programs in other states.

Capyrighted by
MARY COLLEEN BELKNAP

2009

Dedication
My husband Charley, our children, Michelle and Bryon,
Melissa and Kyle, Maureen, and granddaughter Tatym Ann,
my advisor, Dr. Marilyn J. Amey,
my committee, our spiritual leader, and many caring mentors.
especially my Aunt.
Sister Mary Lou Rumier.

I am, because of each of you.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To the casual observer, a doctoral dissertation may appear to be solitary work.
However, to complete a project of this magnitude requires a network of support, and 1 am
indebted to many superior individuals. I am especially grateful to my husband Charley.
our family, and my advisor, Dr. Marilyn J. Amey. In addition, my committee members,
Dr. Frank Fear, Dr. John Dirkx, and Dr. MaryLee Davis, the faculty of the Department of
Educational Administration in the School of Education at Michigan State University, my
MSU PhD HALE cohort. my Jackson Community College colleagues, family, and
friends, and the many other educators, who have supported my learning process over the
years. I am blessed and affected/surrounded by magniﬁcent educators all over the world.
Their passion for teaching and learning continues to make an impact on me. I am also
indebted to Christa McAuliffe for her leadership, her willingness to step out of the
traditional role as teacher, and to leave a legacy that has made a lasting and motivational
impression on many others and me. Finally, yet importantly. I want to thank the
thousands of students, including my family, of whom I have journeyed with to teach and

learn. Without you, my work would be meaningless.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................. . ...................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................. x
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction .................................... . ....... . ......................... . ... . ....... I
Background and Rationale for the Study ............................................... 1
Problem Statement and Research Question .............................................. 7
Conceptual Frame ............................................................................ 8
Signiﬁcance of the Study .................................................................. 14
Summary ..................................................................................... 14
CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review .......................... - ..................... . ......................... I6
Literature Review Roadmap .............................................................. l6
Importance of Teacher Preparation ...................................................... 16
Deﬁning Teacher Preparation Programs .................................................. I8
Teacher Preparation Program Design .................................................. 22
Rationale for Involvement of Community Coll eges in Teacher Preparation ...... 24
Summary of Literature Review ......................................................... 27
CHAPTER THREE
Methodology .............................................................................. 29
Population and Background Information for the study ............................... 30
Data Collection ................................................................................ 33
Analyses ....................................................................................... 33
Role of the Researcher .................................................................... 35
Transferability ............................................................................. 36
Limitations of the Study .................................................................. 36
Participants and researcher Bias ................................. . ....................... 36
CHAPTER FOUR
Findings ..................................................................................... 39
Overview of the Michigan Sample ......... . ........................................... 40
Informal to Formal Program Continuum ............................................. 41
Michigan Teacher Education Program Component Model Overview .............. 45
Commitment ...................................................................... 46
Faculty ..................................................................... 46
Administration ............................................................. 5 1
Students ........................ 55
Curriculum .................... 57
Courses ............ . .......... 57
Course Variations ......................................................... 61
Courses and Professional Teaching Standards. . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . .69
Field Service Experience ....... . ...... . ................................ 69
Transferability and Articulation ............................... . ..... 81

vii

Connections ........................................................................ 83

Student Support .......................................................... 84
Academic Connections ............. . .................................... 86
Transfer and Articulation ............................................... 91
Partnerships ............................................................... 91
Governing organizations and agencies .............................. 99
Summary ................. . ............................................ 101
Relevant Themes ................ . ................ . ............................. 102
Role of Administration ........................ . ............................... 102
Program Perspectives: Informal to Formai Programs ............. _ ...... 104
CHAPTER FIVE
Introduction ................................................................................ 108
Overview of Study ............................... . ........................... . ........... 109
Summary of the Research Project ...................................................... 111
Description of Model ..................................................................... 111
Major Findings ........................................................................... 112
Program Content Continuum ................................................... 115
Research Implications .................................................................... 119
Strengthen Teacher Education Curricula ..................................... 121
Increase Communication Among Postsecondary Institutions ............. 123
Increases Respect and Understanding of
Community College Teacher Preparation .................................... 124
Broaden Transfer Options ...................................................... 128
Quality Work Force ............... . ............................................. 129
Strengthen Overall Education .................................................. 129
Administrative Support ......................................................... 130
Directions for Future Research .......................................................... 131
Summary and Final Comments ....................... . ........ . .......................... 135
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Interview Protocol ........................................................ 139
Appendix B: Community College Teacher Program Artifacts ..................... 141
Appendix C: Belknap Model Chart: Michigan Community College Teacher
Education Components ....................................................................... 142
Appendix D: Figures
Figure 1 ........................................................................... 143
Figure 2 ........................................................................... 144
REFERENCES
References .................................................................................. 145

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table One Program Sample Identiﬁers ........................................................ 30
Table Two Program Types ........................................................................ 45
Table Three List of Components in Commitment Category ................................. 46
Table Four Overview of Administrative Support ............................................. 55
Table Five List of Components in Curriculum Category ..................................... 58
Table Six Course Work and Special Training ............. . ..................................... 60
Table Seven Field Experience Overview and Types. ........................................ 71
Table Eight List of Components in Connection Category .................................... 83
Table Nine Connections for Preservice Students and Leadership Options ................. 88

LIST OF FIGURES

Images in this dissertation are present in color

Figure One

Cunniff Community College Exemplary Teacher Education Program Model ............ 143

Figure Two

Belknap Model of Michigan Community College Teacher Education Program
Components ............... . ........................................................................ 144

Chapter One

Introduction

Universities and colleges have offered teacher preparation programs in some form
for decades (Thelin, 2004). In 2002, the US. Department of Education predicted that
nearly 40% of public school teachers would retire in the next decade. This prospect,
coupled with a rise in school enrollments, means that the United States will need to hire
two million new elementary and secondary teachers in the next ten years (Stroup, 2002),
far more than can be produced by traditional four-year university programs. Given the
estimated teacher shortage, several teacher preparation program leaders now view the
community college as a potential source of larger enrollments (Townsend & Ignash,
2003). Research by Allen (2002) indicates higher education institutions in many states
are exploring new possibilities in recruiting, training, and retraining teachers. Community
colleges, in particular, are examining their role in helping to meet the need for teachers
(Evelyn, 2002). Patricia Cunnifi‘s (2006) ‘Best Practice in Teacher Education’ model
initiates a baseline for exemplary community college teacher education programs. Using
Cunniff’s model as a conceptual frame, this study examined the core components of
Michigan community college teacher education programs.

Background and General Rationale for the Study

Teacher education is facing a supply and demand problem in parts of the US. in
providing highly qualiﬁed teachers for K-12 classrooms and the trend is expected to
continue; in fact, over one-half of our teaching population could be retired in the next
decade (NCTAF, 2009). Another problem facing the United States in the next decade is
the need for more certiﬁed teachers, especially in high need locations (Hussar, 1999;

Ingersoll, 2004). In high growth states, particularly in the South and West, the demand
1

 

 

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for teachers exceeds the current supply (Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 1999). Community
colleges have come forward to become part of the teacher education supply and demand
solution as observed by the growing number of community colleges offering teacher
education programs. The traditional community college teacher education transfer
program continues to be the norm in preparing future teachers. Townsend and Ignash
(2003) noted two creative examples of initiatives at community colleges trying to meet
teacher shortages: alternative certiﬁcation programs and community college
baccalaureate degrees. As mentioned by Floyd and St. Arnauld (2007), over the past
decade there continues to be a growing number of community colleges authorized to
award the baccalaureate or provide alternative licensure in teacher education to meet the
expanded demands for more teachers. These programs were instituted to ease the
shortage, but the demand for teachers’ remains.

In addition, some disciplines face more teacher shortages than other disciplines,
particularly mathematics and science. Bragg’s 1998 research noted that 40% of teachers
in these disciplines completed at least some of their math and science courses at
community colleges. In 2000, Bragg, along with the leaders from the National Math and
Science Commission, noted that if the US. is to meet and exceed national demands, math
and science teachers are needed to educate all children, so the role of community colleges
remains important in these ﬁelds. Allen (2002) also believes community colleges are a
prime avenue for preparing and ﬁnding future teachers in much needed academic areas.

Acute teacher shortages in urban areas where there are high rates of poverty and
underrepresented populations are also a concern (Hudson, 2002; Ingersoll, 2004) and is
not a function of demand per se but of teaching challenges and poor recruitment (Darling-
Hammond, Horowitz, & Bransford, 2005). Teaching in urban schools can be difﬁcult at

2

best. Kopetz, Lease, and Warren-Kring (2006) cite working conditions, low salaries, and
characteristics of the student population as demanding factors for teachers. Kopetz, et a1.
(2006) explain that urban students are oﬁen poor, non-white, low performing, and more
challenging to teach than the traditional, suburban student populations. In urban settings,
teacher shortages also stem from a lack of ﬁnancial support for schools, little family
support for education, and an array of problems connected to poor learning environments
provided for children (Kopetz, Lease, & Warren-Kring, 2006). A special type of
dedicated and skilled teacher appears necessary for the additional challenges faced by
those working in urban schools (Ladson-Billings, 2001).

Community colleges have positioned themselves as adaptable institutions to meet
student and community needs, and as such, they are in a reasonable position to work with
four-year institutions to assist in both recruiting and educating future teachers. Durdella
(2003) goes so far as to state that one role of the community college is to encourage
potential teachers to begin their studies at community colleges and transfer to four-year
institutions. Moreover, many community colleges have formalized their teacher
education curriculum and created a variety of teacher education transfer programs
(AACTE, 2005) as the demand for teachers has increased over the last 10 years. Bragg
(1998)~ states the community-based and student-centered missions of two-year colleges
align with the education philosophies of many teacher preparation programs, so
community colleges can speciﬁcally attract students well suited for the teaching careers.
Since community colleges are often located in urban or highly populated locations, and
an educational starting place for many students of color (Bragg, 1998), they provide the
diverse population from which to draw prospective teachers. This situation presents

community colleges an opportunity to encourage the teaching profession as a career

3

option, especially since students may be introduced to teacher education curricula early in
their studies.

Community colleges continue to be known for their open access and admission
policies, as well as their comprehensive course and program offerings (Vaughan, 2006);
university teacher education programs often require individual admissions processes,
even for transfer students. For example, students apply to a transfer university and
declare a major or program of study but are often unaware of the second admission
process to a School of Education, which is required at most universities for all students,
including transfers (Evelyn, 2003). By comparison, few community colleges have
particular ‘schools’ of study requiring special application processes to programs except
perhaps in health ﬁelds (Coulter & Crowe, 2003) so the community college student has
no experience with this additional step if not advised well by a transfer counselor. In
addition, in Michigan, every level of teacher education programming is autonomous,
from community colleges through universities. Since a seamless transition for the.
prospective educator is essential to increasing the number of those who complete a
professional education program (AACTE, 2002), transfer is more complicated when
program structures and requirements are independent and unique.

Many states have created 2+2 partnership programs between community colleges
and universities for teacher preparation programs. These structured partnerships are more
than articulation agreements. They offer beneﬁts for teacher education transfer students,
such as dual enrollment, joint registration agreements, joint activities, and sometimes,
cooperative advising (Anglin, 1989, Bragg, 1998; Gerdeman, 2001). They may even
involve some high school pre-service preparation programs. To help with the transfer

concerns, some universities and community colleges have created formal teacher

4

education articulation agreements and partnerships (Townsend & Ignash, 2003). Such is
the case in Michigan. The articulation agreements and formal partnerships that exist have
improved the transfer process and increased student support. Even though partnerships
and articulation agreements exist in Michigan’s autonomous higher education
environment, teacher education community college students continue to ﬁnd transferring
to a four-year college or university teacher certiﬁcation program a challenge.

Another challenge often expressed by community college students is the issue of
anonymity once they transfer to large public universities (Tinto, 1993). Students
complain that ‘no one cares about me’ and ﬁnding someone to ‘answer questions’ and
knowing ‘where to go for help’ is often difﬁcult. Traveling from building to building
across a large campus, only to be told to go to another location or another person
becomes frustrating for the transfer student at the larger universities. Communication
difﬁculties are another intra-institutional difference that affects transfer students (Cohen
& Brawer, 2008). The teacher education transfer program personnel from the university
often do not communicate regularly about their program updates, changes, and course
revisions with community college personnel. Any changes at the university level may
affect the transfer student. To earn teacher certiﬁcation as an educator in Michigan, a
community college student must deal with the challenges of transfer, program
information and communication, and teacher education program requirements at the
university.

Durdella (2003) noted issues surrounding program development are controversial
and sometimes considered ambiguous at the national, state, and local levels. Further,
when researchers explain what needs to be part of a teacher preparation program, and
what actually exists in the teacher preparation program, the facts and needs are not

5

always congruent (Kopetz, Lease, & Warren-Kring, 2006). In her report about teacher
education quality, Darling Hammond (2000) suggests adopted state policies regarding
teacher education may make an important difference in the qualiﬁcations and abilities
that teachers bring to their classroom. Very little, if any, recent empirical study has been
completed on community college program elements that best support potential teachers
(Phi Theta Kappa, 2003). One example from Michigan is the Michigan Basic Skills test
result reports sent to the four-year school of education teacher certiﬁcation credentialing
institutions. Passing this test is one of the many secondary admission requirements for all
Michigan schools of education. The preparation role community colleges have played in
the transfer students’ test scores or preparation for various ﬁnal subject/content
certiﬁcation test scores is not acknowledged or identiﬁed.

Essential to the rationale for this study is the need to clarify and provide current
evidence of Michigan community college teacher education program components. At this
time, there is not a state group or credentialing organization to guide or assist teacher
education programs at community colleges. A better knowledge of what exists in
Michigan community college teacher education programs may help all community
colleges better assess and strengthen their programs. Research concerning teacher
education programs may lead to better-prepared teachers, success in student transfer,
curriculum alignment and improvement, and communication among all college levels to
beneﬁt teacher education programs and their students. In the end, a better understanding
and planning for programs may help those involved with teacher education better meet

the needs for future teachers.

Problem Statement and Research Question

If America is to recruit over two million teachers in the next decade, community
colleges along with universities must provide active leadership and innovative programs
in order to train and prepare American’s next generation of teachers (Stroup, 2002).
Research into teacher preparation programs offered by community colleges in Michigan
offers an opportunity to uncover details about program components. Among the resources
beneﬁcial for identifying programs is the state organization created for Michigan
community college teacher education programs entitled Michigan Association for
Community Colleges in Educator Preparation (MACCEP). Using a descriptive multi-case
qualitative study, I examined six institutions that are members of MACCEP and studied
the components of their teacher education programs. I was most interested in
understanding how the “champions” for teacher education at each Community college
‘see, live, describe and exemplify’ teacher education through their respective programs.
Information about teacher education programs from publications and respective
community college websites were also examined.

There is not a uniform deﬁnition for community college teacher education
programs. Cohen and Brawer (2008), community college historians and leaders, deﬁne
programs as a single course to a full range of courses and co-curricular activities. The
Michigan Association for Community Colleges in Educator Preparation (MACCEP)
programs in this study align with this deﬁnition. These community college teacher
education programs are designed by community college faculty and/or administration
through a curriculum committee, are an outgrth of the commitment and passion for
teacher education of the program “champion”, or have developed based on community
college teacher education course offerings and potential job demands. All the programs in

7

the study are designed With the intent that students will be able to transfer their
coursework and experiences into a senior institution. The test of effectiveness of
community college teacher education programs, beyond the scope of my study, is the rate
of teacher program completion for those who began their career training at a community
college, and then the rate of new teacher retention once employed (Bragg, 2006). The
following is the research question that drives this descriptive study:

What are the components of Michigan teacher education programs at community

colleges who are members of the Michigan Association of Community Colleges

in Educator Preparation (MACCEP)?
Conceptual Framework

In 1998, the National Science Foundation (NSF) highlighted the important role
community colleges might play in preparing K-12 teachers in what is still considered a
groundbreaking workshop (AACC, 2005). As a result, an NSF publication with
recommendations documented in, “Investing in Tomorrows Teachers: The Integral Role
of Two—Year Colleges in the Science and Mathematics Preparation of Prospective
Teachers” was disseminated. Since the publication, many community colleges have
decided to expand and promote science and math courses in their teacher education
programs. In conjunction with these activities, Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) and the American
Association of Community Colleges (AACC) funded a project called, “Preparing
Tomorrows Science and Mathematics Teachers: A Community College Response.” This
two-phase project took place from 2001 to 2005. Designed to improve the math, science
and technology components in teacher education programs, NSF and PTK offered two
competition grants to 36 community colleges. The grants were designed to strengthen
community college teacher preparation programs as well as increase preservice

8

preparation programs in speciﬁc content areas (Cunniff, Belknap, & Kinholt, 2007).
Since the initial 1998 NSF sponsored conference and report, changes in community
college teacher education have taken place.

In 2005, during the second phase of the project, PTK conducted a national
competition to highlight the achievement of community colleges that best met the needs
of those students studying to become K—12 teachers of mathematics and science. The
emphasis of the competition was those community college programs that nurtured
professionalism, provided evidence of effectiveness, and shared student testimony. Seven
community colleges emerged as winners of a national competition on science and
mathematics teacher education (Cunniff, Belknap, & Kinholt, 2007). Lead investigator
for PT K and NSF during the competitive process, Dr. Patricia Cunniff and other
evaluators from PTK and NSF were charged to assess exemplary community college
teacher preparation programs in the United States.

Cunniff (2006) studied and analyzed the grant award winning colleges, collecting
data from many sources including characteristics from the grant applications, conference
discussions, and interviews based on the teacher preparation program descriptors for the
competition. In the seven award winning community colleges, Cunniff (2006) found the
teacher education programs had eleven common characteristics that she organized into
categories or topic headings within an exemplary teacher education program model
(Figure 1). The model was shared in a publication entitled, “Best Practices in Teacher
Preparation Programs: Focus on Students” (Cunniff & Risley, 2006). Each category of
the model is general and adaptable, yet makes unique contributions to the overall model.
It is advantageous when using this model to consider the general categories as a guide or
frame rather than a prescription for any teacher education program because teacher

9

preparation, as noted in the literature, is not an exact science (Darling-Hammond,
Hammerness, Grossman, Rust, & Shulman, 2005). Cunniff (2006) regards the model as a
potentially valid instrument for a multitude of different programs/disciplines, even
though it was normed on math and science speciﬁcally.

Cunniff’s (2006) model identiﬁed eleven characteristics as features of an
exemplary student-focused community college teacher program (See Appendix 1 for a
visual model):

1) Positive and strong administrative support

2) Faculty leadership

3) Support across campus from other faculty in various disciplines

4) Well-developed and validated curriculum often developed jointly with their

four-year partner smooth transfer and articulation

5) Service learning through early ﬁeldwork experiences

6) Financial aid

7) Student support services including tutoring and advising

8) Exceptional collaborative links to local schools and community

9) Multiple student professional development opportunities

10) Student leadership opportunities

1 1) Smooth articulation and transfer.

The Cunniff (2006) model is at the forefront of national conversations about
community college teacher education programs; thus, it is reasonable to use this model as
a conceptual framework for understanding Michigan programs, speciﬁcally. A hallmark
of the commitment by community colleges to prepare tomorrow’s highly qualiﬁed
teachers is reﬂected by the multifaceted best practice components of their programs

10

(Cunniff & Risley, 2006). The Cunniff (2006) visual model displays eleven components

of an exemplary community college teacher education program. The more speciﬁc

explanation of the model combines the eleven components into six detailed categories,

which Cunniff and Risley (2006) describe as follows:

1.

Strong administrative support refers to examples such as: release time for
preparation program directors and coordinators; designated campus space for
the preparation program; ﬁnancial support for students and faculty to attend
professional conferences; promotion of the preparation offerings on- and off-
campus by senior administration; on-campus recognition of the teacher
preparation program; support for marketing; and housing of four-year partner
institutions on the community college campus. Cunniff (2006) provided over
ﬁfteen examples in the ﬁnal report; each helps to explain strong
administrative support for teacher preparation.

Faculty leadership is described as the person(s) who creates an integrated
shared vision and environment with common convictions and positive
outcomes with all levels of college support. Often, the teacher education
program leader or coordinator was part of the faculty team in the preparation
program. The united community of professionals also served together as an
advisory committee with other non-community college educational
professional resources. This type of multi-level faculty collaboration was
apparent in exemplary community college teacher preparation programs
studied by Cunniff (2006). She noted many faculty leaders of these exemplary
programs hold state and national teacher education association positions.
Students also viewed strong faculty leaders as role models in the career

11

pathway. Respect by more than the community college faculty and staff is
apparent in exemplary programs.

Award winning teacher education programs at community colleges have a
strong curriculum based on the work of faculty teams. Strong curricular
characteristics are described as courses developed through partnerships
between community colleges and universities to meet state and national
standards. All programs have infused early ﬁeldwork. The desire to expose
preservice students to diverse classrooms, different classroom management
techniques and various teaching styles is also an important aspect of the
community college exemplary curriculum. Technology integrated in all
aspects of the curriculum is another essential feature. Electronic portfolios,
power point, and integration of classroom technology skills in lessons are
expected and essential curriculum components.

Student support services are described as tutoring support services, advising
students for necessary course work, and a transfer teacher preparation
program to help students successfully complete teacher certiﬁcation. Some
programs have their own advisor for teacher preparation. Transfer guides and
articulation representatives from four-year institutions speak at clubs and
meetings to facilitate articulation information to community college education
students for smooth transitions. Information about scholarships and ﬁnancial
aid designated for teacher education students is also disseminated at
information events.

Strong linkages to the community and local schools are important for solid
teacher preparation programs. Placing education students into early authentic

12

ﬁeld experiences requires a ﬁrm connection to the local school districts.
Service learning methodologies interwoven into the ﬁeld experience to
enhance learning are provided for the preservice teacher. In the early stages of
preservice, students develop a knowledge base for shared understandings
regarding the deﬁnitions, rationales, and principles of good teaching. These
concepts are connected to the theoretical foundation of the profession. Many
local K-12 schools need support in their classrooms to assist students in their
academic needs, and preservice teachers beneﬁt from realistic ﬁeld
experiences. As preservice teachers work in area schools, the PTK programs
intentionally link the service learning ﬁeld experience with the academic
curriculum while addressing real community needs. Also, Cunniff (2006)
noted that preservice teachers learned through active engagement and
reﬂection in various modalities. This indicates that the basic principles of
service learning described by Anderson, Swick, and Yff (2001) are integrated
in preservice student opportunities. Cunniff (2006) found that some
community colleges hire an additional staff person just to help with the
coordination of service learning based ﬁeld experiences in local districts since
the need and demand for additional classroom support is high, and the
academic beneﬁts to the preservice teacher and area schools are mutually
beneﬁcial.
Student opportunities are described as experiences that help future teachers
feel like education majors in their earliest years of college. Multiple
opportunities are described and provided to students in ‘best practice’ I
programs. Examples include professional conferences and meetings, Teacher

13

Education Clubs, ﬁeld trips and ﬁeld experiences sponsored by the college,
student advisory boards, shared professional experiences with transfer or
partner universities, and state level involvement in leadership roles.

