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A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO FIELD
INSTRUCTION PRACTICE: HELPING INTERNS LEARN TO
TEACH ALL STUDENTS

presented by

ALISA JEAN BATES

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A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO FIELD INSTRUCTION PRACTICE:
HELPING INTERNS LEARN TO TEACH ALL STUDENTS

By

Alisa Jean Bates

A DISSERTATION

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

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Teacher Education

2005

 

ABSTRACT
A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO FIELD INSTRUCTION PRACTICE:
HELPING INTERNS LEARN TO TEACH ALL STUDENTS
By
Alisa Jean Bates

This study focused on the social constructivist field instruction practices I used in
work with a set of three interns on issues of student diversity in the classroom. This
research explores the terrain of how to meet intern learning needs at the same time that I
pushed them to meet student learning needs. The research question was: During critical
incidents where interns are working to address learning needs of diverse students, how
does the field instructor support three interns who are learning to teach responsively to
meet these needs? The subsidiary research questions are divided into three areas — those
focused on interns, those focused on the field instructor/instruction, and those that
provide information on the context in which this research study is taking place.

To address these questions, I examined my own field instruction practice during
the 2003-2004 school year at a local, suburban elementary school. Three interns were
selected from the six I worked with and additional observations, interviews, and material
collection were done. The focus of our work together was on helping interns learn to
meet the diverse learning needs of their students in the regular education classroom. This
included work with English Language Learners, diverse ability issues, and
socioeconomic status in the classroom. Observations were videotaped and debriefing
conferences were audiotaped after each lesson. Interviews were conducted in the fall and

spring with each intern and with his/her collaborating teacher. Additional interviews

 

were done in the spring with each intern to discuss the students in each classroom by
working our way through the class list. Field notes were taken in each observation, as
well as of reflection on my practice in general. Additional field notes were taken for each
intern that focused on the specific interactions I had with the intern and collaborating
teacher that addressed students in the classroom.

The analysis for this study centered on a critical incident for the work each intern
did that responded to issues of student diversity with a particular student or population of
students in the classrobm. Additional analysis work was done to compare the social
constructivist stance I used with the work of Glickman et al.’s (1995) supervisory belief
continuum for practicing teachers. Also, Schon’s (1987) conception of naming and
framing was used to explore the ways that each intern and I conceptualized the work we
did together on the critical incident identified in each case. Findings revealed that the
interns faced significant challenges in learning to address student learning needs in the
classroom and met this challenge to varying degrees of success. In particular, social
constructivist practices were more or less successful depending on the intem’s readiness
to teach and their comfort level with the issue of student diversity in the classroom.
Also, when the intern and I name and framed (Schon, 1987) the problem in similar ways,
we were able to work more effectively to manage the challenges of student diversity in
the classroom.

Implications from this study further develop social constructivism as an approach
to field instruction practice, identifying ways to improve field instruction practice with

interns around issues of student diversity.

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The faith that others have had in my ability to write this dissertation, and to do it
well, has been invaluable in pulling me through the rough spots in the writing and the
challenges of doing so while trying to remain active in my role as a field instructor.

The intern teachers and collaborating teachers at Lancaster Elementary from
2001-2005 have provided me with a second elementary school to call home. Their
support of my field instruction practices, as well as my work as a graduate student, has
been incredible. In particular, I’d like tothank David, Catherine, Elizabeth, Amanda,
Jane and Rebecca for access to their teaching and learning in helping me to shape this
dissertation. Time spent in their classrooms and with them in their professional lives was
both intriguing and enjoyable.

My dissertation committee, chaired by Dr. Cheryl Rosaen, has proven to be a
responsive and thoughtful sounding board for all stages of ideas in this process. I am
grateful to Dr. Linda Anderson, Dr. Randi Stanulis and Dr. Gary Sykes for providing the
support needed in producing this work. Cheryl took me on as an advisee early in my time
at Michigan State and has been a constant presence and support ever since. Her insight
into my approaches, professional direction and knowledge has often surpassed my own
understanding of what I hoped to accomplish or how best to get there. Because of this,
her guidance and support has been particularly valuable and I am incredibly thankful for
her involvement in my doctoral work.