Based on Cunniffs (2006) descriptors for exemplary community college teacher
education programs, all the exemplary programs identiﬁed by PTK and NSF employed
strategic personnel to implement, support, and maintain their nationally recognized
teacher preparation programs. These strategic personnel engaged others on campus in
strong administrative support, faculty leadership, partners and/or collaborators between
two- and four- year institutions, supportive faculty, solid advisors, and leaders to
promote opportunities in the ﬁeld of education in addition to the coursework.

Signiﬁcance of the Study

The study may beneﬁt Michigan, its community colleges, and the design of

teacher education programs through the following:

1. Help to design strong curricula and courses of study

2. Increase communication among colleges and universities, which, in turn will

beneﬁt programs and students

3. Increase respect and understanding of community college teacher education

programs due to the analysis of program due to the analysis of program
components

4. Broaden potential transfer options among teacher education programs in

Michigan
5. Help ensure a high quality teacher education workforce that may lessen the

impact of teacher retirements in the next decade in Michigan

14

6. Strengthen education at all levels to maintain a strong academic foundation
for all schools as the state recovers from the present situation of economic
instability (Duderstadt, 2005).
Summary
Community college teacher education programs have been the focus of limited
empirical research. Past research reveals little about program components, especially in
the last ﬁve years. Thus, the importance of this study’s description of program
components is timely and essential. By examining a selected sample of Michigan
Association of Community Colleges in Educator Preparation (MACCEP) programs, a
description of Michigan community college education programs may be ascertained. This
research opens the door to other important studies that may lead to improving community
college teacher education and can offer descriptive information for other transfer
programs. The results and the process of this study provide a vehicle for community
college teacher education programs to assess and reﬂect on their personal program

components as they continue to review what is best for future teachers.

15

Chapter 2
Literature Review

Roadmap to the Literature Review

Literature is useful when discussing various aspects of teacher preparation
programs. Therefore, the review of a broad base of literature strengthens the rationale for
this study. The information may also help to synthesize and clarify the expanded role of
community colleges in teacher preparation.

The following review discusses the importance of teacher preparation, a general
deﬁnition of teacher preparation programs, and a rationale for community college
involvement in teacher education. In addition, the review relates ways in which
community colleges may address the needs of a diverse workforce in teaching, including
the need for urban educators and concerns with retaining teachers in the profession after
their ﬁrst few years of teaching. The information is presented within the context and role
of community colleges involved in teacher preparation programs.

Importance of Teacher Preparation

“So much depends on good teaching” (Patton, Barnett & Felice, 2005, p.5).
Common to other professions such as social work, law enforcement and nursing, teaching
is the work of serving others. Renewed national attention about teacher education
programs at community colleges was brought about when in 1998, the National Science
Foundation publication, Investing in Tomorrow’s Teachers: The Integral Role of Two
Year Colleges in Science and Mathematics Preparation of Prospective Teachers was
shared among professionals across the country. Hart (2001) characterized the signiﬁcance

of this publication, saying that, because of the transformative importance of learning and

16

education, the preparation of teachers is an essential societal function. In addition, there
has been increased attention to assessment and evaluation in teacher education programs,
including through accrediting agencies such as the National Council for Accreditation of
Teacher Education and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council, as there has been in
all other areas of postsecondary education (Darling-Hammond, Hammemess, Grossman,
Rust, & Shulman, 2005). Since community colleges are expanding their role in teacher
preparation, they too, have the potential to be assessed for their program quality and role
in preparing teachers (Gerdeman, 2003). Transfer institutions as well as potential
employers continue to scrutinize teacher preparation components in community colleges.
At this time, there is limited substantive research that examines the efforts of community
college teacher education programs to meet the needs of the teaching profession
(Gerdeman, 2003). Even though community colleges have been involved for some years
in teacher education, Gerdeman (2003) suggests at best, the information on programs is
just “emerging”.

Community college programs organize their coursework to coincide with and
transfer to four-year transfer teacher education programs (Townsend & Ignash, 2003). In
addition, over the last decade, some community colleges have been authorized to award
the baccalaureate in teacher education or provide alternative licensure (Floyd & St.
Arnauld, 2005). In Michigan, all community college teacher education students must
transfer to four-year institutions in order to complete their degree in this ﬁeld (Michigan
Department of Education, 2008). To improve the pipeline of teachers from the
community college to the transfer university, Rosser (2006) argues that issues connected
to “quality program development” and “curriculum” need to be addressed so that transfer
issues are the exception, rather than the norm (Selingo, 2007).

17

Despite all the attention given to community college teacher education programs
in the last decade, quality program development has only been informally assessed. A
national credentialing body does not exist for community colleges while universities
utilize such organizations as American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
(AACTE) or the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).
These organizations provide standards, assessments, and evaluations for universities and
four-year teacher education institution accreditations. Without a credentialing body or
known standard or curriculum in teacher education unique to community colleges, a
model is particularly attractive as a starting point for understanding community college
teacher education programs. The Cunniff model (2006) is one of the initial endeavors to
offer community college teacher preparation programs enumerated components. The
model was developed with Phi Theta Kappa and the National Science Foundation from
identiﬁed successful community college teacher education programs throughout the
United States (Cunniff et al., 2007). However, it has not been examined in light of the
realities of teacher education programs other than those who received grants under the
speciﬁc NSF program and so, the extent to which it represents the ordinary versus the
ideal of community college programs more broadly is not known.
Deﬁning Teacher Preparation Programs

Because there is more research available from four-year university teacher
education programs and because many community colleges offer teacher education
programs for transfer or that are intended to align in some way with a university
curriculum, it seems appropriate to summarize research on university teacher education
models as part of this literature review. This research acts as a foundation when studying
community college program models and helps identify central issues. One may assume if

18

transfer students experience components of basic teacher preparation in a strong

~ preservice community college teacher preparation program that these experiences may
strengthen their ability, knowledge and skills to complete the process of becoming
teachers at their transfer institution of choice.

For the purpose of this study, a teacher education program is deﬁned using the
criteria of the Michigan Association of Community Colleges in Educator Preparation,
which. parallels Cohen & Brawer’s (2008) deﬁnition. The community colleges in this
study, as is true in institutions nationally (Cohen and Brawer, 2008), range in their
offerings from a single course to a full range of courses and co-curricular activities. The
test of effectiveness of community college teacher education programs, beyond the sc0pe
of my study, is the rate of teacher program completion for those who began their career
training at a community college, and then the rate of new teacher retention once
employed (Bragg, 2006).

Darling-Hammond and Snyder (2000) did extensive study of four-year teacher
education programs, making several recommendations and observations based on their
research. For example, they believe the developing new student in teacher education
might move further along during the ﬁrst years if the preparation program offers
candidates appropriate curriculum and experiences in an engaging, meaningful manner.
They argue faculty should:

1. Maintain strong programs to support teacher learning through various

approaches. The knowledge of the learner, conceptions of curriculum, and the
understanding of the many facets of teaching are core to developing the future

teacher.

19

2.

Include well-deﬁned and constructed clinical experiences, sometimes known
as ﬁeld experiences; including student teaching and strategies such as
microteachin g or mini lessons that are integrated throughout the program.
Allow a variety of performance assessments, professional portfolio
development, analysis of teaching and learning at various levels, case studies,
teacher inquiry, and autobiographies in the curriculum. (Darling-Hammond &

Snyder, 2000)

These particular elements offer critical experiences for preservice teachers and provide a

foundation for preservice teacher learning. Linked directly to these essential elements of

teacher leaming, ﬁeld experiences, and assessments are three further components that

strengthen future teacher development. They are coherence, learning about teaching in

practice, and challenge (Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 2000):

l.

Coherence is explained as organized content in meaningful scope and
sequence (Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 2000). Scope and sequence include
the content of teacher preparation, the learning process, and the learning
context. When academic elements are encountered with mutually reinforced
ideas and skills, particularly as they are taught through effective pedagogy,
learning is enhanced. What is taught, visions for the context, and how the
information is transferred within multiple contexts supports the need for
coherence. (Biedennan & Shiffrar, 1987)

Learning about teaching in practice is another component in the development
of teachers (Darling-Hammond & Snyder 2000). In a ﬁeld experience or a
clinical environment, a future teacher has the opportunity to apply the
knowledge learned in class and reﬁne it. Successful learning occurs when

20

there is an opportunity to apply the learned knowledge and make it one’s own
through experience (National Research Council, 2000). When the student is
immersed in classroom experiences and is working on particular concepts, the
potential for powerful learning and professional growth occurs (Ball & Cohen,
1999; Lampert & Ball, 1998). Ball and Cohen (1999) have termed this kind of
learning, “learning in and from practice” Q11 1).

. Challenge is another aspect of the learning process in the development of
future teachers (Darling-Hammond & Snyder 2000). The complex processes
of how to introduce, work with, and revisit key concepts so future teachers are
inducted and integrated into a sophisticated practice is no small challenge
(Darling-Hammond et al., 2005). Many examples can ﬁirther explain the
complexity of teacher preparation training such as, lesson pacing, meeting
diverse student needs, and utilizing age and developmental appropriate
pedagogy. A challenge in the development process of future teachers is the
readiness for learning about participatory aspects of teaching as well as how to
bring life theory into practice and practice into theory (Darling-Hammond et

aL,2005)

Opportunities should also be provided to learn performance assessment strategies

(Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 2000). Microteaching, professional teaching portfolios,

structured reﬂections on ﬁeld and course learning experiences, and planning skills all

offer student opportunities for assessment and knowledge of the future teacher in realistic

contexts (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005).

Service learning is an effective learning pedagogy and continues to be one of the

most often cited instructional approaches used by teacher educators (Verducci & Pope,

21

2001). Verducci and Pope (2001) further explain that service learning enhances and
improves the knowledge of future teachers and their professional growth in multiple
ways. As future teachers work in area schools and agencies to experience authentic
teaching and learning, they not only support community needs but personal learning
needs both for these students and for their future students. Service learning provides
coherence and connection to theory and practice, a clear justiﬁcation for teaching in
practice, and an opportunity to experience performance assessment. Through service
learning, ﬁrture teachers gain a myriad of strategies to enhance not only their assessment
skills but also their teaching methodologies (Verducci & Pope, 2001).

Teacher Preparation Program Design 0

Darling-Hammond, Hammemess, Grossman, Rust, and Shulman (2005) discuss
the recent 20th century design models in four-year teacher preparation programs. Before
the late 1980’s, most teacher education programs utilized major theoretical models to
instruct future teachers, such as those of John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and others (Ryan &
Cooper, 2004). Following educator training programs based on theory, the more
integrated program models with a vision for teaching and learning with theory evolved
(Cabello, Eckmier & Baghieri, 1995; Graber, 1996; Hammemess & Darling-Hammond,
2002).

The more recent teacher preparation programs are pedagogically structured
around the idea that teachers need to do more than just implement techniques based on
theories; they need to meet student needs. Teachers need to be problem solvers, think in a
pedagogical manner, critically examine dilemmas, and explore student learning to further
meet and develop diverse student population needs (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 2001;
Palincsar, Magnusson, Collins, and Cutter, 2001, Villegas & Lucas, 2002a). These

22

authors and others concluded there are many ways to organize learning experiences for
teachers in preparation programs and therefore, teacher education may not be best
thought of from a formulaic approach (Bransford, Darling-Hammond, & LePage, 2005).

Researchers continue to explore the complexity of teaching and learning.
Shulman (1986) discussed the importance of content knowledge and explained how a
teacher uses this information to connect with students and help them learn. Borko and
Putman (1996) believe expert teachers need four types of knowledge: knowledge of
content or subject; pedagogical content or skills in content teaching; general pedagogical
content or general teaching skills; and knowledge of learners. Recent empirical evidence
indicates that a logical vision of teaching and learning that connects with ﬁeld placement
and classroom strategies in learning and assessment has a greater impact on teachers than
disconnected courses (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005). Essentially, studies of university
teacher education programs indicate there is a growing repertoire of strategies to draw
upon in developing teacher preparation. As a reminder, Darling-Hammond et a1. (2005)
note teaching teachers is one of the most demanding kinds of professional preparations
programs.

Just two decades ago, Michigan State University’s Teacher Preparation and
Learning to Teach TELT research program (1986-1990) explored the different features of
teacher preparation programs. Essentially, this longitudinal study researched the need for
and the beneﬁts of formal teacher education programs (Kennedy, 1993). The ﬁndings of
the study concluded there is no single best way to organize the learning experiences of
teachers in a preparation program (Darling-Hammond, et al., 2005). As noted by the
literature, formal teacher education programs are part of the training culture for teachers.
Various conﬁgurations, options, and pathways are introduced and each has components

23

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of theory and practice connected to program expectations. Yet, there is no mention in the
literature or research of model programs for teacher education having strong standards
for accreditation (Imig & Harrill-McClellan, 2003) even while these sites are of growing
importance in helping to train, increase and retain the teaching force (Townsend &
Ignash, 2003). Basically, the reference to programs in community colleges is used when
authors talk about student transfer into 4-year programs. So, there is no real reason to
believe that community colleges might be using similar models to their university
counterparts. The exception to this void is Cunniff’s model (2006), which is why it was
used as a foundation for this study.
Rationale for Involvement of Community Colleges in Teacher Preparation

The introduction of this research provided a general overview of teacher
preparation and the teacher shortages present in the United States. If the teacher is the
most inﬂuential person for academic success, and minority students make up 40 percent
of the student population through out the US, diverse teaching populations are necessary
(National Center for Education Statistics, 2000). Teachers need to represent the US.
population as well as create a well-balanced diverse classroom (Banks, et al., 2005; Gay,
2000). Doing so can create an environment to draw diverse populations to enter the
teaching profession (Simmons, 2000). So striking is the need for teachers with strong
academic backgrounds, all sectors of higher education are involved in the task (Risley,
2002). Considering our globalized world, changing population demographics, and teacher
retention rates, community colleges are positioned to strengthen the preparation pathway
through their involvement in the development of teachers (Townsend, 2003). Not
surprisingly, community college teacher preparation programs have expanded in the last
decade as indicated to meet these growing teacher shortage needs (Shkodriani, 2004). In

24

fact, teacher preparation programs comprise 2.5 % of the program developments in
community colleges and are part of the top list of hot programs (McPhee, 2004).
Creating a diverse teaching force is one reason to study strong community college
teacher education programs. Community colleges play a major role in postsecondary
education in the United States, especially for under-represented and ﬁrst generation
students. As noted by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC, 2006),
these institutions educate close to 50% of the minority students enrolled in undergraduate
education, including African American, Hispanic, Asian, Paciﬁc Islander, and Native
American students. Because many university teacher education programs do not accept
students until the junior year or its equivalent, it is conceivable that the prospective pool
of students to enter these programs could be developed during the ﬁrst two years of
postsecondary education in strong community college teacher education programs.
Another reason for community colleges to offer teacher education programs is
based on their locations, cost, and the opportunity to attract area students into
professional training at the community college with an encouragement to return to teach
at local K-12 schools. The community college is less expensive than the university
(Education USA, 2006), has many course offerings to meet the needs of under prepared
students for college, and often is located close to the residence of students (Cohen &
Brawer, 2008). These institutions are often in urban settings, and may be the ﬁrst step for
local area students in moving into higher education (Cohen & Brawer, 2008). Research
indicates there is an increased need for teachers in poor and urban settings, and providing
strong teacher education programs in urban colleges can potentially support the
development of teachers for urban schools. Aligning the teacher population with the
student population through local community college education programs affords a

25

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personal connection to the system and provides a kind of “grow your own” teacher
incentive (Ramirez, 2007).

There is also high teacher turnover among schools comprised of lower economic
populations or/and challenging urban settings. From this group, over ﬁfty percent of
teachers leave the profession between years one through ﬁve (Ingersoll, 2001). Data
reveal many young, inexperienced teachers obtain their ﬁrst job in urban schools despite
the fact that their student teaching experiences are in suburban schools (Kopetz, Lease &
Warren-Kring (2006). The challenges that inexperienced teachers face, along with the
stresses they encounter in this environment, often push beginning teachers out of the local
area or out of the profession. A strong teacher preparation program, beginning at a
community college, may assist in reducing or eliminating recurring problems with
teacher retention in these locations.

An additional reason for teacher education programs to be offered at community
colleges based on their location and population is the draw for area students as potential
future teachers to attend their community college for professional training and return to
teach at their local K-12 schools. However, as the young student of diverse background
enters the community college, elements speciﬁc to the program seem necessary to
support their persistence and retention. This is important to consider since Cohen and
Brawer (2008) explain that community colleges serve a broader sector of local population
than do any other high education institution. If diverse populations are to teach in the 21S‘
century classrooms, community colleges are the starting place for diverse populations.

Student persistence in academic transfer programs at the community college level
is less than desirable in general, and perhaps no better in teacher education speciﬁcally
(Townsend, 2002). There is also little evidence that reveals reasons for student

26

persistence and retention in particular ﬁelds of study (Bailey, et al., 2004). At the
community college, a strong teacher education program based on clearly deﬁned program
expectations and components may help students persist to the time of transfer and
complete their teaching degree.
Summary of Literature Review

The literature helps to synthesize and clarify the expanded role of community
colleges in teacher education, and further explain some of the identiﬁed essential features
of these preparation programs (Townsend & Ignash, 2003). Research also conﬁrms the
role of community colleges in helping to deal with the national teacher shortage through
an increase in their commitment to and involvement in teacher education. Community
college teacher education programs help feed into four-year programs and assist in
addressing the labor market needs for teachers. These programs also create a positive
impact, especially in diversifying the teaching force of strong students who have already
begun professional preparation ready to transfer into university teacher education
programs, who may also be invested in particular future school placements in‘high need
areas since many diverse students begin their education at community colleges (Blair,
2003; Guiterrez, 2006). Guiterrez (2006) further maintains community colleges can
enlist, keep, and educate quality teachers with thoughtful program development, high-
quality faculty, institutional support, and sound data to support their role in teacher
preparation.

The current study built on the existing literature with the intent of providing
foundational data on community college teacher education programs in Michigan that

might inform college educators in this state. In addition, the study included lessons

27

learned about these important programs and how they are situated in their institutions in

order educators in other states may also beneﬁt.

28

Chapter Three
Methodology

This section describes the design and research methodology for this study of
teacher education programs in Michigan community colleges. This study sought to
answer the following question:

Research Question

What are the components of Michigan teacher education programs at community

colleges who are members of the Michigan Association of Community Colleges in

Educator Preparation (MACCEP)?

The methodology in this study was driven by the need to identify program
components and elements in teacher education programs at community colleges in
Michigan. The purpose of this study was to identify and explain the components for
MACCEP community college teacher education programs using a multiple case study
design, resulting in a current portrait of MACCEP community college teacher education
programs. A multiple case study was selected because case studies explore a
phenomenon in a certain period such as a program or process, and collect detailed
information that help deﬁne the phenomenon (Creswell, 2002; Meniam, 1988; Yin,
1989)

Semi-structured interviews of a sample of the members of the MACCEP provided
rich, descriptive analyses of the MACCEP teacher education programs. The following
sections provide detailed information about the study including the population and
background, details about the interviews, data analyses, limitations of the study, and my

role as the researcher.

29

Population and Background Information

The sample for this study was selected from the population of community
colleges afﬁliated with the Michigan Association of Community Colleges in Education
Preparation (MACCEP); in 2006-2007, which numbered thirteen. During that year, there
were 27 community colleges in Michigan but not all of them participated in teacher
preparation nor did they afﬁliate with MACCEP. The sample consisted of six Michigan
Lower Peninsula community colleges systematically selected to represent a cross section
of teacher education programs based on various geographic location,.type such as rural,
urban, suburban, and varying student populations in terms of size. All community
colleges in the study were multi-site campuses and table 1 provides further details about
each community college (NCES, 2009).

Table 1 Program Sample Identiﬁers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Community Interviewee Program Type, location in lower
College Name Names Type peninsula & population
' range for-credit students
Lake Erie Chase & Formal Urban, west ,15,000
Christian
Lake Huron Bailey & Blair & Formal Urban, middle, 19,000
Brett
Lake Michigan Maxie & Rikki Informal Suburban, east, 12,000
Lake Ontario Jessie & Jordan Informal Urban, north east, 10,400
Round Lake Dakota Informal Urban, east, 22,000
Lake Supe1ior Aiden & Alex Informal Rural, north, small, 10,000
(pilot)

 

For each of the six selected community colleges, I began the research by
investigating their college website and in particular, their teacher education program
information. I purposely sought names of Deans, coordinators, directors, or any
identiﬁable administrator or leader directly or indirectly linked to teacher education. I

called the community college representative identiﬁed on the website about teacher

30

 

education program information. After brief introductions and a simple explanation for my
telephone call, I was transferred to the person most likely to have in-depth knowledge
about respective college programs. I then asked this person to identify a ‘champion’ or a
person(s) employed by the college who demonstrated exemplary commitment to and
involvement in teacher education as well as engaging others. I deﬁned ‘champion’ as
having responsibility with faithfulness, allegiance or loyalty and dedication, and
responsibility that takes up time or energy in keeping with Chickering and Reisser
(1993). I stated I wanted to interview for this study those who were not only “perceived
as a champion in this area”, but also actively involved in teacher education. If the person
initially contacted was a self-identiﬁed champion, I asked if there were additional
champions at their college in teacher education, additional informants or champions at
each community college were shared. In total, twelve interviewees were identiﬁed for the
research study. These champions were then contacted by telephone and agreed to be
involved in a more in-depth, on-site interview, and research study about the teacher
education program at their college. All identiﬁed champions agreed to meet for face-to-
face interviews except for one person who was in transition for another college position
and declined to be interviewed.

MA CCEP Information. Placing the MACCEP organization in a national context is
an important consideration in this study. Because of the national increase in community
colleges involved in teacher education, as well as the increase in enrollment in Michigan
community college teacher education programs, several interested community college
personnel with the support of the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) organized
MACCEP in 2003. In the same period, at the national level, the National Association of
Community College Teacher Education Programs (N ACCTEP) was formed. The

31

American Association of Community Colleges recognized NACCTEP in January 2002 as
a new organization for teacher education dedicated to supporting the community college
role in recruiting, preparing and retaining Pre K-12 teachers at the national level
(NACCTEP, 2003). Several Michigan community colleges ﬁrst joined NACCTEP, which
further increased the momentum to collaborate with teacher education universities and
transfer institutions in Michigan. From the state connections made at the national
conference, and conversations with the Michigan Department of Education, MACCEP
was formally organized.

The mission of the Michigan Association for Community College Educator
Preparation (MACCEP) is to advocate for high quality teacher education and educator
support programs. The organization is a forum for exchange and dialogue on a wide
range of topics of interest to Michigan educators who believe in setting high standards for
teacher and paraprofessional education. Whether one is from a community college,
university, state department agency, or K-12 program, the organization is open to any
professional or group interested in teacher education and in becoming part of this
growing network. MACCEP continues to support, inform, and link community colleges
in teacher education with national and state schools, universities and organizations as
noted by their mission, by-laws, and through the website at www.maccep.org. If other
Michigan community colleges decide to initiate or expand their teacher education
coursework, MACCEP is an organization ’of professionals ready to assist and/or support
their endeavors.

In the spring of 2003, the ﬁrst Day of Dialogue was held in Lansing, Michigan,
where the initial informal connections for Michigan community colleges to discuss
teacher education began. The Michigan Department of Education, Michigan community

32

college faculty, administrators in teacher education, and certifying university and college
personnel attended. In all, approximately one hundred professionals shared their interest
in community college teacher education. Since the initial meeting, annual Days of
Dialogue have occurred and any institution or group interested in and/or involved in
teacher education (MACCEP, 2007) has been invited to attend. Each event has been
sponsored by an MACCEP state community college member that offers a teacher
education program.
Data Collection

Using a semi-structured interview protocol (Appendix A), I interviewed the 12
champions of teacher education programs at six community colleges in Michigan to
identify and examine the existence and degree of implementation of various program
components. On-site interviews were arranged by telephone contact and conﬁrmed
through email. I drove to the location selected by each community college participant for
their interview. In each instance, a quiet room was arranged so the interviews were
uninterrupted. The semi-structured interview protocol was developed based, in part, on
the literature review and the Cunniff (2006) teacher education model (see Figure 1).
Although Cunniff (2006) provides some information about program components, it was
also important to explore aspects of the Michigan teacher education programs that may
be different from her model. Questions pursued a clear description of each community
college program, its features, strengths, challenges and more. The interviews ran between
30 to 90 minutes each. 1 audio taped and took ﬁeld notes of each interviewee. After the
interview, I sent a formal thank you letter to each participant.

Prior to the interviews, I read college websites for information about teacher
education programs including descriptions, courses, and whatever else was available on-

33

ex;

li’C

brt

line. The information derived from websites provided preliminary background for some
of the programs. For example, there was information included on the websites regarding
ﬁnancial aid and scholarships offered for future teachers. This type of information was
explored during the interviews. Further program content analysis occurred because I
requested from the interviewee any type of pamphlet, ﬂyer, course catalog, schedules,
brochure, handout or any other concrete evidence of teacher education distributed that
further explained their program (Appendix B), and asked for explanation of the artifacts.
Following the interviews, I went back to each community college website to review
added program information mentioned during the conversation.

Data Analyses

Creswell (2003) states data analysis in qualitative research is on going during the
process. As a researcher, I found this to be evident while organizing the data, reading
through it time and again, transcribing and coding, raising questions, and developing a
visual description and chart of the collected data. Creswell (2003) shares a description of
data analyses by Schatzman and Strauss (1973) as one example of qualitative analysis.
They state that qualitative data analysis is classifying the data in some fashion in order to
characterize them for further analyses. In this study, I adopted this approach to identify
and describe patterns and themes based on the participants perspectives of their
respective teacher education program. The following describes the steps taken in the
study for data analysis.

After interviews were completed, they were transcribed verbatim from the audio
tapes. The transcripts were then content analyzed for themes based on the core concepts
central to the study (Merriam, 2002) including, but not limited to the program
components identiﬁed in the Cunniff (2006) model. This was accomplished by listing and

34

coding all the gathered data both from interviews and from other sources. The interview
transcripts. website information, and documents such as program brochures, community
college catalogs, and schedules, as well as descriptors used in the program documents
were examined for emerging themes and patterns that describe program components and
the nature of teacher education programs. The document analyses before and after the
interviews helped provide additional descriptive background information before and after
the interviews as well as additional answers about some of the comments made by
participants during the interviews.

Considered were the discrete components of a program as well as various out of
class experiences such as future teacher extra curricular events, ﬁeld trips, and campus
events that overlapped With other activities and departments. 1 was alert to other issues
that emerged from the interview data, particularly, that went beyond program
components and reﬂected the institutional context and issues of offering teacher
education programs at the selected Michigan community colleges.

By taking a holistic approach to data analysis or viewing the entire set of
interviews collectively rather than each individual interview, then reviewing the
interview data and documents, discrete characteristics of the selected programs became
evident and provided a detailed and rich understanding of the nature of community
college teacher preparation programs. Such items as program philosophy, trends and
potential needs, specialized components, unique opportunities and demographics that
perpetuate or provide new prospective teacher labor markets were revealed. In addition,
the research process exposed components that helped to deﬁne teacher education

programs apart from just coursework and experiences.

35

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To summarize, the interview and document data analyses helped determine what
descriptive components are pervasive in select Michigan community colleges and
identify differences in various teacher preparation programs. The data revealed
similarities and differences in Michigan community colleges teacher education programs
that are discussed in the following chapter.

Through the process of coding and analysis, speciﬁc themes with categories
emerged. During the ongoing data analysis, I developed a model as a visual
representation of categories of curriculum, commitment and connections, and speciﬁc
teacher education program components became evident in each category.
Simultaneously, I created a chart to further support the category and component visual
analysis and is located in (Appendix D).

Role of the Researcher

The researcher was responsible for all components of the study, including all
forms of data collection and analysis. It was important to remain neutral and unbiased as
a researcher. I acknowledge that I am currently a teacher education professor at one
Michigan community college and a member of MACCEP. I have been involved in local,
state and national conversations regarding teacher education preparation programs at high
school, community college, university, and post certiﬁcation levels for several years. I
believe teacher preparation occurs at many levels. As a result, I have a strong passion for
this topic but also felt an equally strong responsibility to conduct a study of high quality
and rigor that represents and describes the nature of community college teacher education
programs in Michigan. Since interviews and information were from the state in which I

reside, it was imperative that integrity and conﬁdentiality be kept throughout the study.

36

This study was not evaluative and it was important for me to assure participants of this
fact.
T ransferability

This study explored program components of teacher education programs from six
community college members of Michigan Association of Community Colleges in
Education Preparation (MACCEP) in 2006-2007. Although the ﬁndings of this study are
not generalizable as a function of the research design and small sample (Maxwell, 1992),
the results do provide lessons learned that could inform those involved with community
college teacher education because of the adaptability in the Belknap Model.

Limitations of the Study

Since semi-structured interviews and case studies are descriptive in nature, a
hypothesis or formal outcome was not expected from the study (Creswell, 2003).
Information derived from the interviews was dependent on each participant and the
understanding of and willingness to share information. The ﬁndings are transferable but
not generalizable.

There is also the potential for participant and researcher bias as there is in most
studies (Creswell, 2003). All of the participants interviewed were directly involved with
teacher education at their respective community college. Every researcher must be aware
of what participants say versus what participants think the researcher wants to hear. As
noted in the research protocol, clarifying questions and detailed description were part of
the interview process. Since all interviewees were audio taped and participants’ words
transcribed verbatim, I attempted to remove any bias. However, there is always a chance
that my involvement as a teacher education program coordinator and my personal
enthusiasm for education inﬂuenced the responses. Since I did not know or work with the

37

interviewees on a personal level, it was easier to maintain a level“ of objectivity. For that
reason, what was told during each interview, and what the participants thought I wanted
them to say is addressed only as a potential limitation. As noted, all the participants were
very eager to share their story. They all were very willing to spend as much time as
necessary to explain in detail what program components existed at their community
college. These ﬁndings provide any institution an adaptable framework for creating,

expanding, or improving their teacher education program.

38

Chapter IV

Findings

Findings from this exploratory qualitative, multi-site case study provide a detailed
understanding of components of teacher education programs at Michigan community
colleges. The primary research question of this study was:

What are the components of Michigan teacher education programs at community

colleges who are members of the Michigan Association of Community Colleges

in Educator Preparation (MACCEP)?
Twelve participants from six community colleges that were 2006-07 members of
MACCEP were interviewed. Their answers provide myriad perspectives about Michigan
teacher education programs, their components, and other aspects important in
understanding these growing community college teacher education programs.

In addition to the face-to-face interview data, institutional and program
documents and college website information are also discussed. What appear in the data as
common program components are presented in the Michigan Teacher Education Program
Component Belknap Model overview (Figure 2 & Appendix D), discussed in detail
through supportive data, and followed by a summary table. Pseudonyms are used for all
colleges and participants to protect conﬁdentiality. There is no link between the
community college pseudonym and the actual geographic location, and interviewees were
given gender—neutral names for additional protection. The data analysis discussion and
further explanation of three important, emergent themes follow, and help further explain

the teacher education components of Michigan community colleges.

39

Overview of the Michigan Sample

Each Michigan community college teacher education program in this study was
from the lower peninsula and is generally described by a website, brochure, or catalog.
This study intended to understand the programs more fully than would be seen through
documents and websites alone. Twelve individuals were interviewed from six MACCEP
Michigan community colleges identiﬁed as involved in teacher education programs at
their respective institution; this includes one community college where a pilot study was
conducted. An interview protocol developed from a conceptual model by Cunniff (2006)
was used as a starting point for each individual discussion (Figure 1).

The majority of the twelve participants interviewed commented that every higher
education institution involved in teacher education programs in Michigan, both at the
community college and university level, is autonomous. They further explained that the
Michigan Department of Education monitors university teacher education programs, but
there is not a speciﬁc regulatory or Michigan Department of Education coordinating
group for community college programs. As a result, there are numerous variations in core
components in Michigan community college teacher education programs. As participants
talked extensively about their programs, it became necessary to categorize the data in
order to provide a clearer picture of Michigan community colleges teacher education
programs. The core components are faculty, administration, students, courses in various
content areas through a variety of formats including hybrid, face-to-face and on-line, ﬁeld
experience, an agreement from the Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and
Admissions Ofﬁcers (MACRAO), state and national alignment to standards, and state

testing and credentialing preparation.

40

In order to make sense out of the components, I created a chart and ﬁgure as tools
to explain the general components. I then organized the components identiﬁed during the
interviews into the following categories: curriculum, connections, and commitment. The
visual model of these three broad categories helps show the connection between the
various aspects of community college teacher education programs represented in this
study. These categories are described in greater detail later in this chapter.

Informal to formal program continuum

I began the interviews asking for an overview description of each respective
teacher education program. Participants described details about each of their respective
programs along a continuum of informal to more formal. The continuum refers to
program features about curriculum, organization, and structure, level of administrative
support, extra-curricular activities, advising and support for future teachers. Among
groups of participants from each college, there was strong consensus as to where 6n the
continuum their program fell.

On the informal end of the spectrum, teacher education programs are deﬁned as a
course or a set of courses created to prepare future teachers for a college or university
transfer program. Community college faculties, interested in and familiar with teacher
education, usually teach these courses. One program that is starting at Lake Superior
Community College represents early phases of an informal program in the words of this
participant:

As I’ve shared with you, one of my projects this next year or two is to devise, to

actually create an education program here at Lake Superior because we do not

have a formal teacher education program.l can just talk a little bit about what I

know about the program. Having done that, I’ve spot-checked about 20-25

41

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courses that we offer at Lake Superior that link to teacher education, but none of
them are falling under this umbrella for an education program. I’m right now
meeting with our dean of new programs. We’re trying to establish a need study,
you know, going through all the hoops that you need to in order to substantiate if
we really do need a program here that would serve students. Although the
numbers are decreasing, all of us aren’t hopeful that it will stay that way forever.
So that, I guess, is where my passion and my priorities lie right now with our
program. At best, I would say we have an informal program. There’s next to no .
coordination or conversation. Very little. Very little. You know, there has been
but not routinely and nobody seems to want it to happen. I would say if somebody
really wanted it to happen, one of the people who teaches these courses or one of

our administrators, there would be somebody leading the charge.

Another interviewee also described only coursework at Lake Superior Community

College, noting the teacher education program there had a very informal structure.

Further, this participant described their program as very simple with no additional student

options for teacher education such as a teacher club, education advisor or education-

linked extra curricular activities. The interviewee also said there was not a particular

administrative champion or leader, and so those who teach the basic education courses

are also the ones who link students with the community for ﬁeld service experiences.

Moving along the continuum from informal to formal, a participant from Round

Lake Community College spoke of the ways in which that program is becoming more

formal as the responsibilities for teaching and program involvement shift towards

someone with an education background.

42

I am the director of the education program, which includes the para-professional
program, the child development associate degree, the Child Development
Associate (CDA), coursework preparation and pre-professional elementary and
secondary education. When we decided to create the Intro to Ed class and to take
this para—professional associate degree and ﬁt it in somewhere, there was big
discussion as to whether we should have a program coordinator for just that or
give that responsibility to the person who is already the program coordinator for
early childhood studies. And because it was an infant—in the infant stage—they
decided to make our early childhood studies coordinator also responsible for this
para-professional degree and the K-12. The downfall to that is that our early
childhood studies coordinator does not have any background in K-12 education at
all. She is an early childhood specialist, so while she is the program advisor when
the questions come through, they come to me because I am the one that has that
knowledge. . .There were a large number of declared education majors, so they
asked if I would get on board, and I said, “Sure.” You know, it was right up my
alley. So we worked on the developing of the courses, and at that point in time
there were two courses that were developed. At this point, I am working. in the K-
12 education program.

A participant from Lake Huron Community College describes the teacher
education program in ways that are much more institutionally recognized and deﬁned,
thereby ﬁtting more on the formal end of the continuum.

we also have a teacher education program, which is housed in the social science

department, and actually, you can see that if you look at the organizational table. I

don’t have any supervisory capacity over the education program. We actually

43

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work together. The education program has all the edu courses. But there are

courses in all these other departments as well. I am coordinator of teacher

preparation, which is the larger interdisciplinary concept.
In the eyes of participants, formal teacher education programs are recognized as
programs or departments by their respective colleges. The program has an identiﬁed
department chair, director, or coordinator. In two cases in this study, the person in this
position has release time to provide leadership, curriculum direction, and administrative
responsibilities to manage the many components of the program within the college and
throughout the community.

Table 2 provides a summary of the initial descriptor used by participants to
characterize their community college teacher education program on the continuum of
informal to formal. If there was limited teacher education coursework offered, and
coursework was the only available connection to the profession, the community college
participant identiﬁed their program as informal. Participants described their programs as
more formal when there were other recognizable features associated with the teacher
education program in addition to coursework. Later in this section, I provide clariﬁcation
about why there is only teacher education coursework at some community colleges and

others have additional program components.

44

Table 2 Program Types

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Community College I Interviewee Program

Name Names Type

Lake Erie Chase & Formal
Christian

Lake Huron Bailey & Blair & Formal
Brett

Lake Michigan Maxie & Rikki Informal

Lake Ontario Jessie & Jordan Informal

Round Lake Dakota Informal

Lake Superior (pilot) Aiden & Alex Informal

 

Michigan Teacher Education Program Component Model Overview

Participants from the six community colleges detailed many components of their
teacher education programs. In order to organize the vast amount of data they provided,
and construct meaning and value of the information, I arrived at three broad categories
that seemed to best capture the collection of topics and descriptors: commitment,
curriculum, and connection (for Belknap Model Overview, see Figure 1 & 2 in the
Appendices). Based on my interpretation of the ideas presented but without always being
able to make discrete distinctions, I placed each topic in at least one or more category.
The terms I used in my categorization were those most commonly used by the
participants even though, at times, individuals used language speciﬁc to their college. For
example, many terms were used to describe ﬁeld experience such as ﬁeldwork, service
work, on-site work, and observation. In the end, the descriptions were very similar, so
ﬁeld experience, the most frequently used word, was selected as the program component
label. In addition, even though the components may be connected to or blended with
other categories in some way, a decision to place the component in a particular category

was based on the strongest link to my deﬁnition of the category and inferences made by

45

participants during the interviews. Each of the three categories of teacher education
program components is discussed in more detail below.
Commitment

The interviewees explained several examples of commitment by faculty,
administration and students with a teaCher education program. I am deﬁning commitment
based on Chickering and Reisser (1993) who deﬁne it as having responsibility with
faithfulness, allegiance or loyalty and dedication, and responsibility that takes up time or
energy. In this study, commitment is not only how people are described but also what
they do in relation to community college teacher education. Table 3 provides additional
details about commitment and related components. Following the table are quotes that
describe ﬁrrther the components of faculty, administration and students in this category.

Table 3 List of components in the commitment category

 

Commitment Description Detail

 

Faculty Display of characteristics as well as employment expectations,
teaching, passion, love of education and learning, experience, clubs,
advising, develop and offer outside of class opportunities, leadership,
safety and professionalism, role model, collaborative work

 

Administration Positive support, guidance, encouragement, if able provides for needs
and strengthens program through aspects of communication

 

Students Course involvement, career search opportunities, pre-teaching
experience through ﬁeld service

 

 

 

 

F acuity

Faculty participants showed a passion and commitment to the ﬁeld of teacher
education through their tone of voice and detailed descriptions. Participants shared
information about their background in education and their love of learning, experiences,
personal display of characteristics as well as employment expectations, teaching,

formation of student clubs, volunteer advising, development and offers to students for

46

outside of class opportunities, educational leadership, concern for student safety and
professionalism, role models, and examples of collaborative work.

Their passion was evident not only in what they told me during the interview, but
also in their emotional tone and mannerisms during the face-to-face time spent together.
For example, one person became very emotional during the interview, almost to the point
of tears, displaying a great amount of passion and care for their role in preparing future
teachers. Another faculty member attempted to explain with very zealous intonation and
hand gestures how the professional aspects of teaching need to be modeled and discussed.

Each participant shared an eager willingness to participate and support the study.
Participants provided personal cell phone numbers if needed for contact, were very quick
to respond to emails, and prepared for the face-to-face interview with detailed and
descriptive notes along with community college program artifacts. They were willing to
meet again if necessary, and verbalized this offer more than once. Follow-up emails and
calls after the interview also reiterated a desire to support additional conversations if
necessary. Each participant was very willing to share their story and commitment to
teacher education at their community college.

Of the twelve professionals interviewed, seven had K-12 certiﬁcation and all
types of teaching experiences at various grade levels. First-hand experiences in the ﬁeld
of K-12 teacher education were apparent based on the interviewee responses. In addition,
some of the participants shared a desire to continue their connection and commitment to
teacher education by volunteering in K-12 schools. The ﬁve participants who did not
have K—1 2 certiﬁcation had other connections with the public schools including one who
was a school board member, one who was a consistent school volunteer, and others who
were active parents involved in their children’s K-12 school system activities. The

47

following quotes provide a closer look at the participants’ passionate commitment to

education. The personal testimonies also show how community college program faculties

are willing to work across department/unit lines with their college and with prek-12

community schools and agencies. A faculty at Round Lake Community college states:
This isn’t meant to sound egotistical or toot my horn, but I think the fact that I
have actually been in the classroom is important. When I was in college, I had
instructors who had all of the book smarts, all the college education, but had never
practiced their craft outside of the college environment. They had never spent
time in the classroom. They had never actually done the things that they were
trying to teach, and my own personal philosophy is you have no business trying to
teach something if you haven’t done it yourself. I think the fact that I spent those
years in the classroom, and I also spent years in a childcare center as an
administrator, that I’m able to come in with some real-world, and sometimes it’s a
matter of this is the theory, but this is the way it really is, you know. And I think
that’s valuable for them. I think that’s a strength.

A faculty member at Lake Erie Community College explains their role and that of others.
Our faculties, to be quite honest, our students continually tell us how much they
like our faculty, especially in this education department. They feel we’re
knowledgeable; we’ve been in the ﬁeld; we have a real-world experience; we care
enough to help them without babying them. I think that’s one of our positives,
quite honestly. And when we did some other things, students are very vocal about
that. They appreciate the support they get in this area. And so, by doing it that
long and actually teaching, reading, when I teach the literacy class, I’ve got real-
world photos, real-world experiences, real-world writing samples. Has this ever

48

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C0

tic

happened? Yes, this has happened. I can go through the litany of things and so
can other people, like Lucy B., our other instructor was, you know, worked in the
child care setting, loved the director, and so when you do all that, we don’t say,
“well if I was in a classroom;” we know what the classroom is truly about... And
so, I think our students appreciate when we speak about different aspects. It’s the
true knowledge. I’m not going to say, if you get a kid like this. I’m going to say
when you get a child like this, because it’s going to happen. That’s the difference
as opposed to someone who’s like, “Why, I don’t know.” Here’s what you do.
Maxie, a faculty at Lake Michigan Community College who was also an area K-
12 school board member offers another thought about the role of faculty in teacher
education at his community college when it comes to actual teaching experience. He
wants to encourage students to realize the individual growth process in becoming a
teacher. .
I always talk to students about developing and helping them with their bags of
tricks. I know when it comes to teaching a particular concept or managing a
certain classroom problem—things like that—the difference between the novice
teacher and the expert teacher is just that they’ve got a bigger bag of tricks.
Commitment brings joy to these participants working with future teachers. Alex, a faculty
from Lake Superior Community College describes his personal joy and commitment as,
Because to me, when you go into the community and you go into the schools, and
I make ﬁeld visits. We all make ﬁeld visits. We see our students in the ﬁeld with
their mentor. We see them working with students and doing a lesson. When ‘you
hear from the mentors, “Oh, I took my ED 200 class at Lake Superior. It was
unbelievable. I loved the class. It was small. I was so excited to start teaching.”

49

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You know, what greater feeling can a community college instructor have when
you go out in your community and people tell you thanks, it all started there,
because our classes are generally small and because they’re more one-on-one and
they don’t become a nameless number. So I don’t know about you, but for me,
that’s just the icing on the cake when your pre-service teachers and their mentors
remember their experience.
Community projects and creative program initiatives are other ways in which faculty
working in teacher education demonstrate their commitment. Such activities were often
initiated through the collaborative efforts of participants and other K-12 teachers. One
example is several of those interviewed explained K-12 tutoring programs in which their
preservice students were involved. When tutee needs such as improving reading skills
were identiﬁed, community college faculty and their students work under the guidance of
the c00perating teacher to help develop support materials and networks for the K-12
students such as additional curriculum resource materials, study guides, and books.

Brett from Lake Huron described a second example of a project that addressed a
community need. Young preschoolers in the community were not exposed to science
experiences and curriculum, and Brett was approached about offering some form of
curriculum enrichment with preservice students.

I had done some stuff with child development. Nicely, Lyn, who runs the child

development program, she and I were working together on a project. I can’t

remember now what committee we were on, and she wanted a letter of
recommendation that the science education students would be willing to work at

the preschool and come in and do some special projects with them, so when I

wrote that letter; it was a nice cross division solidiﬁcation. She has said to me

50

before, I think that we’ve got cross divisional cooperation from you has really
helped our program out because we can always point to the fact that we’ve had a
good, solid preschool program in science and we’ve had that from the day that
they began the early science involvement. We did net have to do any of this extra
work. A lot of this, it’s like a home, so you know parts of the family and if you’ve
been on committees together with some of these people, you can do cross
discipline things quite readily if you have the desire.
An administrator at Lake Huron also explains additional activities in which students and
faculty are involved that demonstrate their commitment beyond the classroom.
Science Olympiad, Science and Math Challenge, Summer A+ Programs. Those
are summer programs for elementary and middle school. They’re like a week
long, different things. What else do we have? We have other things like, “Cover
Our Kids,” which is getting kids signed up for medical coverage and we have
connections with the science museum in our town.
Faculty participants described many examples of commitment to their community college
teacher education program through their involvement with students in helping meet
community needs. Also, in their descriptions, they made clear that the opportunities
provided preservice teachers with authentic experiences in teaching and learning. The
commitment to teacher education shown by these faculties reﬂected their own passion for
the ﬁeld but also the value they placed on providing students with meaningful and
frequent opportunities to connect to the profession.
Administration
According to the participants, the role of administrative commitment in a teacher
education program directly inﬂuences program development, establishment, and growth.