There are several other professional relationships that have fostered my work at
MSU. I had the good fortune to land on a certain teacher preparation team from my very

first year here and am grateful for the mentoring and guidance I’ve received from

iv

 

 

Philippa Webb, Rita Luks, Judy Oesterle and Sally Labadie. They have been
instrumental in helping me to develop and refine my field instruction practice. Their
commitment to my research efforts and willingness to keep me at Lancaster Elementary
for all four years of field instruction work has made all the difference in my ability to
develop a deep and thoughtful look at my own practice through this study.

I am also grateful to Leigh Hall for her invitation to join a writing group at the
beginning of my third year. This process taught me much about writing and presenting
research and provided me a constructive sounding board that lasted throughout the
dissertation. As fellow doctoral students, Laura Pardo and I have been collaborating
since we first began to work together to pass our statistics course and study for
comprehensive exams. When it comes to this dissertation, Laura probably knows as
much about what’s in here as I do! I can’t quite imagine what all of this would have been
like without Laura’s insight and friendship and I can never thank her enough.

Although my engineer brother and my naturalist sister often grew tired of our
constant discussion of education each time the family got together (and I thank them for
their patience), I am particularly grateful that my career interests have landed at the
intersection of my parents’ professional lives. Being able to talk higher education
practice and experience with my father and elementary education teaching with my
mother means that I have always had someone in the family to help me explore my
questions or ideas. This final year of doctoral work has resulted in many hours of phone
calls back and forth to Washington, seeking advice and support from both Mom and Dad.
Their encouragement and patience with my needs has been priceless and I thank them for

a lifetime of love and guidance.

 

Table of Contents

List of Tables .............................................................................. ix
Chapter 1: THE CHALLENGE OF EDUCATIN G TEACHER
CANDIDATES FOR STUDENT DIVERSITY ..................................... 1
Teacher Education’s Response ................................................ 3
The Significance of this Study ................................................ 8
Chapter 2: A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST FRAMEWORK FOR FIELD
INSTRUCTION PRACTICE ........................................................... 10
Social Constructivism .................................................................... 10
Social constructivism as a learning theory ................................... 12
Social constructivist teaching .................................................. 14
Key aspects of social constructivist field instruction practice ............. 19
My social constructivist field instruction stance ............................ 21
My Field Instruction Practice: Specific Moves I Make .............................. 26
Summary .......................................................................... 30
Interns as Learners: Learning About and Planning for Their Students ............ 3]
Knowing students in particular ways ......................................... 34
Knowing how to come to know students .................................... 37
Knowing how to respond to this information pedagogically .............. 40
Field Instruction as an Educationally Supportive Practice ........................... 42
History of supervision research ................................................ 44
The learning process as seen by the field instructor ........................ 48
The role of the field instructor in engaging this process of intern
learning ...................................................................... 50
The Internship Structure and Connections to New Teacher Induction ............ 55
Summary .................................................................................... 58
Chapter 3: STUDYING FIELD INSTRUCTION PRACTICE: RESEARCH
METHODS AND DESIGN ............................................................. 61
Methodology ............................................................................... 62
Research Questions .............................................................. 62
Questions focused on interns .......................................... 63
Questions focused on field instructor/instruction ................... 63
Questions focused on context .......................................... 64
Study Design ................................................................. 64
Field instruction support ................................................ 64
School and district context ............................................. 65
Participants .................................................................. 67
The interns and the collaborating teachers .................. 67
The elementary students ....................................... 68
Classroom context ...................................................... 69
David ............................................................ 69
Jane ............................................................... 69

vi

 

Elizabeth ......................................................... 70

Data sources .............................................................. 71

Interviews ....................................................... 71

Winter interviews ...................................... 72

Interns .......................................... 72

Collaborating teachers ....................... 73

Spring interviews ....................................... 73

Interns .......................................... 74

Collaborating teachers ....................... 74

Student interviews .................................... 75

Classroom Observations and Debriefing Conferences. . .. 76

Classroom observations ..................... 76

Debriefing conferences ...................... 77

Intern Lesson Plans from Classroom Observations ........ 78

Portfolios ........................................................ 78

TE 502 Seminar ................................................ 79

Field Instruction Field Notes ................................. 80

Student-specific Field Notes .................................. 80

Data Analysis .............................................................................. 81
Study Limitations ......................................................................... 87