51

It involves positive support, guidance, encouragement, provides funding if available and
strengthens the program through aspects of communication. The perceived range of
administrative commitment in this study varied from very little to full involvement and
commitment. As noted by several participants, teacher education is important to some
college administrators but is overlooked or ignored by others. Despite the fact that each
community college represented by those interviewed is believed to have ample student
numbers for something organized or institutionally recognized for future teachers, in one
case there is no formal program. The following faculty member from Michigan
Community College where no formal program exists explains it this way:
We have a lot of future teachers, a lot of people, about 300 students per fall come
in coding themselves as future teachers. Yes, and so that is a good sized cohort of
people who desire to be K—12 teachers, but we have nothing, as I said, ofﬁcial for
them.
It is not clear that this statement about lacking a formal teacher education program
despite many students interested in the academic area is a function of no support from
administration, at least not fully. It came out in the interview that the faculty member was
frustrated about the informal situation. When we talked further, the person recognized
that to advocate for any formal program through administrative channels was
unproductive at that time. I also discovered students used the regular advising sessions at
this college to try to navigate the teacher education pathway for transfer. Since there was
no data tracking system for teacher education students, what happens to them is not
known. I sensed serving teacher education students was not an administrative priority.
Participants very clearly describe positive administrative support in three of the
six community colleges. Chase, a faculty at Lake Erie Community College states,

52

I think we have strong program support because of some strong people in
administration. Our former director of our program is now a Dean. She has a good
understanding of our program. Our president has an early childhood, family/child
background. That’s a good thing.
At another point in the interview, Chase describes administrative involvement with
student seminars.
Also, during our monthly meetings for future teachers, we have administrators
come and other staff members, which is a nice thing, so that students can kind of
meet our Assistant Dean who is so supportive, so he’s at almost every one and
students know him and say hi and he is very involved. . . .We have so much
support from our administration. It’s just wonderful. Our provost is supportive,
our assistant deans, our deans—all of it—so supportive. We just went through
accreditation and our whole support system was right there waiting.
When I further discussed the program at Lake Erie Community College, I was told
administrators at various levels made commitments of support for teacher education
through a range of avenues. Administrative involvement on education and community
college committees, ﬁnancial allocations and personal presence in program activities I
gave the teacher education program a ﬁrm foundation within the college. Administrators
also recognized the avenues of accreditation and respected all the community connections
and program growth made through the teacher education program.
Strong administrative support is also apparent at Lake Huron Community
College. Bailey, the program director explains,
The primary champion currently is the dean. He has allowed me to ﬂip my
responsibilities to 90% teacher education. He has participated in every event. He’s

53

01 e

IOIE

at our advisory committees. Hehas encouraged me to write the proposal to the
Board of Trustees to include teacher education as a strategic goal and it is. It’s in
our strategic plan as a strategic initiative, teacher education. He allows me to have
different events to invite students in and have conferences and well, he was right
there when we were one of the ﬁrst colleges to support the ﬁrst MACCEP Day of
Dialogue. He has provided the funds. He’s also been there and been part of it.
He’s still here. When I ﬁrst came on, my immediate supervisor was the director of
instruction and she had been sort of spearheading the growth of the teacher
education program, so she had a lot to do with emphasizing how important it was.
I have to say that every one of the department chairs has also been supportive,
very supportive.
Even though most of the interview participants were faculty in their respective program,
it was apparent that the commitment of the administration was necessary and made a
difference in how the program developed. As noted by the statements made during the
interviews, commitment was demonstrated and displayed by administrators/leaders
involved in their college’s teacher education program. Table 4 provides a paraphrased
overview of study participants’ descriptions of administrative support and leadership

roles.

54

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Table 4 Overview of Administrative Support

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Community Description Detail
College
Lake The program underwent general counselor changes; at this time there is
Ontario nothing formally planned for teacher education by administrators
Lake Huron The Vice President is outwardly supportive of teacher education; one of
the Strategic Plan goals is to expand and support the teacher education
program
Lake The Dean who oversees teacher education wants to see a more formal
Michigan program; at this time there is no administrative support beyond the Dean
Round Lake The Provost supports teacher education through direct accountability
expectations of the Dean, who is in charge of those in teacher education
Lake Erie The President, Vice President and Dean fully support the teacher
education program; administrators either taught in the program prior to
their administrative role or have degrees in the content area; the
program grew from coursework to a deﬁned education department with
director, faculty and administrators that attend monthly meetings in the
education department
Lake Very little administrative leadership or direct support for teacher
Superior education except for course offerings and faculty who teach the courses
pilot
Students

Even though faculty, program coordinators, and administrators were interviewed

for this study, a discussion about student commitment to the profession occurred.

Participants shared how students need commitment and dedication while pursuing teacher

certiﬁcation, and identiﬁed three key areas where this is necessary: courses, search

opportunities, and pro-teaching experience through ﬁeld service. In some community

colleges, only coursework exists to aid students along the career path. When this is the

case, the student must personally invest their time and energy to expand their experiences

and knowledge about the profession. Such is the case at Lake Ontario Community

College where an informal program exists. Jordan explains,

The student’s commitment to professionalism, learning, children and youth is

necessary. I have been deeply interested in the preparation that many of our

55

 

students lack in teacher education, understanding what teaching entails and

preparing them accordingly to meet the challenges. And to me, that is the worst

scenario for the future of a good teacher because one has to enjoy what one does.

I’m not sure that students who don’t really know what teaching is about may end

up selecting that career path because they probably do not have the aptitude in

other areas and don’t quite know what they want.

On the other hand, where a more formal community college teacher education
program exists, students are willingly involved in developing their talents and much
needed skills to become teachers. For example, Lake Erie Community College offers
various seminars for students. One participant described one type of seminar, its value,
and the characteristics of the students involved:

Diversity seminars give students a chance to meet with people in the community

as well as with students that they would not mingle with in class, because it’s

much more informal than a class setting. Like our last one was a Sunday — Oh,

Social Sunday, so you could have ice cream, eat and meet. The students range

from eighteen to sixty years of age. We have males and females in the program.

Their socioeconomic status is all over the board, all over, from ﬁeld and suburb to

inner city Lake Erie. The wonderful part of our students is their characteristics.

They are wise, compassionate (about what they want), concerned, motivated-—

which is really a wonderful thing.

The participants in this study described the necessity for professional teacher
commitment, which they felt meant dedication, loyalty, and interest in teaching/leamin g
skills, all of which are necessary attributes for teachers. When students displayed this
type of commitment early in their endeavors it was viewed as an important, positive trait.

56

For all involved with community college teacher education preparation, commitment on
the part of faculty, administration, and students, in the form of thoughts and behavior
revealing such traits as responsibility, loyalty, respect and personal energy are important.
Curriculum

Participants discussed many aspects of teacher education programs that I placed
in the broad category of curriculum. In this study, the interviewees deﬁne curriculum as
the subjects taught at the community college, or the topics taught within a course. The
category of curriculum includes such topics areas as: face—to-face and on-line courses,
course descriptions, course prerequisites and special training.
Courses

Each participant identiﬁed course work as a core component of a teacher
education program and described various courses at their respective community college
relevant for elementary and secondary teacher education preparation (see Table 6). The
informal programs have only course work for future teachers whereas the more formal
programs have course work along with other program components. All participants stated
a curriculum committee approves all the courses at their respective community college,
including those in teacher education. The formal program components beyond
coursework are not approved by the curriculum committee, but supported by the

community college administration.

57

Table 5 List of components in the curriculum category

 

Curriculum

Description Detail

 

Courses

Face to face, various content areas such as Introduction to
education, math, science, art, music, children’s literature,
prerequisites

 

Field experience

Service learning methodology, real experiences,
volunteerism, assigned sites, and student choice

 

Courses and content
areas

Early Childhood, Elementary, Secondary, Special
Education

 

MACRAO Agreement

Community college transfer guide for basic course of study

 

Alignment to standards

State and national content areas and standards

 

State testing and
credentialing
preparation

 

 

Michigan Basic Skills and certiﬁcation testing, background
record check

 

A Round Lake Community College faculty member discusses their introductory

teacher education coursework in ways that reﬂect what other participants told me about

how basic courses in their respective teacher education curricula got started.

The college felt that we needed to have some type of introductory course for

[students], something to familiarize them with the role of a teacher, the

responsibilities and what going into education was all about. The class began to

form in our continuing education department. We took the class to our curriculum

committee for approval. We ran the class for the ﬁrst time the following winter.

The credit class has been offered since the initial semester.

More than one participant noted the need for more teacher preparation and information

about secondary education within their coursework and program. The only data directly

derived from this study about secondary education preparation was the option for ﬁeld

58

 

service at high school as part of a course experience. Based on comments from those
interviewed, most programs had a large number of students interested in elementary
education and smaller numbers of students interested in secondary education. Therefore,
because of student interests, more program focus was placed on elementary education at
the time of this study. The only data derived about secondary education preparation was
the option for high school ﬁeld service as part of course work experience. I was told most
future teachers attending a community college and planning on teaching secondary
education took major or minor course prerequisites at the community college. As an
example, students would take course work in math or science to prepare for their major at

the transfer university.

59

Table 6 Course Work and Special Training

 

College

Courses

Special Training

 

Lake Ontario

Math 1 & II for teachers, ﬁve courses for
Early Childhood majors, Earth Science,
Physical Education, Music, and Art for
Elementary Teachers, Children’s Literature

 

Lake Huron

Introduction to Education, Teacher Education
Practicum, Integrated Science I &II for
Education, Math I&II for Elementary

. Teachers, Art & Music for Elementary

Teachers, Technology, Reading, and Nature
Study for Educators, Introduction into
Special Education, Children’s Literature and
Early Childhood Education courses

Recommend First
Aid

 

 

 

Lake Michigan Exploring Teaching, Math for Elementary Para professional
Teachers, Art & Music for Teachers, training, .
Educational Psychology in education Aﬁican Amerrcan
division, courses toward Early Childhood males 1n teachrng
Endorsement program

Round Lake Introduction to Education, Early Childhood Para-professional
courses program

Lake Erie Introduction to Education, Math I&II, Recommend First

Biology and Geology for Educators, Earth
Science for Education, Elementary Games
and Rhythms, Children’s Literature, Human
Growth and Development, thirteen courses in
Early Childhood, Art for Elementary
Teachers & Music Education, Multicultural
American Literature for Children and several
Early Childhood Education courses.

Aid and Child
Development
Associate
Credential (CDA)

 

 

Lake Superior
pilot

 

Introduction to Education, Math 1 & II for
teachers, Art and Physical Education for
elementary teachers, Nature Study Science,
Children’s Literature, Early Childhood
Education course

 

 

60

 

 

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toilet
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lollm

the in

Course Variations
Each community college sets its own curriculum, including teacher education, so
there is variation in course descriptions across the institutions. Even so, each community
college in this study offers a basic Introduction to Education course. Numbering varies
but the core Introduction to Education course description is similar. To illustrate, the
following descriptions are take from two of the website catalogs. To maintain anonymity,
the institution is not identiﬁed.
Example One:
Introduction to Education-This is an introductory course designed to provide
prospective education majors with the opportunity to explore the teaching
profession. Course content focuses on the foundations of education including
...and well as current issues and trends. This course also provides an overview of
unique teaching opportunities, university transfer requirements, and the Michigan
requirements for teacher certiﬁcation. Students will complete 30 hours of ﬁeld
observation.
Example Two:
Introduction to Education-has been designed to help preservice teachers make
informed decision about careers in education. Classroom operation, interviews,
personal assessments and reading are important components of this course.
Course content focuses on the foundation of education... Topics include but are
not limited to state requirements for certiﬁcation, current trends and issues, the
instructional cycle etc.
Beyond the basic Introduction to Education course, most community colleges offer a
variety of courses directly linked to teacher preparation. In order to maintain anonymity, I

61

provide an overview of courses and special training from each institution, identiﬁed by
pseudonyms, to show some of this array.

Topic courses. In addition to course work, special topic courses of study are
sometimes part of the teacher education program. Examples are paraprofessional training,
substitute teacher training, early childhood, or introduction to special education. As
explained by participants, these courses exist in community colleges where an
administrator, community agency, or faculty saw a need or there was a request to develop
the course(s). In one college near an urban district, a participant noted that, because there
was a shortage of substitute teachers, local districts wanted their substitutes to have some
background in classroom management. A course in classroom management was designed
and offered especially for substitute teachers. Along the same lines, several community
college faculty interviewed noted a shortage of special education teachers so an early
introduction course was created to hopefully encourage students to explore and
eventually enter the ﬁeld of special education.

Paraprofessional state mandates passed on from No Child Left Behind legislation
created a rationale for several community colleges in the study to create paraprofessional
pathway training within their teacher education programs. In some cases, the community
college provided an outline of courses that would beneﬁt paraprofessionals, and one
college offered an actual course for paraprofessionals. A Round Lake Community
College participant stated the offering and/or duration of the paraprofessional course
and/or certiﬁcation always depends on enrollment. In the examples participants provided,
need drives the development of a course in teacher education. The continued course

offering is driven by ample enrollment.

62

MA CRAO courses. In addition to speciﬁc teacher education courses such as
Introduction to Education, Exploring Teaching, and courses that are connected to teacher
education such as Children’s Literature, there are courses that students may select under
the Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Ofﬁcers (MACRAO)
agreement. The MACRAO agreement courses are basic courses such as English, Math,
and Science that meet general education and transfer requirements. As noted by the
participants, many students follow the MACRAO agreement along with'preservice
education courses because the course work is all transferable to many Michigan
universities and supports their career pathway. These courses offer all students an
opportunity to acquire a broad background of knowledge. Participants shared that these
courses, if selected with careful, long range planning, may also transfer as part of major
or minor required coursework in a teacher education program. Since transfer is essential
for all Michigan community college students, and every teacher education transfer
institution except two participates and accepts MACRAO agreement coursework, it is
prudent for students to complete the courses within the agreement as part of their transfer
audit and university acceptance. Preplanning on the part of the community college
student is essential for MACRAO classes to be included in ﬁnal university teacher
certiﬁcation credentials.

Course topics. The participants explained they felt it was important for ﬁrture
teachers to be prepared for almost any classroom. and many topics are integrated in
teacher education curriculum, as a result. Elements of best practice in teaching and
learning, issues that confront PreK-12 classrooms, societal and global issues and changes,
and academic outcomes of the college are just a few of the mentioned topics. For
example, diversity, ethnicity, and learning styles are cited by faculty as additional

63

necessary topics embedded in their course design. A faculty at Lake Erie Community
College shares, “Discussing and looking at cultural poverty information and how we put
that within courses is one of our goals.” The same faculty member explained that we are
in an inclusive world and their community college leaders recognized the need to help
students understand the implications of globalization. In addition, this participant
mentioned research about diversiﬁed classrooms, how future teachers need to be prepared
to deal with all types of learners from all types of backgrounds around the world, and the
importance of meeting future student needs. Another community college faculty from
Lake Ontario states,
We talk about diversity in the Intro to Ed course and it ﬁlters through everything,
but there is so much that you cannot cover in one class, and I think we need to
look at, as much as possible, different cultural beliefs and practices and how they
relate to education.
Since future teachers are preparing to work with future students, the many elements of
teaching and learning such as those mentioned are intentionally embedded in the
cuniculum.

On-line courses were mentioned by several study participants. The discussion
centered on the expansion of on—line course work at their community college including
teacher education courses. Three of the community colleges in the study were
experimenting with general on-line courses but only two of the six at the time of the
study offered a limited amount of teacher education on-line course work. Most of the
teacher education course work was taught face-to-face. As explained by a participant at
Round Lake Community college, on-line enrollment is increasing in many of the
college’s classes. Across all the colleges, administration wanted more on-line courses

64

offered across all programs, including teacher education, as enrollment trends show
students are taking more on-line and hybrid type classes.
Dakota, who teaches on—line courses at Round Lake Community College explains
some of the issues faculty face around on-line course work.
Now in the fall, I converted an education course to a hybrid course. Last year it
never ran as a hybrid and I think the reason was if you want to take an on-line
course, you want an on-line course. You do not want a course where you have to
come to class for a few weeks. Against my professional judgment, and I am more
than happy to be proved. wrong and I hope I am, I gave in to converting it to a
completely on-line course. That will be offered for the ﬁrst time in the fall of 2008,
and we’ll see what happens. There is a huge push for on-line courses from our
students. There is no doubt, and I know there are other colleges that do it on-line
and so I was willing to jump in and see what happens.
Issues related to courses, their descriptions, on-line teaching versus face-to-face teaching,
and hybrid courses are all part of any faculty and college curriculum decision-making
responsibility. Several expressed concern about the effectiveness and success of future
teachers in the classroom who take undergraduate teacher education courses on-line. At
the same time, more than one participant mentioned that administrators have told them
community colleges across the country are showing large gains in enrollment through on-
line and hybrid course work. The general View of participants about on—line and hybrid
coursework was well described by the previous faculty quote, which summarized, “let’s
wait and see what happens.” The following section on course prerequisites, ﬁeld service,
transfer and articulation explains additional curriculum features noted during the
interviews related to teacher education that are also important considerations.

6S

Course prerequisite. The more informal programs have little curricular structures
in place to intentionally enhance and develop the future teacher. More formal programs
have developed structures to guide future teacher in a more stair step or scaffold learning
path for continued grth in the profession. In these settings, there are more likely to be
course prerequisites and sequences for students to follow, whereas these curriculum
strategies are less likely to exist in informal programs.

Several of those interviewed mentioned the need for prerequisites in teacher
education, depending if the Introduction Course for Teacher Education is offered at the
freshman or sophomore level. Every person mentioned prerequisites whether they had
them in their respective college program or not, and deﬁned these as coursework taken or
learned skills acquired before entering a certain academic level education course.
Participants saw a need for more prerequisites at the freshman level because these
students sometimes feel they have all the skills necessary to enter any freshman level
course, including introduction to education courses. Course sequencing and prerequisites
were seen as one strategy to help prepare students for courses in which they enroll and
were viewed by participants as less necessary by the time students reached sophomore
level. A Lake Superior Community College faculty underscores this saying, “Again, I
know the perquisites needed in order to enroll in ED200, you know, what the GPA and
number of the credits, kinds of classes, and those kinds of prerequisites.” Generally,
participants felt that course prerequisites for education classes should be the norm.
Prerequisites help set high standards and send a message that high expectations are
necessary for those entering teaching. The concerned repeatedly voiced was that
undergraduate preparation expectations should coincide or mirror high employment
expectations, especially in the ﬁeld of education.

66

Course frustrations. From a different and broader view, Jordan, a faculty member
from Lake Ontario Community College discusses personal frustration due to the
problems of informal teacher education programs that do not deﬁne professional
guidelines for students entering preservice courses or curriculum prerequisites. He tried
to explain that expectations might improve students’ overall attitude entering the
profession, students’ work quality, students’ progress in the profession and ultimately,
expectations might create respect for educators overall. Jordan felt some sort of
professional expectations should be made a part of each education course and
prerequisites should be mandated. Jordan attempted to describe what type of skills some
preservice teachers may bring to the profession as they begin their studies at community
colleges and how the lack of deﬁned professional expectations in his informal community
college teacher education program did not address or deal with some of the students’
shortcomings as future teachers. Further, he voiced very similar views about rigor and
high expectations for all students and mentioned much of the course work in the informal
teacher education programs is taken in general curriculum courses. Jordan also felt it was
difﬁcult to expect behaviors linked to teacher professionalism like good attendance,
manners, love of learning, proper grammar, strong writing skills, and solid
communication skills that should be expected of all preservice teachers from everyone in
a general education course.

In addition, Jordan believed there should be course prerequisites that assure strong
academic skills before certain education classes could be taken by ﬁJture teachers. Jordan
stated what most participants generally inferred at least once during the interviews:
expectations about professionalism and course prerequisites should be part of any teacher
education program. Jordan further explained that in the informal teacher education

67

program at his college, prerequisites for teacher education were tied to those connected to

other college courses. He found that students were not often academically ready, or

committed to the professional course expectations as he would prefer.
First of all, I would establish standards that grades would not be given out simply
because students attend or simply because we are compliant or excuse them as the
customer. There are prerequisites set for English just as well for mathematics and
language is so important—language skills are so important for students to have, in
general, today because the world has become a small place. We are mixing with
people who live in countries that many students do not know how to locate on a
map, so they need, ﬁrst, a broad, general knowledge about the world. They need
to hone their skills of language and many, of course, do not feel that English is a
substantive course because they happen to speak the language from childhood and
therefore, they simply took it through high school, they don’t really have any
content to learn in English. Critical skills, thinking skills, have gone down to a
large degree because we have students who are primarily used to watching
screens and having information imparted to them through visual mode. As a
result, they are not accustomed to staying focused on reading material and ﬁnding
just of what they comfortable with and they do not understand the concepts.
Therefore, these skills need to be developed and emphasized and there has to be
an emphasis on quality work from students. I am afraid now I see learning as not
the real purpose. It’s earning the grade and learning has to occur in order for it to
be imparted to others.

Jordan was the only participant who speciﬁcally spoke at length to the concerns about

prerequisites of community college courses in general as they connect to teacher

68

education. However, it is quite possible that other faculty whose teacher education
programs relate to other college coursework might share these concerns since they
expressed overall feelings of support for prerequisites.

Courses and professional teaching standards.

In this study, all participants stated in some way that learning to become a teacher
through education curriculum in higher education is both process and content driven.
They explained that students are learning about curriculum, educational history,
professional standards, and the like. Students are simultaneously acquiring and practicing
process skills necessary to teach such as verbal and nonverbal communication tactics,
lesson planning, and age/skill appropriate pedagogy. Organizational skills for classrooms
and time management in lessons and daylong activities are examples of part of the
necessary learning process in becoming a teacher. The participants explained that
identifying and evaluating individual professional prerequisites could be challenging due
to the difﬁculty in coding or deﬁning them as clear, nonjudgrnental, descriptive
prerequisites for curriculum committee members. As noted by participants, faculty on
curriculum committees do not always have PreK- l 2 curriculum backgrounds to
understand what entry level skills students need in teacher education courses. They are
often challenged to identify appropriate outcomes, prerequisites or sequences, and best
pedagogical practices to maximize student learning for teacher education.

Field Service Experience

As explained by every participant, ﬁeld service at each community college
connects to some or all aspects of the teacher education curriculum and is determined
according to the general curriculum expectations of the college. Aiden from Lake
Superior Community College stated ﬁeld experience is “actual time in visiting a PreK-12

69

classroom”, which reﬂects the way all participants viewed ﬁeld experience. Each
community college ﬁeld experience varies in where it takes place, number of hours
expected, the way it is identiﬁed, and the type of experience that is required. For
example, some community colleges identify ﬁeld experience as lab, others as practicum
and yet others, as classroom observation. Teacher education faculty along with the
college’s curriculum committee generally deﬁne ﬁeld experience through course
development, but overall, the ﬁnal decisions for ﬁeld experiences are leﬁ up to the
faculty teaching the course. A participant from Round Lake directly shares the rationale
for ﬁeld experience that reﬂects how all participants view the value of ﬁeldwork in their
programs.
I think the strongest piece is the ﬁeldwork, that time for them to be out in the
classroom. You can teach and present all the theory, all the case studies scenarios
that you want, but it’s not until you actually go and see it and are a part of it, that
you truly gain an understanding of what goes on and what is involved with it. I’ve
had students who have come in and said, “This happened and it was really great!”
Others have come in and said, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe.”
Even though participants from each community college deﬁne ﬁeld service as time in the
prekindergarten -12 classroom, ﬁeld service options vary. For some teacher education
programs, students are expected to have ﬁeld experience at several grade levels, whereas
in other programs, grade level ﬁeld experience may be optional. In addition, some
community college teacher education programs offer only ﬁeld experience courses, and
other community college programs include coursework and ﬁeld experience, and in some
cases, ﬁeld experience is only a small component of the course. Table 7 provides an
overview of ﬁeld experiences from each community college in the study.

70

Table 7 Field Experience Overview of Field Experience Types (FE)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Community Description Detail
College
Lake Math for Teachers, Level 1, optional FE in community cooperative
Ontario store
Math for Teachers Level 2 required FE with written follow-up, Child
Care Prgram expects FE
Lake Huron Science course in community Science and Math Exploration event,
local science museum work, Intro to EDU requires a 90 hour
practicum, faculty site visit, logs and/or journals required
Lake The interviewee provided no information about ﬁeld experience
Michigan
Round Lake Introduction to Education, 30 hours, sites are self selected, journals
required
Lake Erie FE rotation among 3 different types, required participation in on-
campus Early Childhood Center, off campus elementary school, one
site of choice, journals rgquired
Lake FE 90 hours, weekly journal documentation, 3 credit class (in class
Superior contact 2 hours) expect FE 60 hours in content major, 30 hours in
pilot another content area

 

Required ﬁeld experience. Some of the teacher education programs require ﬁeld
experience. An example is at Lake Huron where the students in the course are expected to
participate in their campus center for preschoolers as part of their ﬁeld service. Two of
the community colleges offer a stand-alone course focused only on ﬁeld experience. It
appears that what really determines ﬁeld experience is the extra time and available
resources a faculty has or is willing to provide outside the normal class time. Also, like
many of the teacher education courses, ﬁeld service expectations seemed to have evolved
and expanded because of the teacher education champion who saw the need and value of
this program component.

Field experience facilitator. In each teacher education program, someone is
responsible for facilitating ﬁeld experiences. The facilitator for ﬁeld experience is the

person who organizes the experience, who is sometimes called a program coordinator,

71

service learning coordinator, faculty, volunteer coordinator, or agency coordinator. It is
important to note that ﬁeld experiences may be coordinated by the teacher of the course
or by different staff altogether. The following example provides a description of a
facilitator’s roles at one Michigan community college program where ﬁeld service course
expectations for future teachers are program speciﬁc:
Actually, I coordinate most of the labs. I share the lab. Well, some of our classes
it’s an ofﬁcial lab, like probably our class that’s taken by most education students
is our EDU course substitute number 000, and that includes three credits of
lecture, two credits of lab, so they are out into lab sites very early. That is an early
class in both the early childhood program and in the program as a whole. We get
people in and out in that class. They do three lab rotations, and it kind of reﬂects
our view on education. They do one rotation that’s with infants, toddlers, or
preschoolers, one that’s early childhood, one that’s elementary and the third age
group they get to choose. So they could either do a second elementary, a second
early childhood, or they could do a middle high school rotation. They spend four
weeks just going into the classrooms, and most of their papers in that class come
straight from that lab work that they’re doing - observations of children, anecdotal
records; they’re analyzing their stage of development, so that ties very strongly to
what they’re learning in the class. The second one is to begin to reﬂect on what is
it like to be a teacher for children in a certain age group. In the class, they write
reﬂections at the end of each rotation that reﬂect on what they learned about
children and themselves as a teacher. All of the students go for one rotation to our
lab preschool, so our lab instructors, who are also faculty, will see them in the
classroom at least once. I have some set elementary schools, and I have picked out

72

a charter school, a private school, and a public school where I will set up their
rotation. Many of them choose to self-select their elementary school and we do
allow that. In the early childhood settings, we do not allow self-selection. We say
that you can go to our lab or I have, I think, ﬁve other nationally accredited
programs that I work in a partnership with, and I will set those up. The reason I
don’t let them just go choose is that there’s such a huge range of quality in
childcare settings, so we’ve chosen centers that we know are high quality, so we

know they’re going to see something good. The elementary schools, because I

know the standard is going to be the same for their teacher that they are going to

work with, with those we do allow them to self select.
Since various people are involved in coordinating ﬁeld experiences, participants note
extra time for communication with students, other faculty, and site personnel is required.
In addition, supervision styles vary, and very clear expectations must be developed if
several adults are involved with a preservice teacher during ﬁeld experience. If any
problems occur, such as absences, substitute teachers, transportation or health issues with
college students or at the ﬁeld site, an additional layer of communication and protocol for .
‘what to do’ is important.

Field service continuum. Field experiences may range from 30 to 90 required
hours in the PreK-12 education system, and locations of the experiences vary. Most ﬁeld
experience is embedded in the coursework and is created to offer students an introductory
opportunity to take on the role of a professional educator. Many of the students are not
sure what subject they might teach or at what grade level, so these ﬁrst of many hours of

ﬁeld service offer students opportunity to explore the professional ﬁeld. A participant

73

from Lake Huron Community College describes an example of ﬁeld experience in their

more formal program.
In the education program, speciﬁcally, we have a class called education
practicum, which allows for an extensive ﬁeld experience, kind of like pre-student
teaching. Students really seem to like that. I hear from the universities that they
feel it prepares the students quite well for student teaching. It’s kind of like how
student teaching is run at a four-year institution. I call it student teaching with
training wheels or something. The student is in the classroom doing 90 hours .
instead of the whole 40-50 hours a week, but unlike student teaching, they’re
supervised by one visit and have weekly class at the community college.

Brett describes a different form of ﬁeld service in science courses at Lake Huron

Community College, another formal teacher education program.
What my science students have to do is to then go directly into an elementary
classroom and teach a science lesson they have designed will the K-12 classroom
teacher approval. Students also have an option to participate in the ‘on our
campus’ Science Exploration experience with the local K-l2 schools.

The following response from a faculty member at Lake Ontario Community College

describes ﬁeld experiences in the more informal community college programs.
They do not have ﬁeld experience at the ﬁrst level courses, for sure. At the second
level, students have done observations in schools. Those are the two courses. The
second course,,they do a little reality store. It is an optional, where the schools in
the area have this little program where the kids go through a reality—you know,
their check book, their life scenario and students, in the ﬁrst course and the

second course, can tend those and they do a little write-up. So it is just an

74

experience with a group of students. They are not teaching yet. There was a time
where we, through someone else in the college, they had some tutoring programs
that were going on. I think there are some places that students can tutor or help
young people because we had one of our students in teacher education in class
who shared that with us. But not everything is structured, you know.

A faculty member from Lake Superior Community College, also a very informal

program, shared the following:
We require a minimum of 90 hours of ﬁeldwork in a K-12 school setting with, of
course, an accredited school, a mentor, and we do not place our students. Our pre-
service teachers ﬁnd their own placement, so it’s not a matter of, you live here,
attend this college and here’s your teacher. Our students couldn’t go into a pre-
school, for example, in ED200. We do have a pre-school program with an
endorsement, so they’re kind of rerouted into that area. Most of our students ﬁnd
their own mentors. Now, what we try to recommend is they not go back home
again. I mean, they may but the idea of getting experience in teaching is to spread
your wings and to learn new things about other great teachers out there as well. So
they could go back and visit, for example, a teacher they may have had or they
may go back into their former school and visit with the principal: “Would there be
a teacher here interested in having me work with them?” Sometimes you’re just a
stranger and you visit and make an appointment with the principal and you talk to
him or her, explain the situation, talk about the program. Sometimes we have
students who have just moved and they don’t have a clue where to go, and it’s a
matter of, “Oh, you’re new to the area. Well, hey, check on this school. This is a
great little school and it’s fairly close by.” So sometimes, they really do need our

75

help in terms of helping them ﬁnd placement, but unlike a lot of colleges, when
it’s this class, they select. We’re ﬂexible. Some students like to go back and do a
private school experience, 60 hours, and do 30 in public or the other way around.
So some are nOt quite decided what area they would like to teach, especially our
secondary majors. “I’m not sure if I want to teach in middle school or secondary.”
We suggest, try them both.

A faculty member from Round Lake describes ﬁeld experience that represents something

more of a midpoint between formal and informal.
Our Intro to Ed class requires 30 hours of ﬁeldwork. During that time students are
out in the classroom in the schools observing the roles of teachers, the roles of
para-professionals, the interaction that they have with students, the interaction
they have with parents, with other staff and administrators in the building. They
choose where they go to, and when we were putting the courses together, I was a
real stickler on that point. I wanted them to have a comfort base from the very
beginning. In the course classroom, there are assignments that align with the
ﬁeldwork.

Further beneﬁts of ﬁeld experience. A program coordinator interviewed at Lake Erie

Community College provides another example and view of ﬁeld experience. Field

experience may not always be just about working with PreK-12 students and curriculum;

rather, it offers other beneﬁts for ﬁxture teachers.

The ﬁeld experience within the course makes it a really a great class to get people

who want to go into this ﬁeld excited about it. In addition, the course gives a clear
picture to students who this might not be the best choice, because of the two 2
focuses of the lab: one is the learning about children’s development at different

76

stages and being able to see some progression. The second one is to begin to
reﬂect on what is it like to be a teacher for children X age. That’s really, I think, a
strength that we have that you oﬁen won’t see in universities is that in that ﬁrst
year already, they’re getting out; they’re having an experience that helps them to
think about future goals and planning. In the class, they write reﬂections at the
end of each rotation that reﬂect on what did you learn about children; what did
you learn about yourself as a teacher? They’re doing observations of children
through anecdotal records; they’re analyzing their stage of development, so that
ties very strongly to what they’re learning in the class and their future as a

teacher.

Many participants also mentioned that in ﬁeld experiences, an unexpected opportunity to

teach a lesson or an experience planning a classroom lesson might occur. A teacher may

ask a student to join in during a class session and co-teach. As one faculty member

described the Introduction to Education course, it was apparent and seemingly important

that opportunities for learning and leading occur.

It’s not really in the course description. It’s not a methods class. They haven’t
been accepted into university. They’re not in the education college or a lot of
things, but I do think learning a little bit about methods and trying to teach some
kind of a lesson while they’re being observed, not only by their mentor but by me,

is, I think, a very important part of the course.

As noted by a participant from Lake Huron, the ﬁeld experience may occur at the local

hands-on science museum or as explained by a Lake Erie interviewee may be at the

community college early childhood center. In some cases, the student and faculty decide

together what ﬁeld experiences are most beneﬁcial for their future career pathway.

77

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Where ﬁeld experiences occur and the time spent in them is dependent on the curriculum
and course parameters and focus, and in some cases the course lead faculty. The ﬁeld
experiences occur in traditional setting in the PreK-12 classrooms or in private school
classrooms. The statement of a Lake Superior faculty member summarizes the rationale
for and importance of ﬁeld experience that was similar to those provided by other faculty
members across the colleges represented in this study.
‘Unlike almost everything else studied in college, ﬁeld service has this real world.
component, and so students are getting things in a way that they simply can’t get
from reading and our discussions and our seminar and their writing and all that.
Really, ﬁrst hand observation and we really urge them beyond observation to take
leadership roles. While that’s not required, the teachers in the area who accept our
students agree to take them on; they’re not really obligated to do that.
Occasionally, I would say one of the more ﬁ'ustrating things is when the teacher
accepts them, but for whatever reason decides not to really allow them to do a
whole lot of leadership, you know, only relatively smaller things. Almost without
exception, students say that the ﬁeldwork changed their lives, for the most part,
really conﬁrmed that they want to pursue this career. Occasionally, it will help
them understand that they’re not cut out for this, that they really don’t want to, but
either way, that’s a huge decision they’re making. I don’t know that would
happen as emphatically if they weren’t in a real classroom with a person doing
this for a living and most of all, I think the students they’re working with. I even
tell them that, that some of your best teachers in this Intro to Ed course are going

to be those ﬁrst graders or high school biology students or whatever.

78

Field service experience reﬂections are common expectations held by all
participants interviewed in this study. Each ﬁeld experience has a requirement for some _
form of a journal, notebook or log for critical reﬂection about students’ experiences.
There is a vast range of expectations in descriptions of logs or journals from critical
analysis based on course and curriculum content, pedagogy, and classroom management,
to personal reactions and general impressions about the ﬁeld experience. The standards
for the log or journal are set either through the college’s curriculum council, stated course
expectations or an informal process determined by the professor or lead faculty of the
course. To validate the actual reﬂection and experience in the log or notebook, each
program requires documentation about when and where the ﬁeld experience occurred
with a supervising adult signature in the ﬁeld service notebook.
The following comment by a participant from Round Lake Community College
provides a description of the reﬂection logs and their purpose, and the impact of the
writing assignment:
Both courses have observation logs that [students] have to keep. They’re able to
see practices that are being done in the classroom that are having all types of
effects, positive and negative effects and voice their opinions to me. I tell them
even negative experiences are learning experiences because you come away with
something from that. Many students have said, “If I hadn’t had the opportunity to
go into the classroom, I would have the same viewpoint. I wouldn’t have the
changed my perspective of it.” I think that is probably the strongest piece of our
observation logs.

A faculty member interviewed at Lake Superior captures the passion displayed through

these reﬂections and describes a deeper meaning of logs or journals as part of the

79

reﬂective process of the ﬁeld experience. Most participants in the study described some

type of similar experience.
To my way of looking at it, huge now, and I ask a lot of the students, and I have
to, with most of them, I do quite a bit of sales on that at the beginning because
some of them aren’t very good writers. Some of them think that maybe this is a
lot of writing, and I tell them it is, but then I read it all and respond to what they
shared in class. We read pieces out loud. It’s the basis of the course, I would say. I
think the heart of the course. They exchange with people and share. I would say
OK, here’s one I’d like to read, but here they are with my comments, and I
encouraged them then to read them over and see if there’s anything there they’d
want to circle and use as the basis for another log that they would care to write.
It’s in the course guide. I said it the ﬁrst day of class, the ﬁrst hour of class is all
logging.” And after they do the logging, I say, and I could have begun the course
by reading the syllabus to you, but instead we’re doing this. Why do you think
we’re doing this?” And I ﬁll the board with all their reasons and then I make it
clear to them this is standard operating procedure. The heart of the course is this
idea from John Dewey, “Experience plus reﬂection equals growth.” And the
experience part is certainly the ﬁeld work but also their memories, their reading,
the conversations that go on in class, the experiencing, my response to them,
spoken and written—all of that, the way I look at it, is fuel for the reﬂection.
Without the reﬂection to me you’re not really in the course. Most students get it
and the writing really improves over the course of the semester. Some stunning
pieces come out, and so that, I think, is one of the strengths of the course. If we
only had ﬁeld service hours without written reﬂection, I just don’t think it would

80

be that valuable. If we only had the seminar and the writing without the ﬁeld
work, I think the course would fall apart. It’s the balance of the two.
T ransferability and Articulation
Even though participants shared creative ideas and thoughts connected to
curriculum, they all stated the importance of transferability and/or articulation for any
course offered. Yet, even if a faculty feels a need for a particular course in teacher
education to better prepare future teachers, if the curriculum committee discovers it will
not transfer, the course isoften not put in the catalog and/or is not supported as part of the
teacher education program. Such is the case in this example Jordan shared from Lake
Ontario Community College.
I know that 1 was trying to add a language arts for teachers, and that was not
supported because I was told by one or two people who deal with transfer that [it]
apparently will not transfer, so that was quite a disappointment for me because I
had prepared the syllabus and the material for the course. It had a number of
students enrolled as well [allotted number for the course]. The curriculum
committee did not approve it because it would not transfer, so I was told. Here
students take primarily what is transferable, naturally, so they do not wish to take
anything beyond those courses that will prepare them in their careers in some
way. So that course—the language arts for teachers—would have been a methods
course that would teach the students ﬁrst the concepts that they need to know
about English language, and then to be able to prepare themselves well enough to
teach similar material at the grade level that they end up teaching. So that has
been my experience, I mean to the extent that I know about that course not going

through.

81

Another curriculum consideration mentioned by the study participants is alignment.
Everyone mentioned matter-of-factly that future teachers must pass the Michigan Basic
Skills Test early in their studies. Students must take the test before transferring and being
admitted to a School of Education at a university. Then, near the end of their studies,
students take content certiﬁcation tests before receiving their teacher education
certiﬁcation by the state. Aligning curriculum and including skills tested in the Michigan
Basic Skills Test in early teacher education coursework may strengthen student success
on the exam. A Lake Erie faculty stated,

I would say that a strength of our program that comes to mind and we’ve really

been working on, is aligning all of our curriculum so that when our students do

graduate, they’re able to pass the state tests, so we align it very much with what
the state asks.

An additional aspect of curriculum mentioned by all those interviewed is the legal
requirements for criminal background check and clearance. All community college
programs in the study require every student to obtain state and/or federal criminal
clearance before any actual classroom experiences may occur. As noted by those
interviewed, students are surprised about the legalities and state requirements of the
profession and do not realize that most states require criminal history background checks.
These requirements afford future teachers an early self-check or wakeup call as to how
their personal behaviors affect their present and future preparation for the teaching

profession.

82

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Connections
The interviews revealed many connections between community college teacher education
programs, institutions and people. In this study, adopting some of Rachael Kessler’s
views on connections from her book, “The Soul of Education” (2000), connection is
deﬁned as joining two or more people, things, or parts of people and things to make a
difference. To specify further, connections involve many aspects of making links,
associations, relationships, or some correlation to people, places and things. The overall
meaning of this section on connections is relationships between people, places and things
such as between people in schools, community agencies, and within the college and
transfer universities for students and program advantages. In addition, any forms of
media developed for the education program are links or connections to program
information such as brochures and websites. As each connection is discussed, the
advantages will be mentioned. Table 8 provides a list of components in the connection
category.

Table 8 List of components in the Connection Category

 

Connection Description Details

 

Student Support Advising, ﬁnancial aid, ﬁeld service site guidance, cohorts,
co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities, tutoring,
academic development and growth, leadership opportunities,
diversity support, web sites, brochures, transfer guides

 

Transfer/Articulation Universities, colleges, public, private

 

Formal and informal High school to universities, colleges and community groups,

 

 

 

partnerships community colleges, interdepartmental within own college
Local, state and Schools, community agencies, Michigan Department of
federal governing Education, federal programs and agencies, universities,
organizations and colleges
credentialing

_agencies

 

 

83

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Student Support

Student support services for advising and ﬁnancial aid, ﬁeld service site guidance,
cohorts, co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities, tutoring, academic development
and growth, leadership opportunities, diversity support, transfer and articulation
agreements with universities and colleges, forms of partnerships, and direct associations
to local, state, and federal governing organizations exist as connections for teacher
education programs at community colleges in this study. These connections are important
to the development of the program within the institution and community. Participants
believe that education is a major component of our existence, personally, within a
community, state and country; strong connections may create educational collaborations,
strengthen communities and institutions, and create momentum for ﬁrrther connections.

Student advising is a topic every participant mentioned. Helping an inexperienced
college student or a newcomer to the ﬁeld of education navigate all the options in earning
a teaching education credential is challenging, especially in Michigan. Students have
many decisions to make such as identifying transfer institutiOns, teaching majors, grade
levels to teach. Participants cite the day-to-day conversations, shared bits of information
and personal ties that make it possible to help future teachers progress in teacher
education and the program. In addition, since information is shared through the
connections between faculty and staff, and then students, links are necessary at all levels.
As noted by those interviewed, not only do the students need support initially in advising
but also, as their career path unfolds and coursework for majors becomes more speciﬁc,
continued advising is essential. Another instructor offered the following advising

description:

84

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Our informal education program is just sort of this outline in this book that guides

students who come into the college. I think they self-identify as education majors,

and then they just follow the guidelines of a program that either connects to a .

speciﬁc university by that macro agreement or whatever, and they have this little

outline that they follow.
One particular program mentioned that exempliﬁes the need for a connection is a
program for males of color. Since there is a need for male teachers of color in this
participant’s geographic location, a grant was awarded to guide and support males both
ﬁnancially and academically in the process of becoming a teachers. This specialized
teacher education program is in the early stages of development, but was seen as a
positive endeavor thus far by the participant who is sometimes considered to be an
informal academic advisor from this community college. It was said by one faculty,
“support is needed as students travel the college path because educational and
certiﬁcation requirements change.”

Financial aid and career advising support are also part of the services rendered to
community college students. In some cases, the ﬁnancial aid and career advising is
similar to what other students on campus are offered but at the more formal teacher -
education community college programs in the study, the director is in charge of speciﬁc
education scholarships and offers speciﬁc advising or career support opportunities for
future teachers. Connections with those who have a strong understanding of the teaching
profession and deal with teacher education ﬁnancial aid can be the most helpful links for
students. These ﬁnancial packages in some cases are different from what other students
are offered. One example is the Teach Scholarship program offered by a few of the
community colleges, which requires students to be active in the education ﬁeld in order

85

to receive it. By connecting future teachers with ﬁnancial aid personnel, there is more of
a chance that students may apply and receive such funding. A unique aspect about
teacher education programs as mentioned by two participants from formal programs is
that in some institutions, there are speciﬁc advisors for teacher education students and
speciﬁc college scholarships for future teachers. The participants noted these connections
offer great beneﬁt to students, the courses, the overall program and the college. Students
take advantage of the many opportunities and feel a part of something. In addition, it was
stated that faculty, staff and students seem to communicate and collaborate more readily
in these circumstances.

Another example of a connection is offered for students at one community
college. They create a formal cohort for a university transfer program, and student co-
curricular and extra-cunicular opportunities are in some of the courses studied. The
formal cohort creates built-in student opportunities for connection and support during the
entire teacher education program process.

Academic Connections

Participants discussed the importance of connections with other academic
departments on campus to support teacher education programs. Several courses, often
offered through other college departments, are directly linked to the program such as
Math for teachers, specialized Science courses for teachers, and Children’s Literature.
How these academic connections occurred between faculties varied. Most often during
general faculty meetings, or curriculum discussions, someone initiated further discussion
about shared students and meaningful learning. As discussions progressed amid faculty,
additional meetings created shared assignments and ﬁeld experiences, as examples. By
working together and joining resources, participants were able to develop more

86

supportive links for students and stronger pre-service preparation. The biggest challenge
to this type of connection, mentioned by every participant, was the time needed to
develop such connections. Programs that were more formal all stressed the need for more
time.