Chapter 4: FIELD INSTRUCTION SUPPORT FOR DAVID: NAMING AND
FRAMING THE CHALLNEGES OF TEACHING AN ENGLISH

LANGUAGE LEARNER ............................................................... 91
The Story of Our Interactions ............................................................ 93
Phase one: negotiating the naming of the problem .......................... 93
Lucia’s arrival ............................................................. 94
Making choices for a focus .............................................. 96
Becoming more focused on literacy instruction ...................... 100
Phase two: managing the problem ............................................. 104
David, Lucia and Book Club ............................................ 105
Bringing another voice into the conversation: David’s literacy 108
Instructor ...............................................................
Continued resistance/disagreement .................................... 109
Phase three: redefining the problem as a field instructor .................. 113
Focusing on behavior and attitude ...................................... 114
Leaving the focus on literacy instruction behind ..................... 116
Enforcing expectations for Lucia ....................................... 118
Mixed Successes ................................................................. 123
A Final Look at David’s Talk about Lucia .................................... 126
The Complexity of the Case .............................................................. 128
David as a Learner ............................................................... 130
Coursework and program expectations ................................ 131
His classroom context .................................................... 133
How Catherine and I supported him (or didn’t) as a learner ........ 135
Implications for field instruction practices .................................... 139

vii

Chapter 5: SUPPORTING JANE’S EXPLORATION OF LEARNING

ABILITY .................................................................................... 144

The School Context and Placement Policy... 146

The Complexity of Social versus Academic Learning Needs ....................... 149
Jane’s Early Understanding of the Influence of the Cluster Grouping

Policy ........................................................................... 151

The driving force: the gifted boys ..................................... 152

Differentiated Instruction Practices ............................................ 154

Differentiated instruction on fractions ................................ 157

Methods for Student Participation ............................................. 164

Revolutionary War centers I66

Narrative writing ............................................................ 167

Additional approaches .................................................. 169

Varied Grouping Practices ...................................................... 172

WebQuest ................................................................. 174

Book Club ................................................................ 177

Final Outcomes of these Efforts. 179

Field Instruction Support for Working with Academic Ability Issues ............. 180

Implications for Field Instruction Practices ............................................ 186

Chapter 6: HELPING ELIZABETH TO SET APPROPRIATE GOALS FOR
STUDENTS AND HERSELF RELATED TO SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS

AND TEACHER LEARNING .......................................................... 194
Redistricting and the Influences on School and Community ........................ 197
A School with Changing Demographics ....................................... 198
Sam’s History and Coming to Lancaster Elementary ........................ 200
Helping Elizabeth Learn to Work with Sam ........................................... 202
Supporting Sam Socially and Academically .................................. 206
Intersecting Behavioral and Academic Needs ....................... 207
Supporting Sam’s academic needs in a social context. . 208
Supporting Sam’s interactions with his peers .............. 214

Influences of the Parents and the Practices of the Upper Middle
Class Community ................................................... 223
The Demise of Child Development Beliefs ................................... 229
Saying No to Children and Removing Sam from Class ............... 230
Conclusion ........................................................................ 236
Field Instruction Support for Elizabeth ................................................. 239
Implications for Field Instruction Practice ............................................. 245

Chapter 7: WHAT DID WE LEARN ABOUT NOVICE TEACHERS AND

ISSUES OF STUDENT DIVERSITY? ................................................................ 251
Teaching Practices Responsive to Student Diversity ................................. 253
Sociocultural Consciousness .................................................... 253
Affirming Views .................................................................. 258
Educational Change .............................................................. 261
Constructivist Teaching and Learning ......................................... 263

viii

Students’ Prior Knowledge and Beliefs and Responsive Instruction. 266

Comparing Interns’ Growth to the Teaching Continuum ............................ 270
Implications for Field Instruction Practices with Issues of Diversity ............... 276
Elementary Students ............................................................. 277