Additional connections are made through coursework for students by the faculty,
as noted in this example provided by faculty at Lake Huron. When Lake Huron works
with a local science museum, students are offered opportunities for leadership as a
docent, lab assistant, and by developing lessons, and potential professional development
opportunities depending on what the museum is featuring during the semester. Since the
museum personnel have a wonderful working relationship with the science faculty, and
the museum is in need of volunteers, the opportunity to serve is not only beneﬁcial for all
involved, but offers the public and the museum fresh, new ideas and teaching/leaming
energy from college students each semester.

The interviews offer limited data describing opportunities connected to
leadership and professional development for future teachers within a program. In this
study, professional development is deﬁned as intentional and ongoing educational
and/or training opportunities available to educators (Guskey, 2000). Participants
adopted this deﬁnition of professional development and termed leadership opportunities
as any experience where the student can take the lead, be in charge, guide or direct
another. Often, this is in connection to classroom roles such as directing a lesson or
assisting student learning. Students have general opportunities on a college campus for
connections such as joining student parliament or an honors organization, but very few
opportunities provide such experiences directly related to the practical side of teacher
education. Field experiences offer the most opportunity for leadership including lesson

87

delivery, group leader, being in charge of a classroom or a small classroom group,

teaching a lesson, and potentially in a course, initiating, developing and leading

projects. Again, connections are important as described by participants, as students do

not always know where their optimal experiences in the ﬁeld may occur or what skills

are actually needed once they ﬁnd a ﬁeld site location.

Table 9 describes a range of student professional development and leadership

connections offered by community colleges for students in teacher education. The

professional development leadership opportunities provide ways for preservice teachers

to experience their role as a teacher in a professional environment ﬁrsthand. Through

the various connections they make during these experiences, students explore, develop,

and nurture their talents within, for their future.

Table 9 Connections for Pre-service Student Development and Leadership Options

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Community Description Detail
College
Lake Presently, nothing offered; in the past, a former counselor led occasional
Ontario advising/information events —

Lake Huron Formal student organization exists; there are many opportunities within
the organization for PD and leadership; coursework links students to
campus and community leadership connections

Lake Deﬁned experience under a grant for males of color entering ﬁeld of

Michigan teaching

Round Lake Future teachers group offers career services information related to jobs,
resumes, etc.

Lake Erie Monthly meetings offering students leadership opportunities, career
information, leadership experiences built into organized ﬁeld
experiences at various types of institutions

Lake A yearly event was offered with speakers many years ago, and area
Superior educators for pre-service teachers (no longer exists); special service
pilot learning projects supporting PreK-12

 

Lake Huron Community College has a student leadership group that participants

found beneﬁcial, for both students and the teacher education program. The Lake Huron

88

 

 

college administrator provided the most detail about student leadership connections.
The leadership group helped students connect with each other and faculty outside of the
classroom, offered leadership opportunities within an organization respected by other
students and faculty, and offered various opportunities to develop professionalism and
knowledge about teacher education. This administrator states,
We have beneﬁted from a dynamic Future Teachers Club, which is the marketing
on campus that says we have teacher preparation at this institution. And there are
all these students who are helping in the club in some form, so that’s one thing.
They’re a very strong marketing arm for us. The other thing is that they
disseminate information that I want disseminated to students who might not
otherwise get it, and they provide professional development opportunities for
students. They keep pounding it home to students that they have to think about
that ﬁrst job interview. They have to think about building portfolios now for that.
And they bring in speakers, like principals and superintendents and veteran
teachers, to support them on that.
As noted earlier, every participant explained that their community college provides
connections through student advising and providing teacher education information;
tutorial services and co curricular events are other opportunities for students to connect.
For example, Lake Huron has all the student support avenues listed in a program guide.
The administrator interviewed from that college indicated the importance of forming.
connections and providing students, advisors and faculty with as much accurate, current
information as possible to inform future teachers about career preparation. The other
colleges in the study had at least one of the listed connections but options varied from
college as did how the information was shared.

89

Taking into account that I speciﬁcally asked about opportunities for professional
development for future teachers in the interview, the amount of information provided to
me in this area was minimal. Upon further review of each community college website,
resources and literature, little additional information was available that explains
connections for professional development and leadership for future teachers, although
each college had general opportunities for student connections such as Student
’Govemment.

Another avenue of connection exists with non-traditional age students and
community residents who may be interested in becoming teachers such as the large
numbers of career switchers and unemployed students seeking retraining. The community
college is convenient, cost effective, and offers exploratory classes in teacher education
that assist those interested in beginning or exploring another career. Some participants
mentioned that because of formal university connections such as those existing at Lake
Huron Community College, students can complete three of the four years of teacher
education at the community college level. Teacher education certiﬁcation as a possible
professional area of employment is attainable by beginning at the community college,
and this may be a more accessible alternative for non-traditional students than gaining
admission ﬁrst at a university.

Participants also spoke about the ways in which non-traditional age students add
new dimensions, perspectives and connections to teacher education teaching and
learning. Many of these college students have children, they might be involved in a
school as a volunteer, or they may currently be employed in a school system in a support
position such as a paraprofessional, and have decided to seek teacher certiﬁcation or
additional training. Their real world experiences in classrooms and as role models enrich

9O

the learning experience as they prepare for a career in teaching. Also, their authentic life
experiences offer different insights into class discussions with traditional age students
about children and the teaching profession. Rikki describes these students at the
community college,
To my surprise a lot of times it’s not students right out of high school taking
teacher education classes. It’s people that, to my surprise, often people who are
coming back for another career. Yes, career switchers. They tend to be older and
more experienced. We also have a good-sized component of people who are
just—they already have degrees but they are coming back. They may have a
degree from us or may have a bachelor’s degree from somewhere and they have
been in another ﬁeld. They’re coming back for the majors and minors that they
can get here much more inexpensively and so forth here; a lot of people coming
back for an Early Childhood or commonly referred to as a ZA endorsement
through our early childhood courses.
Transfer and Articulation
Future teachers at Michigan community colleges must transfer their course work
to an accredited college or university in order to complete a degree and be recommended
for certiﬁcation to the Michigan Department of Education. As a result, even when
participants have creative ideas and thoughts about curriculum, or feel the need for a
particular course that would better prepare future teachers, they know that generally, their
college curriculum committee will focus on whether or not the course will transfer to a
university. If the committee discovers it will not, the course is often not put in the catalog
and/or is not supported as part of the teacher education. Such is the case in this example

Jordan shared from Lake Ontario Community College.

91

I know that I was trying to add a language arts for teachers, and that was not
supported because I was told by one or two people who deal with transfer that [it]
apparently Will not transfer, so that was quite a disappointment for me because I
had prepared the syllabus and the material for the course. It had a number of
students enrolled as well [allotted number for the course]. The curriculum
committee did not approve it because it would not transfer, so I was told. Here
students take primarily what is transferable, naturally, so they do not wish to take
anything beyond those courses that will prepare them in their careers in some
way. So that course—the language arts for teachers—would have been a methods
course that would teach the students ﬁrst the concepts that they need to know
about English language, and then to be able to prepare themselves well enough to
teach similar material at the grade level that they end up teaching. So that has
been my experience, I mean to the extent that I know about that course not going
through.

If the community college has a formal written agreement or articulation with a

particular university or college, it is easier for the student to navigate course selections at

the community college in preparation for transfer. In this study, the community colleges

relied on the Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Ofﬁcers

(MACRAO) agreement, a formal document among two- and four-year Michigan colleges

to ensure that a student who completes basic general education requirements at one

institution will satisfy the same basic general education requirements at other

participating Michigan schools (MACRAO website, 2009). Participants acknowledged

that courses covered by the MACRAO agreement, if selected with careﬁil, long range

planning, may also transfer as part of major or minor required coursework in a teacher

92

education program. Although the articulation and transfer agreements cover courses
across the community college curriculum, and are not restricted to teacher education
courses, the arrangements affect these programs only if students need sufﬁcient pre-
planning in order to insure that all their courses (teacher education and general education)
transfer appropriately when they want to continue to completion of their four-year degree
in the ﬁeld. Participants are mindful that teacher education courses they offer that may be
considered part of a basic general education plan from the university perspective will
more likely transfer, possibly even to the four-year teacher education program directly.
Regardless of the formality and nature of the transfer and articulation agreements
between community colleges and universities, participants were clear that developing
strong connections to receiving institutions helps insure greater ease of course transfer
and assists in preparing students for the transition to four-year college environments. One
interviewee, Bailey, summarized succinctly what most everyone stated about institutional
partnerships and articulation:
Well, I’m thinking about our partnerships. I think community colleges and their
students, in general, look for the articulation agreements and strong partnerships
that take the guesswork and the complication out of transfer. And I know that we
have a couple of partnerships that actually attract students to us for that purpose,
particularly those programs that allow for completion right here in our immediate
area... I have seen a lot of students come here just because they heard about that
option to complete certiﬁcation without leaving their homes and jobs, etc. So that
is a strength.
Another model for easing transfer and course selection for future teachers is a
formal articulation agreement between a four-year college or university and a community

93

 

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college in teacher education that may be somewhat different from the MACRAO
Agreement. The more formal teacher education programs had several articulation
agreements that deﬁne how community college courses will fulﬁll requirements at
transfer universities and colleges, and often different agreements are needed for each
institution. Even so, participants provided many examples of cautions in achieving
transfer that reinforce the need for strong personnel connections across institutions.
Students cannot assume a course will transfer based on the title of the course, which can
be challenging in teacher education, or that it will transfer unifome across receiving
institutions or programs within those institutions, or that the course will be accepted, as an
elective or as a requirement.

Current information about articulation agreements and university transfer
courses is critical. A faculty member at Lake Erie Community College summarized
what the other participants’ desire in the planning for transfer agreements.

Our transfer agreements with other colleges, our articulation agreements with

other colleges are a positive for our program. Students feel very secure that when

they transfer to other colleges, they have what they need and their classes will be

accepted and they get credit for them, and I think that puts a lot of our students at

ease—the nice strong macro agreements with all the colleges are also a positive.
Partnerships

From the onset of the study, participants referenced many types of partnerships
in teacher education. Partnerships were deﬁned as joint ventures or collaborations with
common goals, and were seen as other than written articulation agreements for student
transfer. The participants identiﬁed two types of partnerships. First is the written formal
partnership/program agreement, which is separate from the articulation agreement

94

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focused on course equivalencies, and reﬂects the level of collaboration that exists with
transfer universities, school systems and nonproﬁt agencies. The second is an informal
partnership where unofﬁcial or more casual collaboration occurred.

Formal partnerships. Formal partnerships are formal agreements created
through mutual collaboration with documented information explaining expectations for
all involved. Often, these are established with university centers located on community
college campuses, which are places for students to connect with and obtain university
information. The number of community colleges in this study that have a university
center varied, as did the number of universities represented in each center. A university
employee is typically employed as coordinator of the center, and faculty and advisors
utilize the space for community college connections. Who actually initiated the
partnership varied, depending on the reason and relationship of those involved with the
teacher education program.

Another example of a formal partnership occurs with schools and nonproﬁt
centers. If a school wants consistent connections with one of the community college
teacher education programs, some form of agreement details the who, when and why of
the connection. Nonproﬁt centers may approach formal partnership agreements in the
same way and for similar reasons. The agreements help provide clear expectations for
faculty, staff, students, and teacher education program records. At two of the colleges
studied, Lake Huron and Lake Erie, there are partnership agreements with area high
school career centers. High school students interested in teaching careers work in
various capacities with the area community college. Future teacher events, courses,
ﬁeld experience opportunities and shared faculty curriculum design are aspects of these
partnerships. Participants explain that these partnerships take extra time outside of the

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classroom to develop, communicate, monitor, and maintain. Everyone noted the extra
hours necessary for teacher education development whether it is spent in partnerships,
ﬁeld service experiences, or student advising outside of the classroom.

One more example of a formal university-community college partnership model
is the 3+1 teacher education program found at two of the institutions in this study. In
this arrangement, students take three years of teacher education coursework and
experiences at the community college before transferring to the university for a ﬁnal
year of school. Participants from each of the two community colleges shared that they
were approached by the university to collaborate in this way based on the reputation of
their respective teacher education program. An administrator at each community
college oversees a cohort of 3+1 students using a spreadsheet to record information on
involvement, coursework, advising, and program progress toward completion of the
program. The community college administrator works closely with the university
teacher education staff and faculty to prepare students for transfer and their ﬁnal year of
university experiences. Participants state that students like the cost saving factors in this
arrangement, including that the student can live at home, have an organized plan of
support, and easier transfer. The 3+1 partnership is also very attractive for non-
traditional age students with families and other local commitments. The non-traditional
age student may continue to work, support family needs, be involved in community
responsibilities, and still earn a teaching degree.

Informal partnerships are the second example in the partnership component of
connections. Informal, unwritten partnerships are built on trust and respect among
faculty and community/school personnel, are based on institution reputation, and
typically involve sharing resources and expertise. As mentioned by those interviewed,

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faculty may share educational resources, future teacher opportunities and events,
professional development opportunities, and may work together on new developments.
Examples of the different types of informal partnerships included teachers employed in
preK-12 education at various types of schools such as charter or private, science
centers, tutoring programs or organizations such as Special Olympics with whom the
community college collaborates to assist in the development of future teachers. An
interviewee states, “Our public schools need support in their classrooms, and our
college students need real life classroom experiences.” A faculty at one community
college explains, “I have elementary schools, a private and a charter school, where I
have [student] rotations. For early childhood labs, students go to our lab or to ﬁve other
nationally accredited programs that I am in partnership for student experiences.”

A different informal partnership was between two programs on a single
community campus. The administrator at that college spoke of “a very close connection
between the Early Childhood Program and the Teacher Education Program.” Course
identiﬁcation and leadership originally separated the two programs, but the
administrator explained, “We felt strongly about having two separate programs.
Separate did not beneﬁt either program, and now they are closely intermeshed. We see
both programs as a continuum. We see these areas hooked together to create a spectrum
with many paths for the student to pursue.” The partnership is important for .teacher
education at this college because elementary certiﬁcation is tied closely with early
childhood endorsement. The early childhood program at this college is “nationally
accredited and a recent evaluation states one of the strong components of the program is
administrative support.” The administrators shared that, “partnerships between faculty
and administration are described as necessary connections to maintain program support

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and credibility between peers and administrators,” so intentionally developing effective
collaboration and communication between college faculty and administration is critical.
To accomplish this, those involved work hard “to very intentionally make sure the
administrators at our college have a full understanding of our program, engaging them
whenever we can, and being more visible on campus.”
Finally, as described by one participant, another type of informal partnership
was created with a teacher education advisory council.
We have an education advisory committee. It was not required but we thought
that we should have input from our university partners and our area school
districts. That is a very great support for the big picture and the little picture as
well. For example, I have, well we, everybody in the division and especially in
the social science department that houses the education courses, and have
wanted a stronger relationship with our immediate urban area school district.
And at the advisory meeting we managed to have one of the higher level
assistant superintendents for instruction attend that meeting and he or she was
extremely open and volunteering to, you know, make connections and
everything, so that was a really good opportunity for us. At the meeting, I
usually give an update of what we have been doing for the last year, and then I
have a topic of discussion, looking for input. The most recent topic was
recruiting underrepresented populations to teaching. The universities and school
districts alike gave me a lot of good ideas, and they all agreed that this was, you
know, an objective that was important.
In summary, participants provided examples of teacher education partnerships created
for different reasons and goals. Some were formal, intentional and planned; others

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evolved and were informal based on student or institutional need, trust, and respect for
each other’s educational work. Whatever the reason for the partnership, participants
spoke highly of the many beneﬁts the connections provided to their teacher education
program. In addition, partnerships involving faculty, college personnel, students,
community members, PreK-12 school personnel and others offer many additional
experiences beyond textbook learning in their community college teacher education
program.

Governing organizations, legislation, and standards

The importance of regulating agencies, especially testing, accrediting and
government, is another connection or link discussed in this study. Participants spoke
speciﬁcally about state testing and its importance, reasons for various types of support
for state tests, and the connection to teacher certiﬁcation testing and community college
coursework.

The Michigan Test for Teacher Certiﬁcation (MTTC) is an important
connection and gatekeeper in navigating teacher certiﬁcation in the state. The ﬁrst
MTTC test assesses basic skills in writing, reading and mathematics. Community
college advisors and faculty support were mentioned as important in helping guide
future teachers in the process of MTTC testing. Students need these support
connections for many reasons. First, passing the test is necessary in order to gain
admittance in a transfer school of education. Second, students must have basic skills to
take the test, and are strongly advised to prepare for the test since some schools of
education limit the number of attempts. When preparing, students often seek support

from their community college advisor or faculty for preparation tips and information,

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though there was no discussion of institutional direct tutoring support for MTTC testing
success.

Most participants also spoke about the importance of doing well in core
community college classes because the ﬁnal MTTC certiﬁcation tests taken during the
senior year of college include all levels of content learning in a curricular major(s)
and/or minor(s). The content for these credentialing tests is cumulative. Although many
foundation courses for teacher education are often taken at a community college, these
courses are not factored into or given credit in the passing rates; only state university
passing rates are made available. Community colleges play an important role in transfer
student success in certiﬁcation testing but their efforts go unrecognized publically,
which was a concern expressed by some participants.

Several participants also discussed the impact of the 2001 federal legislation, No
Child Left Behind. Rikki from Lake Michigan Community College explained it this way:

What you see on paper doesn’t show all of the important personal background

issues about teacher education. Right? Legislation in No-Child-Left-Behind,

funding issues and all that kind of stuff isn’t always obvious, and I think it’s
important for students to know those things.
Participants noted that this landmark legislation has a direct connection to what
preservice students learn in the classroom and what they must be accountable for in their
future teaching. Teacher credentials, curriculum, and program components at the
community college and university levels are linked. What is taught and then tested for in
the teacher certiﬁcation process is part of the teachers’ knowledge base, as they prepare

young PreK-12 students for state standardized testing.

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All of the community colleges in the study are members of Michigan Association
of Community Colleges in Educator Preparation (MACCEP) and explain in some way
their regular involvement with various aspects of teacher education. Many interviewees
are involved directly or indirectly with local, state and federal legislative education. Some
are on state board of education organizations; others actively seek teacher education
information and updates, and/or are members of subject afﬁliated state organizations.
Other participants are part of a local formal group, often a university or K-12
organization, which meets for the purpose of collaborating on local teacher education
topics and concerns. Administrative and faculty connections in these governing
organizations help professionals stay informed about local, state and national trends and
issues.

Summary

Those who participated in this study provided in-depth evidence of the teacher
education professional preparation program components offered by their respective
Michigan community college. In addition to advising and student support services, ﬁeld
experience, teacher education course work, and professional development offerings are
provided through community college teacher education programs to one extent or another
that are affordable, attainable, and easily accessible. The ﬁeld service component of a
program offers area K-12 schools and agencies special program support, potentially new
ideas, connections and energy, at little or no cost. Participants in this study are convinced
that community colleges provide quality teacher education program components, even if
not always at the same level across the state. The Belknap Model (Figure 2) provides a

visual representation of the interrelationship of all the components and categories.

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Relevant Themes

The following themes derived from the data help to further explain teacher
education in Michigan community colleges.
The Role of Administration

Since each Michigan community college and transfer university is autonomous,
what is available at the community college is often inﬂuenced by administration.
Throughout the study, participants discuss the role of administrators differently,
sometimes talking of their role as decision maker, inﬂuencer, and supporter for the
teacher education program. Participants spoke about college deans, presidents, and other
administrators involved with curriculum, program components, professional support,
student support, and program growth and development. Some administrators are very
proactive and supportive in developing more formal programs; formal programs; others
take a more conservative approach that was described as ‘the way things are now are just
ﬁne for our institution’. Participants felt that if key administrators at their college
(however they individually deﬁned “key”) supported the teacher education program from
the start, it was more apt to develop and grow than if the administrator was more passive
and interested in maintaining the norm.

One study participant described proactive leadership and support at Lake Huron.
In this example, the dean designed a staff position to direct a teacher education program
early in its development and then hired someone to teach and facilitate the new program
within a few months of creating the staff position. The program is now formalized with
many of the components discussed.

On the other side, another participant also described a passive administrative
style. At Lake Superior community college where teacher education courses was offered

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for many years, the dean spent over a year (at the time of the study) exploring what
should occur and whether someone should be hired to direct teacher education at that
institution; nothing had yet been decided about ﬁlling a teacher education position. The
participants said the decision about teacher education program development and direction
was still being discussed. The program remains very informal with few of the identiﬁed
components.

No participant in the study reported that any administrator on their campus, such
as Dean or President, was against teacher education course offerings. The administrators
all saw teacher education as a viable transfer option, especially given student enrollments
in this area were adequate to above average. Nevertheless, to participants, administrative
support meant more than just seeing teacher education as a part of the overall college
transfer agenda. Support meant that administrators provided resources for their teacher
education programs such as designating an advisor for future teachers, providing release
time for a ﬁeld experience coordinator, or creating a position for director of teacher
education. Through such resources, those involved in teacher education could build and
maintain formal and informal partnerships. There was time and direction for accreditation
reviews, and those in the program often would collaborate within and beyond the college
to support teacher education in more situations than was typically expected. There was
support for the champion of the program, often a faculty member but sometimes, an
administrator, who worked to build and strengthen teacher education. Without
administrative support, it was more challenging to expand programs beyond informal

COUI‘SCS.

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Program perspectives: Informal to Formal

Another theme throughout this study is the description of community college
teacher education programs on a continuum of informal to formal. The difference
between informal and formal programs is explained through the categories of
commitment, curriculum and, connections. In the most informal programs within the
study, a few courses directly connected to teacher education are offered, but the two
faculty champions who attempted to create a more formal program had their proposal
tabled by college administrators.

Communication with students, the community and among faculty in an informal
program is sporadic and unorganized. If students need direction or support, there is no
expert in teacher education to send them to for such speciﬁc services. If anyone calls
community colleges seeking information about teacher education, or looks for website
information, it is more difﬁcult to discover exactly what is available in teacher education
if the program is informal. Participants indicated that whoever is willing to offer
information responds to the call or question. No one is designated as the ‘go to’ person in
teacher education so there is no consistency in communication.

As I identiﬁed the terms for this study, Lake Huron and Lake Erie are both formal
programs (Table 2). Each has a designated director with a job description designed by a
senior administrator. At one community college, the director is in the faculty union and
teaches a reduced load. The other program director is a four-ﬁfths time employee and
does not teach. Both programs have an active, formal extra-curricular student group.
Each has formal transfer partners, and the community college personnel collaborate with

these partners across students, staff, and faculty. In addition, these programs have strong

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community partners in the K-12 system that offer consistency and collaboration in ﬁeld
service experience.

An underlying strength in the formal programs is the level of communication
occurring at all hierarchical levels. Students, faculty, staff, administrators, community
and university personnel all communicate to support program efforts. In both formal
programs, there were obvious and purposeful avenues for communication that appeared
to make a difference in program success. The director organizes meetings, creates
information avenues on the website, develops or overseas the development of
newsletters, brochures, works closely with partner institutions, and agencies, and helps to
oversee the day to day operations of teacher education. Students, staff, partners,
community members, and potential new students see the program director as the ‘go to’
person. During their interviews, both directors note the presence of administrative
support for program development and growth.