Supporting the Intem’s Context and Enhancing Existing Field
Instruction Practices ....................................................... 281

Chapter 8: A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO FIELD

INSTRUCTION PRACTICE ............................................................ 288

A Social Constructivist Approach to Field Instruction ............................... 289

Social Constructivist Stance .................................................... 290

Collaborative Interaction ............................................... 294

Location .................................................................. 298

Talk ........................................................................ 300

Theory .................................................................... 303

Conclusion ............................................................... 303

Implications for Restructuring or Enhancing Field Instruction Practice .......... 304

Social Constructivist Approaches to Learning Needs ....................... 305

The Supervisory Belief Continuum ..................................................... 308

Schon’s Conception ofNaming and Framing 312

Helping Field Instructors Develop Their Practice .................................... 314

Conclusions and Research Implications ................................................ 316

Field Instruction Stances ......................................................... 317

Interns as Learners .............................................................. I. 318

Social Constructivist Practices .................................................. 318

Issues of Student Diversity ...................................................... 320

Conclusion ........................................................................ 321
Appendices

Appendix A ........................................................................ 323

Appendix B ........................................................................ 327

Appendix C ........................................................................ 331

References .................................................................................. 333

ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Diverse learners in each intem’s classroom ....................................... 70
Table 2: Content areas of field instruction practice ......................................... 291
Table 3: Practices that reflect my social constructivist stance for field instruction. ...292

Table 4: Comparison of social constructivist field instruction and Glickman et al.’s
(1995) continuum ................................................................................ 309

Chapter 1

THE CHALLENGES OF EDUCATING TEACHER CANDIDATES FOR
STUDENT DIVERSITY

Each spring for the past three years, interns returned from mock interviews held
by the College of Education to report that at least one of them had been told they would
have difficulty finding a job. When I would ask them to explain this comment, inevitably
I would hear that the interviewer felt that the candidate did not have enough experiences
with a diverse student population because of their internship location (in a middle to
upper middle class suburban elementary school). My interns were faced with a
challenge: how to prove to employers that they were prepared to address the diverse
needs of the students in their future classrooms when, on the face of it, the students in
their internship site did not seem “diverse.” As a field instructor, I faced the challenge of
helping them become prepared to teach in a school where teachers did not speak much
about aspects of diversity besides learning ability. My research began as a result of this
concern about the preparation of teacher candidates for diversity when interning in a
suburban school system.

A noticeable demographic shift is currently under way in our public schools.
Nationally, the student population has grown consistently along multiple facets of student
diversity over the last few years. In 2002, the public school student population was
17.1% Hispanic, 17.2% Black/Non-Hispanic, 60.3% White, 1.2% American Indian/Alaska
Native, and 4.2% Asian/Pacific Islander (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002).
This growth will continue over the coming decades with projections that place the
number of ethnic minority students in K-12 schools as a numerical majority by 2035 (US

Department of Commerce, 1996 cited in Villegas & Lucas, 2002).

Immigration to the United States continues at a strong pace, increasing the
number of students with limited English proficiency in the schools. Approximately 16%
of the student population aged 5 to 17 spoke another language at home during the 1999
school year (US Census Bureau, 1999). Additionally, poverty continues to plague our
youth with 16.2% of children under the age of 18 living in poverty as of the year 2000
(Children's Defense Fund, 2000). Further, a high percentage of children in poverty are
also of minority backgrounds (Hodgkinson, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1999). Large
percentages of students receiving special education services in the public schools are of
minority backgrounds (Ladson-Billings, 1999).

These trends show that the student population in US. schools is ethnically,
linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse and continuing to grow in these ways.
Although not all schools currently educate students possessing the entire range of factors
represented above, indications suggest that the continuing diversification of the student
population will affect all teachers in the not so distant future (Zehr, 2001). As the
diversity in our schools increases, the instructional strategies and social approaches
traditionally found in the schools will need to be examined to determine if they meet the
needs of these students.

These changes draw our attention and concern to the population of teachers who
will begin careers as public school teachers in the near future and who will face many of
these demographic shifis in their classrooms. Teacher education continues to be a career
field dominated by the young, white middle class female teacher candidate (Banks,
Cookson, & Gay, 2001; Gomez, 1994; Howey, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1999; Nieto,

1998). This is in stark contrast to the growth of minority populations in the schools.

Moreover, there is concern that the diversity among teachers and students is seen as more
of a problem than a resource by the teachers working in these schools (Cattani, 2002;
Gomez, 1994; Nieto, 1998; Taylor & Sobel, 2001). This is a disconcerting state of mind
as the student population continues to change. Complicating teacher educators’ attempts
to work with these dichotomous issues between teachers and students is the intractability
of preservice teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning (Ladson-Billings, 1999;
Marxen & Rudney, 1999; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). It is not safe to
assume that the prospective teachers in education programs today will simply return to
the schools of their childhoods to engage in thirty year careers teaching students most like
themselves. Many of the beliefs about teaching and learning that prospective teacher
candidates have developed throughout their personal education may not transfer well to
these new settings. With the continued change in student demographics, teacher
candidates must be prepared to work with a wide range of student learning needs in the
heterogeneous classroom.
Teacher Education’s Response

In attempts to work with and respond to these issues, teacher educators often
engage preservice teacher candidates in field placements in a range of diverse school
settings (Deering & Stanutz, 1995; Marxen & Rudney, 1999; Mason, 1997). Many
scholars advocate placements in diverse settings so as to better prepare teachers for the
challenges of teaching in urban settings, in ethnically diverse settings, etc. (Gay, 2000;
Gomez, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 2001; Villegas & Lucas, 2002). Research and writing on
these experiences has been primarily limited to the early field experiences that occur

before student teaching or internship placements. While this research base is useful for

the purposes of considering effective ways to support early teacher growth, we lack
knowledge about the most critical time of field-based learning. This focus on early
experiences creates a gap in our understanding of how to best utilize lengthier and more
intense experiences such as student teaching or internship placements to foster growth
around diversity issues in teacher candidates (Grant & Zozakiewicz, 1995; McIntyre,
Byrd & Foxx, 1996).

Relying on the field placement situation to bear the brunt of educating future
teachers to work effectively with diverse students raises a number of issues on how to
best do this, including the challenge of finding a large enough number of appropriate
field placements for students. This results in placements for teacher candidates in a range
of school settings that vary in their diversity, including those that are perceived of as less
diverse by the interns working there (Bates & Rosaen, 2004). Interns must learn to
perceive the range of diversity present in any classroom — and not rely solely on visible
features of diversity (such as race) to define diversity. However, much of the work of
teacher education is done and likely will continue to be done outside of areas with natural
connections to urban settings or visibly diverse student populations. Teacher education
programs in large universities and colleges of education face the challenge of educating
primarily white middle class teachers to be responsive to diversity at the same time that
they place preservice teachers in field placements located in suburban schools. Teacher
candidates’ experiences in those settings may more closely support the preconceived
notions that preservice teachers bring with them from their past experiences.

One challenge of educating prospective teachers is helping them to perceive the

range of diversity that is present in their classrooms even when it is less apparent initially.

(Bates & Rosaen, 2004; Grant & Zozakiewicz, 1995). Diversity is more than a global set
of features that exist in the classroom. Interns must learn to perceive the array of
dimensions of diversity present in the classroom and respond to this through their
instruction. Nieto (1998) argues that multicultural education is for all students regardless
of diversity of the student body because of the rich multicultural nature of the broader
society. Even those children who go to school in classrooms with greater homogeneity
would benefit from a multicultural stance towards education as preparation for adult life
in a diverse society. Marxen and Rudney (1999) found in their research on rural student
teachers who had urban learning opportunities in Chicago that, “If they see their school
as having no diversity, they do not seem to view multicultural education as a curricular
priority" (p. 6). Part of this challenge lies in helping intern teachers to develop richer
conceptions of diversity as well as helping them to identify sources of diversity in their
classrooms and find meaningful ways to explore this to support their students’ learning.
A critical need is to determine some strategies that are most helpful to interns in learning
to broaden their definitions of diversity as well as to identify and address their students’
diverse learning needs. For example, interns need to determine diverse factors that affect
student learning such as socioeconomic status and develop strategies to help students
succeed academically in ways that do not limit them because of a lack of learning
resources in the home (such as computers, books, or newspapers).