Those I designated as formal community college teacher education programs
coincidentally market themselves this way. Their website and brochures indicate
coursework in special education, early childhood, elementary and secondary education as
well as other forms of curriculum opportunities such as PreK-12 connections through
ﬁeld experiences, and the program features more than one full-time committed and caring
faculty. Each program features a curricular strength area such as early childhood and
science pre-education. Both program directors afﬁliate with other professional
organizations related to teacher education and various subject area organizations. Faculty
participate in leadership roles within their program such as student organization advisor,
mentor, and site supervisor for ﬁeldwork, and are involved in various educational roles
within the college and the community.

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In addition, each formal program has speciﬁc, unique features. One of the formal
programs has a student resource room, speciﬁc staff advising, speciﬁc community
scholarships, and on site ﬁeld experiences in the early childhood center. The other formal
program offers many ﬁeld trips, student leadership opportunities in the community such
as tutoring, on-campus events that promote teacher education, and detailed on—line
resources and information for students about their teacher education program. There is
strong administrative support for each program. In one case, the teacher education
program’s development is included in the college’s strategic plan; in the other, the
college president and most administrators are involved or create time to be visible for
students and staff in the teacher education program. \

Communication was found to be essential for community college teacher
education programs to connect effectively in order to support future teachers when
housed in a state where educational independence and autonomy exist. Each interviewee
conﬁrmed this belief in some way, using examples of communication in their responses
such as contacts, interaction, exchange of ideas, email, and messages. As they noted,
considering all the teacher education certiﬁcation options, testing experiences, and
student expectations for ﬁeld experiences and content information among all colleges,
communication is essential.

Communication differences between informal and formal programs were
articulated. In the informal programs, communication was characterized as random,
occasional, and dependent on the needs and desires of individuals. In the formal
programs, communication was described as a given connection for their program success.

In summary, commitment, curriculum, and connections are the broad categories of a

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teacher education program. How each program component is developed and supported

within and among each category determines the level of formality.

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Chapter V
Discussion
Introduction

I want to be a teacher in the 21” century! Where might I begin my career
preparation in Michigan? Each year thousands of adults of varying ages ask themselves a
similar queStion. Preparing to become a teacher is not a simplistic process. Research
journals and books devote volumes to the topic of teacher preparation. Each state, higher
education institution, and every governing agency in charge of certiﬁcation offers
different views, expectations, and requirements. Since the No Child Left Behind
legislation of 2001 , the topic of teacher preparation has been at the political forefront
(Rudavelige, 2005). With the national emphasis placed on teacher preparation and high
quality teaching skills, research about community college teacher education across
America is necessary to improve teacher preparation (Townsend, 2003).

Michigan community colleges have joined the national emphasis on teacher
preparation and high quality teachers as evidenced by several initiatives. With support
from the Michigan Department of Education, Michigan community colleges created the
Michigan Association of Community Colleges in Educator Preparation (MACCEP) in
2004. This newly formed state organization adopted the mission to advocate for high
quality teacher education and educator support programs through nine association goals
(MACCEP, 2009). These afﬁliated community college members also work with the
National Association of Community Colleges in Teacher Education Preparation
(NACCTEP). In addition, several of the MACCEP programs afﬁliate with Phi Theta

Kappa, the honor organization for community colleges, and have been nationally

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recognized through Phi Theta Kappa for their exceptional programs in teacher education
(2006)

Another community college state initiative, which began in 2003, is the Day of
Dialogue. Sponsored by MACCEP, the Day of Dialogue brings PreK-l2 professionals,
university and Michigan Department of Education personnel, and community college
MACCEP members together to discuss current topics and issues about teacher education '
in a collaborative environment. F,“

Even though community colleges are part of Michigan’s early postsecondary

preparation for teachers, and some of their teacher education programs are recognized

 

nationally, little research or knowledge about community college teacher education
programs or their components exists. In addition, as expectations for educators continue
to grow, additional preparation and support by community college teacher education
programs may be a cost effective and efﬁcient avenue for all teachers, preservice and
certiﬁed. Based on the data derived from this study, there are many potential implications
for community college teacher education programs and four-year institutions that offer
teacher education degrees.

This chapter introduces the study, provides an overview of the research, describes
major ﬁndings including an explanation of the Belknap model, explains implications and
recommendations of the theory and research, directions for future research, and ﬁnal
comments.

Overview of study

The focus of this exploratory multi-case qualitative study was to identify
components of Michigan community college teacher education programs. This study
detailed a sample of six teacher education programs in a cross section of MACCEP

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community colleges that varied in size, structure, and service area. I conducted site
interviews with twelve ﬁill-time employees involved in teacher education, and examined
documents and websites of each institution in order to understand the following research
question:

What are the components of Michigan teacher education programs at community

colleges that are members of the Michigan Association of Community Colleges in

Educator Preparation (MACCEP)?

The conceptual framework guiding this study is Patricia Cunnif’f’s (2006)
investigation and analysis of 7 award-winning community college teacher education
programs that were part of a 2005 Phi Theta Kappa and National Science Foundation
collaboration. The programs were selected because they best met the needs of students
becoming teachers in mathematics and science (PreK-12). The Cunniff model, “Features
of an Exemplary Student-focused Teacher Education Program”, shows eleven areas of an
exemplary student focused program (Figure I). Cunniff further explains the model
through six categories: administrative support, faculty leadership, strong curriculum,
student support services, and student opportunities. The Cunniff model was never applied
speciﬁcally to state groups of teacher education programs, but still seemed a plausible
conceptual model for examining teacher education programs that prepare teachers more
broadly.

The purpose of this research was to examine how each Michigan community
college ‘sees, lives and exempliﬁes’ teacher education. On-site interviews were
conducted with twelve participants at six purposively selected community colleges across
Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The semi-structured interview protocol (Appendix B) was

developed, in part, utilizing the Cunniff (2006) model. The interviews were audio taped,

110

transcribed, coded, and analyzed by the researcher. Data were also collected from the
respective community colleges websites, and their teacher education documents e. g.,
brochures (Appendix C). After compiling the data and analyzing the results, I developed
a visual model of components, identiﬁed as the Belknap model (Figure 2).
Summary of the Research Project

Description of model

Data analysis resulted in the emergence of several core program components
reﬂective of the six community colleges studied. How the interviewees described their
program and its components varied. Through analysis and coding of the transcriptions,
three prevalent categories became apparent. The three categories help to organize the
components and provide a distinct picture of MACCEP community colleges teacher
education programs: commitment, curriculum, and connections. In addition, through
coding and analysis of the extensive descriptions of teacher education participants shared,
an organizational model evolved to clarify and explain the main ideas that surfaced, and
is identiﬁed as the Belknap model (Figure 2). Since there are numerous variations in core
program components, each component within the three categories exists on a continuum.
The outer and inner arrows in ﬁgure 2 link the three broad categories to suggest how
various components deliberately work together to inﬂuence the teacher educational
environment. The Belknap model provides an empirically derived, adaptable and ﬂexible
framework for program components in community college teacher education that may
have useful transferability to programs in other community colleges in Michigan and
other states. The summary data include the combined program table summary (Appendix

D) and a visual composite diagram labeled the Belknap model (Figure 2).

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There is a range in community college program development and components
from informal, early developing programs with few components to established
formalized teacher education programs with many components. As programs are planned,
it is important that institutional and student needs are met (Posavac & Carey, 2003). What
works for one community college may not necessarily work for another, and so the model
is not intended to be prescriptive or a ﬁnal template. Rather, it is intended to provide a
basis for examining community college teacher education programs in a more
comprehensive way than did the Cunniff model because it took the range of programs

into account rather than focusing only on exemplars or those focused on speciﬁc

 

disciplinary teacher outputs (e. g., math and science teacher preparation).

The following provides a more detailed description of the Belknap model
categories and their respective components: Commitment includes student, faculty and
administrative personal; Curriculum includes courses, ﬁeld experience, Michigan
Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Ofﬁcers (MACRAO) agreement,
content area courses, alignment to standards, state testing and credentialing preparation;
and Connections include student support, transfer and articulation, formal and informal
partnerships, local, state, and federal governing organizations and credentialing agencies.

Major Findings

The major ﬁndings from the research on selected community college programs
that led to the development of the Belknap teacher education model are discussed in this
section. Program components along a ﬂexible continuum may serve as a starting point for
a new teacher education program or for further development in an established program.
No two programs were described exactly alike, yet as data from the interviews were

analyzed and coded, repeated topics emerged that became the core list of program

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components. These components were then placed under the overall categories of
commitment, curriculum, and connections. The commitment of the community college
faculty, administration, and students directly inﬂuenced the teacher education program.
Faculty passion, leadership and program involvement as “champions” of the teacher
education program were discussed repeatedly. The following statement from a faculty
member reﬂects what many interviewees shared:
Our faculty, to be quite honest, our students continually tells us how much they
like our faculty, especially in this education department. They feel we’re
knowledgeable; we’ve been in the ﬁeld; we have a real-world experience; we care
enough to help them without babying them. I think that’s one of our positives,
quite honestly. They appreciate the support they get in this area. I really feel that
is one of our strong aspects, our faculty and their commitment.
Positive. support, guidance when asked or needed, encouragement, and supplying tangible
assistance for the program were examples provided of administrative ways commitment
to teacher education was demonstrated. Administration offered additional commitment
and exempliﬁed program support through communication in various forms from
situations where programs needed further development to more formal programs
undergoing national accreditation. Participants discussed the different ways in which
teacher education students were committed to their preservice experience through course
work, ﬁeld experience, and creating a career path amid the independent higher education
institutions of teacher education in Michigan.
The second category of the Belknap model presents the various aspects of
curriculum described by participants. Courses ranged from the traditional Introduction to
Education to speciﬁc education topic courses such as classes for paraprofessionals or

113

Math for Elementary Teachers. Prerequisites for some programs were discussed, and
other participants mentioned the need for prerequisites in their curricula. Field experience
is a major area of the curriculum in community college teacher education programs. In
addition, included in the curriculum are experiences and course work in early childhood,
elementary and secondary education, and special education. Participants spoke about the
Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Ofﬁcers (MACRAO)
agreements that affected teacher education curriculum and transfer guides for students.
They also discussed the way in which curriculum aligned to state and national standards,
and the impact of state testing and credentialing preparation and requirements. Michigan
community colleges offer many variations in teacher education curriculum.

The third category, entitled connections, in the study represented aspects of links,
associations, relationships, or some correlation to people, places, and things. For
example, there are myriad student opportunities such as scholarships, co-curricular and
extra-curricular events, tutoring, and student organizations that all require some
connection with people, places or things. Student choices, such as where to transfer, what
courses to take, and what grade and subject level to teach, often need resources connected
to. teacher education to help with well-informed decisions. Transfer and articulation ‘
agreements between community colleges and four-year institutions are described as
formal connections by participants. In some cases, the connection with the four-year
institution was identiﬁed as a partnership based on many levels of involvement. Local,
state and federal governing organizations and credentialing agencies are important
connections for every teacher education program as they help guide and regulate teacher
education programs and teacher standards, especially in a state with no over-arching
postsecondary governing body. One faculty explains connections this way:

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Concerning the teacher education pathway, we have meetings monthly. Also, we
get all of the people who are in the different disciplines, like the person who
teaches math for elementary teachers, the person who teaches biology for
elementary teachers, and so we bring all of those people together as well as this
department and then we make sure there are things going on that we want to talk
about. Legislative-wise, things we want to talk about at the college, things we
want to talk about with the articulation agreements with other colleges going on,
and so we all know what is happening in all of the other departments because
we’re having those same students. We talk about anything and everything that
connects to students and their success in teacher education.
It is my hope that the model depicting three categories of program components may also
serve as a starting point for further research or action in any or all of the speciﬁc areas
related to the improvement of teacher education practice, especially with community
colleges. Those involved with community colleges are encouraged to continue research
endeavors in teacher education to further expand and strengthen their role in the pre-
service teacher development. The Belknap model illuminates Michigan teacher education
program components and provides a description of what exists in the categories of
commitment, curriculum, and connections.
Program content continuum
MACCEP community college teacher education programs in this study fell along
a continuum of informal to formal. Every program had course work, ranging anywhere
from one to fourteen teacher preparation related courses. The informal programs offered
just coursework, usually one or two classes directly related to teacher education
preparation. As one moves along the continuum from informal to formal, programs had

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more components, opportunities or connections in the program. All institutions have an
Introduction to Education course. One might assume that this was the course taught by a
faculty member or the champion of teacher education, but this was not always the case.
As an example, a champion taught a psychology course for teachers in one institution and
in another, the champion taught a children’s literature course.

Another aspect to consider on the continuum of informal to formal teacher
education programs is the structure of each program. In informal programs, there is no

structure other than courses. According to those interviewed, despite the intrinsically

 

passionate faculty teaching, and some available courses, there is nothing apparent to
students, faculty, or even K-12 school ﬁeld service sites that there is a teacher education
program or champion as leader. As noted by the more informal program participants,
there is little institutional “buy in” or “investment” in creating a formalized and
sustainable program. Department faculties involved in teacher education coursework are
often torn as to where to place loyalty: to the department subject area or to teacher
education. A sense of satisfaction with the status quo is the sentiment revealed by
administrators of the more informal programs. The program champion may have
suggested ideas for program development but described a degree of administrative
complacency versus support for program ideas and growth.

Student involvement opportunities were another aspect of program components
that was on a continuum. The informal program had nothing for students outside of
course work. As programs became a bit more formal, there were informal meetings
providing information to students related to teacher education held by a college employee
who volunteered or decided something should occur. Examples of some of these sessions
are transfer options, future teacher employment, and information about teacher testing.

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The more formal programs offered student support through monthly regular meetings,
formalized student groups, newsletters, and assigned advisors, tutoring, and a student
resource room. 1

Moving along the continuum, semi-formal programs have courses, may have
more than one faculty or champion not just a single person, casual and random
informational sessions for students, possibly a university partner for transfer, K-12
partners for ﬁeld experience, and in some cases a brochure or page in the college catalog
about teacher education. The more semi-formal programs have no formal department
structure or designated program director or leader. In some of these semi-formal
structures, cross-disciplinary coursework and communication exists amid teacher
education and other content area faculties. An example of this is at Lake Ontario
Community College where the champion teaches Introduction to Education but works
closely with the faculty from Math for Teachers course in supporting future teachers. The
community college does not recognize an ofﬁcial, institutionally supported teacher
preparation program with a formal curriculum structure and leadership, constructed
similar to a department; rather, faculty teaching courses connected to teacher education,
even if from another department, work together for student beneﬁts. Within the
institution, students, advisors, and those interested in the teacher education pathway
provide an informal network, known to some who seek knowledge or voice the need for
information. Support for informal programs occurs randomly, because there is no
organized process or protocol within the institution for program organization or support.
As stated by some of the participants, it is hit or miss, depending on administration,
current community needs, enrollment, internal leadership by the champion(s) and
networking.

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The two most formal programs in the study contained all the components in the
Belknap model at various levels or degrees. At one, strong administrative support from
the president and Dean, along with a student group, array of courses, and many levels of
community partnerships exist. At the other community college, a Dean recognized the
value of strong leadership in a program and assigned a coordinator (already the
“champion” of the. program) to assist in curriculum scheduling, teacher education
activities, developing transfer partnerships and initiating any other necessary program
component. The teacher education program continued to grow over the past few years.
This community college, in part due to the leadership, was recognized nationally for their
program work, experienced an increase in four—year university partners and strong
community connections (especially in science) developed. In addition, the coordinator
advised a strong student leadership group evolved, and most recently, teacher education
became part of the college’s overall strategic plan.

Study participants were eager, willing, and passionate to share information about
their program in teacher education. The participants realized the information from this
study was not otherwise available but had the potential to be very valuable to those in
teacher education, and they were excited that someone was interested in hearing about
their personal passion for the profession. Offering a few participant remarks helps to
personalize and explain the participants’ eagerness to share information about their
teacher education program. A director of a formal program shares the following quote:

I know that in some schools, people are faculty in different departments and their

heart isn’t in teacher education so they give what they can, but they have other

commitments in their ﬁeld. The two faculty members that you’re going to talk to
today are able to focus and support teacher education. They are so committed.

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A faculty in a very informal program shares this passage, becoming teary eyed as passion
showed:
I invest a lot in this course for teachers. The amount of writing I require from the
ﬁrst day, from the ﬁrst hour of that class they are writing, and I have papers to
read constantly throughout that course, and I’m making ﬁeld visits all over, so
from my point of view, I guess so long as I see that the students are doing well, it
doesn’t particularly concern me that much—that there’s not more coordination.
As for champions, does it bother me that we’re not a discipline, that we don’t
have a Dean saying let’s get together and talk about this? Not really. The class has
been for me the most fun to teach of anything I’ve taught. I just love teaching it.
Similarities and differences exist among all the community college teacher education
programs in the study. Yet, all institutions in the study provide teacher education course
work and have a “champion” for teacher education. Not all the champions in the study
were hired for the speciﬁc purpose of leading the teacher education program at their
respective college. In most cases, it was an evolution of the faculty’s personal passion,
unfolding within their teaching environment and course, which led them to be the
champion. Only two institutions hired speciﬁc personnel for leadership roles, such as
Director or Coordinator, to administer their formal teacher education program.

Research Implications

In light of the national teacher shortage that began in the late 1990’s, community
colleges have expanded their role in teacher education preparation. Several Michigan
community colleges actively became part of this national movement near the year 2000.
It is important to realize the autonomy of every public higher education institution in

Michigan. After completing the university teacher education program requirements,

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recommendation is made for student certiﬁcation to the Michigan Department of
Education. This is signiﬁcant for community colleges because students transfer to the
four-year institution and generally do not receive recommendations or guidance for
certiﬁcation expectations. There is not a credentialing body that oversees or guides the
community college curriculum. Even the Michigan Department of Education has “no
say” or direct guidance in the development of community college teacher education
programs.

On the other hand, the Michigan university teacher education programs align with
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (N CATE) or Teacher Education
Accreditation Council (TEAC) while their students may still need MDE certiﬁcation
approval. These independent institutional organizations affect the environment of teacher
education and indirectly inﬂuence community college program development and student
transferability.

Exploring community college teacher education components in a state where the
structure for teacher certiﬁcation is autonomous for every higher education institution has
several broad implications. How each program works together and/or students navigate
the entire state teacher education credentialing system is challenging. Before transferring,
students must consider a major or minor and in some cases, two minors as required by the
receiving institution; the grade level they desire to teach, certiﬁcation options and
offerings at the transfer college or university; the coursework that will transfer; if there is
personal desire to graduate from the community college; and meeting general education
course requirements. Answers to these questions may be distinct and unique for each

student and for every institution. Considering all the variables involved in the teacher

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education pathway, coupled with each institution’s autonomy, leads to a multitude of
decisions and program differences.

, It is within this complex and open postsecondary environment that the results of
this study may be used to beneﬁt faculty and administrators committed to improving the
teacher education pathway in Michigan speciﬁcally, and in other states more generally.
The ﬁndings have implications useful to the following objectives:

1. Help to design strong curricula and courses of study.
2. Increase communication among colleges and universities, which, in turn will
beneﬁt programs and students.
3. Increase respect and understanding of community college teacher education
programs due to the analysis of program components.
4. Broaden potential transfer options among teacher education programs in
Michigan.
5. Help ensure a high quality teacher education workforce that may lessen the
impact of teacher retirements in the next decade in Michigan.
6. Strengthen education at all levels to maintain a strong educational foundation
for all schools as the state recovers from the present situation of economic
instability (Duderstadt, 2005).
Based on the six preceding points, the following discussion ﬁirther explains research
implications and lessons learned.
Strengthen Teacher Education Curricula
Based on the data in this study, many community colleges offer an assortment of
courses for future teachers. Given the range of courses and experiences offered at
community colleges, further study on how four-year certiﬁcation institutions can build on

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these early foundational experiences may create or tailor new and expanded opportunities
for students. In addition, early ﬁeldwork, mentoring, professional expectations, exposure
to real classroom issues, curriculum, and experiences are elements of their curriculum.
These are beneﬁts to any future teacher.

In this mobile and global society, a question to consider is, should Michigan
higher education institutions adopt a pre-service program or core teacher preparation
courses that would transfer from any community college to any Michigan four-year
institution offering teacher preparation? Economically and academically, the idea is solid
for students and provides higher education a foundation for teacher edircation curriculum.

Yet, students desiring a teaching degree in Michigan, beginning at a community
college, cannot teach with just an Associate’s Degree but must continue their education
by transferring to a four-year institution. Entrance to many four-year institution programs
in teacher education consist of a second admission application, passing the Michigan
Basic Skills test, and often an interview. The Belknap model may serve as a framework
to begin, expand, or improve community college program planning to assure greater
transferability.

Further, community college personnel are not often recognized for their
professional involvement with teacher preparation, nor are community colleges always
recognized for the mere existence of teacher education programs. The citizens of a
community often do not consider community colleges for teacher education preparation
or additional certiﬁcation course work, in part, because in Michigan, certiﬁcation occurs
at the university level. It is not always apparent or obvious that a student could start their
career path as a future teacher at a community college before transferring to a university
program. As explained in this study, teacher education is most often part of another

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department at a community college, and so, the presence of ‘a program’ or ‘series of
courses’ can be somewhat hidden within other academic units. One illustration of this
situation was described by many of the study participants through the following example.
When someone calls for advising about teacher education, there is oﬁen no awareness of
a speciﬁc contact person at an institution to discuss the complexity of issues regarding
teacher certiﬁcation or program options that the caller may present. In the study it was
mentioned, especially in more informal programs, the person answering the call may not
be aware that any teacher education coursework or opportunities are available at their
institution. The Belknap model and results of this study could be very useful in
developing and structuring more effective teacher education programs in order to bring
recognition to community college curricula under improved circumstances.
Increase communication among postsecondary institutions

In a state where unemployment continues to be the highest in the country
(Michigan Jobless, 2009), communication among educational institutions to efﬁciently
and cost effectively prepare the workforce is critical. Effective communication is
particularly important for community colleges whose students must transfer to four-year
institutions if intending to complete baccalaureate degrees, which includes teacher
education. Pathway issues are well documented in this study and elsewhere (Cohen &
Brawer, 1996; Shavelson & Huang, 2003; Stark & Lattuca, 1997) since they affect
community college program development, and student articulation success. By modeling
communication skills and collaborative efforts, educators can share and build strong
programs, partnerships, and develop exemplary teachers. This may encourage the

practice of lifelong learning that is raised as a means to address some of Michigan’s and

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other struggling state’s societal issues (Cherry Commission, 2004; Duderstadt, 2005;
Granholm, 2004, 2009).