Limited information about how internship experiences engage future teachers in
learning about diverse student populations is coupled with a lack of information about
how university supervisors support the learning of their interns as they try to respond to

diverse student populations (Grant & Zozakiewicz, 1995). Most of the writing and

research focused specifically on supervision dates from the late 1970’s and early 1980’s
and is more concerned with the programmatic logistics (for example, number and length
of observations) and the interpersonal relationship among members of the student
teaching triad than with the actual support that the supervisor may potentially provide in
fostering instruction that is responsive to all students (Hoover, O’Shea, & Carroll, 1988;
Richardson-Koehler, 1988; Zahorik, 1988). There was been a brief bit of attention to
supervision in the 1990’s including several articles responding to supervision and the
relationship to changes in the attitudes and beliefs of student teachers. For instance,
Howey (1994) writes of how the traditional supervisory experiences fail to address the
actual attitudes, beliefs or understandings of the student teachers, instead focusing
primarily on observable behaviors. Borko and Mayfield (1995) found that little change in
attitudes or beliefs of student teachers was deemed attributable to the work with the
university supervisor over the semester. Others provide an alternate perspective that
suggests perhaps that university supervisors do facilitate growth (Friebus, 1977; Zimpher,
DeVoss & Nott, 1980). F riebus (1977) found that the university supervisor either
superceded or was a close second to collaborating teachers in influential areas, such as
“’coaching’ the student teacher, and in ‘providing legitimation’ for the student teacher”
(cited in Zimpher, DeVoss & Nott, 1980, p. 12). Zimpher, DeVoss and Nott (1980)
found that the university supervisor was the person who ensured that the student teacher
reflected on the experiences of learning to teach instead of simply replicating the
cooperating teacher’s practice. The university supervisor was also the primary source of
constructive feedback and ensured that student teachers were considering what was not

going well in addition to acknowledging teaching and learning that was a success. These

two studies help to show the potential of supervision as a valuable and necessary
component of student teaching experiences. A clear need exists to explore how intern
teacher candidates make sense of their learning about diverse student populations in
connection with the activities and relationships they undertake with their university
supervisors in a year-long internship program.

The purpose of this study is to document the events and opportunities provided to
three interns in a suburban school and describe how and what sense the interns make of
these opportunities as well as what actions they may take. This study documents and
examines how my own field instruction practices act as opportunities to help interns learn
to work with the diverse learning needs of all students in their classrooms. This study
focuses on the interactions I had with three interns around issues of diverse learning
needs present in their classrooms. The study considers how my social constructivist
stance as a field instructor does or does not provide opportunities for a purposeful
development of teaching practices that are responsive to the variety of diverse
characteristics present in the students. The focus question for the research is, “During
critical incidentsl where interns are working to address learning needs of diverse
students, how does the field instructor support three interns who are learning to work
responsively to meet these needs?”

The supervisor is in the position to help intern teachers develop conceptions of
diversity that are simultaneously responsive to the actual classroom contexts in which

they find themselves learning to teach and the range of classrooms and schools in which

 

' Critical incidents will be defined and discussed in more detail in later chapters. Briefly, critical incidents
are “those occurrences that let us see with new eyes some aspect of what we do” (Newman, 1990, p. 17).
For each case in this study, a critical incident related to aspects of classroom diversity will be identified and
explored.

they find themselves over the course of their careers. There is a need to consider how to
support preservice teachers in learning to teach all students effectively (Ladson-Billings,
1999) in a wide range of field placement contexts, helping them to identify and respond
to the range of diversity that is present in almost every classroom and school (Grant &
Zozakiewicz, 1995). Research has found that collaborating teachers are more hesitant to
discuss and explore critical issues with their interns in meaningful ways (Hawkey, 1997;
Ladson-Billings, 1999). They may lack the knowledge of how to engage these topics or
not realize that it is appropriate or necessary to do so to support their intem’s learning.
Because supervisors are charged with the responsibility to bridge theory and practice with
and for their interns, it is a natural place to explore some of these critical issues that both
exist in and extend beyond the immediate experience and urgency of the field placement
classroom.

In sum, the changing demographics of the student population and the stable
demographics of our teacher candidates provide the potential and great need for exploring
the intersection of both of these populations through the lens of field instruction practices
designed to help intern teachers learn more about how to work effectively with the wide
range of students present in the classroom.

The Significance of this Study

As argued above, it is importantfito consider what and how interns are learning
about issues of student diversity when spending a year in a suburban elementary school
that is described by outsiders as “not diverse.” This is a particularly timely point to
engage in this study because the school where the three interns teach was recently

redistricted to reflect a broader range of diverse characteristics in the student body. This

 

 

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school, in prior years, had not appeared to interns to be a diverse setting. However, with
recent redistricting practices, the current student body has more diversity in race and
socioeconomic status than in prior years. This makes it an ideal location to explore the
idea that greaterdiversity is present than is visible to the naked eye if interns will learn
how to identify it and work with students in responsive ways. The close look I will take
at field instruction in this context will provide a View of supervision rarely found in the
literature. This study looks carefully at the interactions between field instructor and
intern, exploring how I construct my field instruction practice in response to their
learning needs as well as their students and classroom context. Through this, I will reveal
the challenges and complexities of field instruction work.

The remaining chapters are organized as follows. Chapter two discusses selected
pieces of research, theory and advocacy that represent conceptions of field instruction
and intern learning. It also provides a close look at my personal approaches to field
instruction practice and provides the research base for my social constructivist stance
towards my practice. Chapter three takes a closer look at the methodology and
participants in this study. Chapters four through six are case studies on the field
instruction interactions 1 had about issues of classroom diversity with the three interns in
this study. Chapter seven is a cross-case analysis that explores what can be learned about
interns’ learning on student diversity as well as field instruction practices that are
responsive to diversity. Chapter eight, the final chapter, looks closely at social
constructivism as a stance for field instruction practice and considers the resulting

implications for field instruction as well as future research possibilities.

Chapter 2

A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST FRAMEWORK FOR FIELD INSTRUCTION
PRACTICE

Oldfather and West (1999) write, “Social constructivism is not a method. Rather,
it is a view of learning that provides a theoretical base for making decisions about
pedagogy and curriculum” (p. 91; italics in original). This statement points out the fact
that social constructivism is a learning theory but also a stance that is used to guide
decisions about teaching practice. Field instruction is a teaching practice that is situated
in the interaction between only two people. In order to understand the relevance of social
constructivism as a framework for this study, I provide an analysis of the meanings of
social constructivist teaching and learning as well as some key issues to consider when
using this as a research framework. This section also identifies some of the areas of
social constructivism that need further research. Building on this information and the
practical considerations of our program, I explain my social constructivist approach to
field instruction practice in this context. To understand how social constructivism works
as an approach to field instruction practice, I will also consider relevant literature on the
needs of interns as learners, the history of and research on supervision, and the internship
program and practice of field instruction at Michigan State University. These
descriptions help to define the knowledge base that I draw upon to construct my field
instruction practice.

Social Constructivism

Social constructivism is a process by which knowledge is jointly created between

people through dialogue about shared goals (Brophy, 2002; Resnick, Levine & Teasley