Despite the fact that every higher education institution in Michigan is
autonomous, partnerships and collaborations developed through increased
communication can be effective means to facilitate rich learning experiences for future
teachers and support local schools and educational endeavors. This is demonstrated in
Lake Huron Community College teacher education program’s partnerships and
collaborations within the college and throughout the community, especially in science.
Their science program faculty collaborates with school districts, science museums, and
the college early childhood program, and offers several experiential opportunities both
for education students and PreK-12 students that are a result of strong relationships and
good communication at various levels. If students and faculty are working together at all
educational levels in PreK-12-l6 to offer quality experiences for ﬁxture teachers, it seems
only logical that more partnerships and collaborations to enhance learning should exist.
These efforts offer Michigan signiﬁcant opportunities to establish a strong base of
educated individuals at many levels.

Increase respect and understanding of community college teacher preparation

There are many reasons why a future teacher may begin their career path at a
community college, as is true for those majoring in other subjects. Community colleges
offer open access to students who might otherwise be denied at a four-year institution
(Cohen & Brawer, 2008), meaning that any student entering the community college in
teacher education does not have to meet any special requirements or prerequisites.
Extended support for those with underdeveloped but necessary college level academic
skills are a common entry-level for diverse populations, and are cost effective. Because

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of its mission, a community college will likely offer courses based on demand or
community need, which can include both the need for teacher education and speciﬁc skill
courses within a broad disciplinary umbrella.

Based on the data from this study, community colleges offer several aspects of
pre-service teacher education including basic curriculum and often, extra-curricular
experiences beyond the classroom. As a result, pre-service teachers at community
colleges are offered a sound start to their careers. Some of the examples cited by
participants in regard to teacher education explain how community colleges help students
explore the ﬁeld of education and schools. These courses offer ﬁeld experiences in a
variety of venues and settings including urban schools, early childhood sites, as well as
tutoring and after school experiences. Also, course work to expand teaching credentials
and preparation for career switchers to fulﬁll a dream of becoming a teacher is available.
Courses such as Children’s Literature, Math for Teachers, and Science for the Classroom
Teacher support teacher learning.

Sometimes education courses and/or curriculum opportunities offer a gateway for
employment or professional development in the case of paraprofessionals, substitute
teachers, or school secretaries. Each community college participant notes that teacher
education programs are a popular declared major and large numbers of students enter
community colleges choosing to prepare for a teaching career. What this may mean is
that if students have not yet decided on a major, they list teaching because education is
what they know, not that they are absolutely sure their intentions are to become teachers.
It may also mean that students just do not know what major to check on the application.

The following participant comment validates this point.

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When a student applies to college, they are asked and often expected to state their
career goal. Saying ‘undecided’ sounds weak or insecure, so what do these new
applicants to a community college know best? Twelve or more years of education.
Stating a familiar and comfortable answer such as teacher education is self-
assuring.

Institutional and community resources, budget, faculty, and community support
are integral, cultural, and structural components that contribute to community colleges
(Cohen & Brawer, 2008). Currently in Michigan, based on the 2008-2009 economic
conditions, these resources are more at stake (Smith, 2007). Organizational sustainability
in the area of community college teacher education programs means having enough
student interest to warrant offering courses, a budget, time to develop a quality
educational pathway for those interested in pursing a teaching degree. There is also
faculty and administrative leadership, and other institutional resources needed to support
community college teacher education programs. Most recently, special federal funding
has been provided to support and sustain community colleges because of their
educational and economic role. This new funding has heightened the awareness and the
importance of community colleges in the US. (Shear & deVise, 2009).

Data about community college teacher education enrollment vary. For example,
Francis, a faculty member at Round Lake Community College states, “The discussion
had been around the college that we had many students; the number that was put into the
formal paperwork studies was around 1,500 students who identiﬁed themselves as
education majors.” Bailey, a faculty member from another community college explains,
“Our data base system gives us very imperfect data on what are students’ choices.In my
formal summary report, I said 800 students are in our program.” The majority of those

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interviewed cited 8-10% of their overall college enrollment declaring education as their
career pathway. If there is sufﬁcient enrollment to explore or begin teacher education at a
community college, what is offered to students is important and may affect the profession
and eventually the education of Michigan students. The Belknap model and results of this
study could be very useful to structuring effective teacher education programs under

different circumstances.

Often, an older student has not been in a college classroom in several years if at
all. Community colleges offer more familiar environments for many area non—traditional
students; they live nearby and are accustomed to the surroundings and presence of the
college. Participants stated repeatedly that the cost savings of attending a community
college is a major draw. Not only is tuition less than the university but travel time with
other related expenses are often reduced by attending a community college. The I
community college education preparation programs in this study include technology and
offer hybrid and on-line courses, which while not reducing costs, offer additional
accessibility and convenience for many students.

A better understanding of community college teacher education programs may
help those involved with teacher education to strengthen and better meet the needs of
future U, S. classroom teachers. As far as teacher education preparation, the potential for
research and data from the four-year certiﬁcation institutions, Michigan Department of
Education certiﬁcation test results, data on teacher demographics and student successes,
as well as future employer assessments have the potential to reveal even more about those

students who began their early teacher preparation programs at community colleges.

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Broaden transfer options

By identifying the program components for future teachers during their ﬁrSt two
years of training, community colleges may assess, strengthen and possibly enhance their
transfer program options. Community colleges may also continue to improve their
growing role in teacher education. In addition, Michigan’s poor economic situation may
beneﬁt indirectly. Nationally, estimates are that between 20-40 percent of teachers begin
their post-secondary education at community colleges (Recruiting New Teachers, Inc.
2002; Shkodriani, 2004; Tsapogas, 2004). If Michigan would like to maximize the
potential preparation of future teachers, working with community colleges while
increasing transfer options, along with improving preparation ex'pectations would be
prudent. Investigating the political tension points that exist among transfer institutions
and community colleges is also another area for a potential study. An option to consider
is whether community college teacher education programs should be formalized. If so,
how might that occur? In addition, examining the persistence and attrition rates for
transfer students in teacher education as well as those students who begin their career at a
community college and become certiﬁed teachers is another relevant area for research.
Attrition rates for new teachers within the ﬁrst ﬁve years of becoming certiﬁed continue
to be high (Guarino, Santibaﬁez, & Daley, 2006; Ingersol, 2001). Evaluating if teacher
attrition rates are improved through community college preservice education program
opportunities may beneﬁt the profession, four-year certiﬁcation institutions, and
eventually PreK-12 classrooms. This study offers an up close and personal program
perspective of Michigan community college teacher education programs and their

components. The impact of such programs is unknown.

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Quality worljorce support

Michigan must rely on current and upcoming generations to explore and discover
creative and productive opportunities for economic development and a highly educated
workforce (Duderstadt, 2007). Currently, Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in
the nation at 14.1% (Michigan Jobless, 2009). This study may create further discussions
about workforce development especially in the current situation where almost one-half of
the state’s educators are able to retire in the next few years. These ﬁndings from this
research may assist in teacher preparation planning and future classroom teacher needs.
Questions abound for further discussions such as, what implications are there for quality
and collaborative innovative teacher training for innovative curriculum in our state? What
policies and procedures need revision to further enhance and support innovative and
collaborative teacher education programs? How might we streamline higher education
pathways for ﬁrture teachers in order to maximize learning opportunities and minimize
cost?
Strengthen overall education

Michigan’s teachers will inspire and prepare future leaders by developing strong,
competent students who have the potential to develop into creative and productive
leaders. World-class standards for students at community colleges and other higher
education institutions should be a necessary recommitment (Duderstadt, 2007). Teacher
education may be quite diverse across Michigan colleges, yet based on the core data from
this study, how might community colleges enhance their capacity to further serve society
in particular ways, especially in Michigan?

Further analysis of the data from this study offers topics for additional research
and discussion. One example is the role and implications of administrative support for

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community college teacher education. It is apparent, from this study, that there are
numerous ways administrators may be involved in teacher education programs. How
administrators directly and indirectly impact these programs vary; yet to be clariﬁed is
exactly which administrative actions provide the most impact.

Another example is the addition of diverse populations in the teacher profession
and their impact on learning. Teachers who are members of under-represented
populations often began their careers at the community college with supportive early
program experiences. Overall, future studies about community college teacher education
programs, which support diverse, pre-service teachers, may reveal more student success in
PreK-12 classrooms, which in turn, may help Michigan future students.

Administrative Support

In the study, the nature and range of administrative support for teacher education
are broad, but proved important to participants. Complacency or maintaining the status
quo versus personal presence and active involvement in the teacher education program
captures the gamut of administrative support described during the interviews. At some
institutions, administrators took little or no action to be involved in teacher education
beyond what was expected. Examples of sticking more with the status quo are those
administrators who just reviewed their program for ample enrollment and budget
allocation. In fact, even in some programs where there was ample enrollment in teacher
education courses and requests by faculty for more advising support and program
direction, faculty concerns were not addressed by, or resolved with administrators, even
after a couple years of persistent requests. It was not apparent to participants whether the
administration cared or not; ‘it is what it is’ and nothing more. In other situations, the
administrators had experience in the area of teacher education, had degrees linked to the

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core content of education, and were fully vested to support a teacher education program.
Programs in which administrative support was apparent and proactive were also the more
formalized programs.

In those colleges in which the administrators’ sentiments were more passive and
status quo, the teacher education programs were considered more informal or semi
formal. The difference in programs, noted by the participants, is based on the education
Champion’s efforts, along with the support provided by administration for teacher
education. The more informal programs had little or no administrative support or faculty
“champion”. The semi-formal programs had support on occasion.

As for the “champions” in the semi-formal programs, some were advocates for
program components in their own content areas; others were occasional champions and
student supporters when they felt they could handle the extra workload and involvement.
Interestingly, whether formal or informal, the data revealed ample student interest in
teacher education at all community colleges for some form of organized program based
on the components of the Belknap model.

Directions for Future Research

This study was an exploration of the teacher education program components of
selected community college members of the Michigan Association of Community
College in Educator Preparation (MACCEP). Although the literature addresses a
multitude of topics connected to community colleges, there are limited studies about
community college teacher education programs, including the subject of program
development. Research endeavors in teacher education programming may beneﬁt the
ﬁeld of higher education teacher preparation. Further research may provide assessment
and evaluation techniques, additional curriculum ideas, policies, more support for

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initiatives and program improvement, as well as views through various perspectives of
community college teacher preparation programs. Different aspects of the Belknap model
may also beneﬁt program development at almost any stage. Consequently, the following
suggestions are offered as future research directives stemming from this exploratory
study.

The need for assessment and effectiveness of teacher education training at all
levels is a very current and timely concern e. g., the National Association of Community
College in Teacher Education Programs (NACCTEP) director is currently discussing
assessment strategies with various national organizations (board meeting minutes Dec.
15, 2008). Research relating to the effectiveness of the components of a program, such as
the Belknap model, along the informal to formal continuum would provide a much-
needed baseline or potential assessment tool for community college teacher education
programs. It may also help identify potential strategies for program development,
promotion, and self-assessment as well as developing future teacher recruitment and
retention measures in high need areas.

Another research topic to consider as a follow-up to this study is the success rate
of teacher education program components. In Michigan, all students must transfer from a
community college teacher education program to a four-year institution if they want to
complete their four-year degree. Very little feedback, in any form, is provided to
community college teacher education programs, institutional research personnel or
faculty about the effectiveness of the community college teacher education program in
which the student began. As mentioned by one of the college faculty in the study, most
often received are anecdotal remarks of support from students or negative preparation
remarks from the transfer university faculty. Since we do not know what happens to the

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teacher education transfer student after they leave the community college, at least in
Michigan, any documentation is valuable. Participants noted that they would ﬁnd it
helpful to know if course work, professional content and process training, student
teaching success, and even preparation for teacher education certiﬁcation testing
provided by the community college was beneﬁcial to student success, community college
personnel would ﬁnd this helpful to know. Knowing ‘how and if early preparation in
teacher education supports future teachers may also support further community college
teacher education program development. In addition, research would provide universities,
students, and PreK-12 districts hiring teachers, a potential standard of “quality
description” for community college program consideration. In fact, especially in
Michigan’s autonomous environment of higher education teacher preparation programs, a
standard of quality lays the groundwork for an argument to create a uniﬁed data system
for teacher preparation programs.

Faculty may be passionate about the subject of teacher education, courses may be
offered, student enrollment may be stable, but institutional investment and sustainability
varies from one institution to the next in this study. Why? What policies and support exist
that create strong, formal teacher education programs in some community colleges and
informal programs in others? These topics are worth ﬁrrther research. Tierney (1996)
argues that culture plays an integral part in what occurs at any college, so a further study
that explores the potential impact of individual college culture on teacher education
programs, the strength of their components and connections to each other and the rest of
the college is valuable.

Program initiatives, sustainability policies, and curriculum changes or adjustments
are additional areas for further research. How well the community college teacher

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education program faculty and administration understand their role in helping prepare
future teachers is most often anecdotal. An assumption may be made that if the
community college program has articulation agreements, or a formalized partnership
agreement exists, then the institutions have agreed on certain program components. Who
is responsible for these program developments, how are they transmitted to students, and
how successful is the entire process is still in question. It would beneﬁt the faculty,
students, and the entire program if a systemic approach for program development and
feedback occurred. At this time, this is not the case.

As teacher education preparation changes at various levels (federal, state, and
local), so must community college teacher preparation programs and their policies. One
example is the paraprofessional preparation initiative developed by community colleges
due to mandates of the No Childhood Left Behind (2002) legislation. How and why these
program changes occur, and the local and state policies that are connected to these
changes, may offer community college program leaders potential resources in planning
and development.

Another area for research using the model is the student perspective of the
program categories and components. All participants in this study were ﬁrll-time
personnel of their respective community colleges and considered champions of teacher
education on their campus. Using the model and interviewing students may offer a
distinct perspective of the program components. Stark & Lattuca (1997, p.5) noted the
professor creates the curriculum for a program but the learner creates “meaningful
learning” from it. Finding what students view as valuable program components could

enhance and potentially strengthen any model of teacher education programs.

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Since the Belknap model is one of the ﬁrst of its type, and empirically based on
Michigan community college teacher education, the model may be further tested in other
states. For example, because Michigan is unique in its teacher education autonomy, the
model might be studied in states where a Board of Regents or a governing agency
mandates teacher education course work and processes.

Research opportunities abound in the area of community college teacher
education. Examples discussed are a few of the many. Assessment, curriculum, policies,
internal and external program support, and perspectives for program improvement by
those who work with and are served by the education program are additional areas for
research. Important research opportunities exist in standards of quality and statewide data
systems. At the core of every research opportunity within the community college teacher
education program is its components. The Belknap model offers a springboard for
continued explorations.

Summary and Final Comments

There is a signiﬁcant amount of research about teacher education at the university
level, but there are few substantive research studies about teacher education programs at
community colleges (Gerdeman, 2001). This study provides exploratory data about
program components and opens the door for several research avenues. Information
presented in the study presents an opportunity for those involved in teacher education to
advance community college teacher education programs in new directions. Since the
three categories and components may increase the understanding of any program, the
information obtained in this study may be useful to faculty, administration, policy
makers, and those involved directly and indirectly in program and curriculum
development especially in the area of teacher education.

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Tierney (1996) suggests creating clear strategies or a strategic plan when
developing changes within an organization’s structure. The components of a teacher
education program are part of a community college structure and should be strategically
planned. As rapidly as 21St century changes occur, especially in many aspects of training
and education (Boggs, 2008), a ﬂuid and ﬂexible organizational model, embedded with
ideas for curriculum and program development, may offer a new perspective on the
organization of teacher education programs. The Cunniff model (2006) had 11
components that seemed more reﬂective of the most formal teacher education programs
in this study. The Belknap model is based on larger concepts than just speciﬁc
components, and because it was not derived solely from exemplars in any area of teacher
preparation, may be more applicable for teacher education planning and curriculum
development. The model may prove to be a more useful organizational guide for a larger
range of programs across the continuum of formal to informal, which was the span that
existed in Michigan.

The ﬁndings of this study may be useful to a variety of educational groups. First,
those who may beneﬁt in Michigan are educational personnel who participate in some
aspect of teacher preparation such as community college administrators, faculty, staff,
transfer institutions and their faculty, certifying institutions, high school vocational and
career education centers, intermediate school districts, the Michigan State Department of
Education or other groups involved in teacher education pre—service training. Second, the
study may also be helpful to other states and community colleges developing or assessing
their teacher education program components. And third, the study may be beneﬁcial to
any community college offering or developing a professional preparation program such
as engineering, social work, or criminal justice because it includes a focus on the tie to

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practice and the ﬁeld. All types of transfer programs may be able to assess and/or adjust
their programs through the categories and components described in the Belknap model.
Community colleges in Michigan are involved in teacher preparation, and their
work supports universities through formal partnerships as well as the traditional the
student transfer process. Community college teacher education programs offer an array of
classroom partnerships, collaborative projects, and support in PreK-12 institutions.
During Michigan’s downward economic period, community colleges offer a very cost I
effective avenue for future teachers to begin their professional dream in education.

Michigan’s community college programs in teacher education will help to improve,

 

directly and indirectly, the future of the state by supporting the process to prepare highly

qualiﬁed teachers who will touch the future PreK-12 students of the country.

137

APPENDICES ’

I38

Appendix A
Qualitative Interview Protocol Questions

Personal introductions will occur and the consent form will be reviewed and signed by
each subject. A code will be assigned to the institution and each subject to be interviewed
will select a code name.

1. Please describe your role in your community college teacher preparation program.

2. Tell me about your teacher education program or pathway. I’m interested in
learning as much about it as possible so please feel free to talk about the
program’s origin (why did it start?), its goals, its’ formal or informal structure,
etc.

3. Which components of your program are the strongest and why do you say this?

Please further explain.

a. What aspects of your program have had the greatest impact on students? Tell
me about the impact.

b. Are these also the same components in which students are the most involved?
Talk with me about why you think students are involved in this aspect of the
program.

4. Which components of your teacher education program or pathway would you like
to strengthen? Why and how?

5. How many students are in your education program? Describe characteristics of
your students in teacher education and how they are identiﬁed as EDU majors.

6. Talk to me a bit about the overall institutional support for your teacher education
program or pathway. I’m interested in knowing who are the leaders or champions

of your program. How are administrators and other college leaders involved

139

Appendix A (cont)

Qualitative Interview Protocol Questions

7. and/or support the teacher education program? Describe their roles and how they
provide ongoing support for teacher education.

8. I would like to further understand other aspects of your program or pathway.
Please explain further about: i

a. Curriculum decisions and course offerings,

b. Students in teacher education- how many, how they are
identiﬁed and their characteristics,

c. The topic of transferability and the process with articulation,
when do students transfer, and what four year institutions do
most students transfer to, if you know?

9. Is there anything else you would like to share about the teacher education
program at your community college?
Thank you so much for your time, valuable information and insight during this

interview.

140

Appendix B

Possible Artifacts from the Community College about Teacher Education

Items or objects that share information about the teacher education program

Brochure

Catalog

School or local newspaper

Website

Syllabi

Awards

Student Program Information

Financial Aid and Scholarship Information

School Magazine

Department Brochure or ﬂyer

Marketing item such as book mark, planner etc.

141

Appendix C

Belknap Chart of Michigan Community College

Teacher Education Program Components

The following categories: commitment, curriculum and connections provide an overview of the

components from six Michigan Association of Community Colleges In Educator Preparation (MACCEP)

teacher education programs. There is a range in community college program development and

components from informal, early developing programs with a few program components, to established

formalized teacher education programs with many components. The representation of the data describes

how Michigan community colleges ’sees, lives and exempliﬁes’ teacher education and includes the

following combined program table summary and a visual composite diagram labeled the Belknap model.

 

Commitment

Curriculum

Connections

 

Faculty- teaching, passion,
love of education and
learning, experience, clubs,
advising, develop and offer
outside of class
opportunities, leadership,
safety and professionalism,
role model, collaborative
work

Administration- positive
support, guidance,
encouragement, if able
provides needs and
strengthens program
through aspects of
communication

Students-courses, search
opportunities, pre-teaching
experience through field
service

 

 

Courses- face to face, various
content areas such as intro to
education, math, science, art,
music, children’s literature,
prerequisites

Field Experience-service
learning methodology, real
experiences, volunteerism,
assigned sites, and student
choice

MACRAO Agreement-
community college guide for
basic course of study

Courses and Content Areas-
Early Childhood, Elementary,
Secondary, Special Education

Alignment to standards-
state and national content
areas and standards

State Testing and
credentialing preparation -
Michigan Basic Skills and
certification testing,
background record check

 

Student support-Advising,
ﬁnancial aid, field service site
guidance, cohorts, co—
curricular and extra-curricular
opportunities, tutoring,
academic development and
growth, leadership
opportunities, diversity
support, web sites, brochures,
transfer guides

Transfer/Articulation-
universities, colleges, public,
private

Formal and informal
partnerships-High school to
universities, colleges and
community groups,
community colleges,
interdepartmental within own
coﬂege

Local, state and federal
governing organizations and
credentialing agencies- ,
schools, community agencies,
Michigan Department of
Education, federal programs
and agencies, universities,
coHeges

 

142

 

Appendix D: Figures

 

Education Program Model

 

Figure 1: Community College Exemplary Teacher

Community College Exemplary Teacher Education
Program Model by Dr. Patricia Cunniff (2006)

 

 

Strong
Faculty
Leadership

Strong
Positive
Administrative
Support

Smooth
Articulation

Community
College
Exemplary
Teacher

Education

Student
Program

Leadership
Opportunities

Student
Professional
Development

Good Link to
Local
Schools/
Community

143

Faculty

Suppon
Across
Campus

Validated
Curriculum

Early Field
Work
through
Service
Learning

Financial Aid

Strong
student
support in
Advising &
Tutoring

 

 

144

 

 

 

Figure 2: Belknap Model of Michigan Community College Teacher Education
Program Categories and Components
(‘onm-ction, Commitment and Curriculum

 

/ j) m

Connections

Student support-Advising, ﬁnancial aid, ¢—>
ﬁeld service site guidance, cohorts, Commitment
co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities, ——
tutoring, academic development and growth,
leadership opportunities, diversity support, web
sites, brochures, transfer guides
T.-.....'...,1‘ " ' " ' , colleges,
public, private
Formal and informal partnerships-High school
to universities, colleges and community,
community colleges, same college
interdepartmental
Local, state, federal governing organizations,
credentialing agencies-schools, community
agencies, Michigan Department of Education,
federal programs, agencies,
universities, colleges '

Faculty- teaching, passion,
love of education/learning, clubs, experience,
advising, develop/offer outside of class
opportunities, leadership, safety and
professionalism, role model, collaborative work
Administration- positive support, guidance,
*—* encouragement, provides needs/strengthens
program through aspects of communication
Students-courses, search
opportunities, pre-teaching
ﬁeld service

 

 

mm

Courses-face to face, content areas
such as intro to education, math, science, art, music,
children’s literature, prerequisites
Field Experience-service learning method, real experiences, volunteerism,
ﬁeld experience reﬂections, and student choice

MACRAO Agreement-community college guide for basic course of study

Courses and Content Areas-Early Childhood, Elementary, Secondary,

Special Education
Alignment: to standards- state and national content areas and standards
State Testing and credentialing preparation -Michigan Basic
Skills and certiﬁcation testing,
background record check

 

   

 

 

 

  
  

 

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145

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