1991). By sharing ideas and exploring how others look at a situation, one’s

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understanding of a process/concept/experience is enriched through a broader range of
perspectives (Brooks & Brooks, 2001). In teacher education field experiences, field
instructors have the opportunity to use the interns’ learning experiences and relationships
as a site for dialogue that has the potential to help interns socially construct knowledge
about teaching. This experience supports the novice teacher by simultaneously
recognizing the value and contributions they bring to the conversation (Smith, 2003)
while providing access to the thoughts, experiences, and knowledge of the more
experienced mentor (Bruner, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978). Because this is a type of
constructivism, the individual’s conceptions and internalized knowledge also matter. A
social constructivist model forefronts an opportunity to work collaboratively with others
as a necessary first step to individual meaning making. Newman (1990) writes:
One of my current beliefs is that learning is a collaborative enterprise. People
don’t learn. . .in isolation. They learn by being members of a learning community.
While we each construct an individual interpretation of a particular situation, our
understanding is shaped by contact with other people’s perceptions of what’s
gone on. Our interpretation will hold until we become aware of a discrepancy
either through some direct persbnal experience or from something we’ve heard or
read elsewhere and discuss it anew. (p. 8)
This description demonstrates the importance of the connection between a community to
help individuals learn and the practice of individual construction of knowledge.
According to Furlong (2000), dialogue with others is necessary for learning to teach and
can be accomplished by allowing interns the opportunity to express their teaching ideas
and beliefs (see also Freeman, 1991 and Rust, 1999). While we might each walk away
with a different interpretation of what happened or what was learned in an interaction

with others (Brophy, 2002), it is unlikely that anyone would have as rich or complex an

experience without collaboration. Providing this collaborative opportunity and learning

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from it are two different things. The following two sections consider the distinction
between the learning theory and teaching stance of social constructivism.

Social constructivism as a learning theory. Social constructivism is an extension
of constructivism where learners create knowledge instead of simply receiving it (Brooks
& Brooks, 2001; Fosnot, 1989, 1995; Sfard, 1998). Social constructivism builds on the
notion of the mental activity of learners and developing one’s own understanding.
Recent work questions the View that social and individual cognition can be studied
separately, arguing that the social context is integral and not simply the background for
individual cognition (Resnick et al., 1991; Richardson, 1997; Solomon, 1998). Social
constructivism acknowledges the cultural role that others play in helping one to develop
one’s ideas through conversation, collaborative activity, etc. (Bereiter, 1994; Phillips,
1995; Resnick, 1987; Windschitl, 2002). This cultural role highlights the relationship
that exists between learners and their contexts as well as the influence that others have in
an individual’s learning process. As a learning theory, researchers and theorists agree on
several central defining features of social constructivism. According to Wells (2002),
talk is the “foundation of a social constructivist approach to education” (p. 2) (see also
Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1996; Resnick, 1987). Wells goes on to describe a series of
ideas about social constructivist learning theory on which the authors in an edited
volume, Social Constructivist Teaching: Aflordances and Constraints (Brophy, 2002),
would agree. This list of ideas includes consensus on the social nature of knowing and
coming to know as well as agreement that “knowledge is constructed by individuals
through an active relating of new information to their personal experience and their

current frameworks for making sense of that experience” (p. 2). As a learning theory, the

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primary goal of social constructivism is to “stimulate thinking in learners that results in
meaningful learning, deep understanding, and transfer to real-world contexts” (Brophy,
2002, p. xii; see also Oldfather & West, 1999).

Social constructivist learning highlights the importance of dialogue with others as
the first place that someone learns. This is the act during which knowledge is created
over time and through reflection on personal understanding of the interaction. Learners
move knowledge from the interpsychological plane to the intrapsychological plane as
they make sense of their interactions and prepare for the next event (Vygotsky, 1978,
1986). Nuthall (2002) places responsibility for making this transition from social
cognition to individual knowledge on the student as well as the teacher, “The student role
is not just to give answers but to express genuine beliefs or make serious claims and to
support them with evidence or reasons” (p. 48). Doolittle describes the social
construction of knowledge:

Knowledge can not simply be transmitted from teacher to student or individual to

individual; rather, knowledge is built up through the synthesis of social

experiences. That is, knowledge is constructed in response to social interactions
through social negotiation, discourse, reflection and explanation — all active

processes. (Doolittle, 2001, p. 510)

While language use is a crucial component of social constructivism, the quality of the
dialogue also matters. This is what makes social constructivism a process that has the
potential to support student learning in a directed and valuable way. It is not enough to

S i ril'lrfly engage in conversation:
It is imperative to stress that dialogue does not imply simple discussing and
telling, but rather, includes the analysis of ideas, the synthesis of verbal sources,

the evaluation of the intersection of multiple sources, and reflective explanation of
one’s own thoughts and understandings. (Doolittle, 2001, p. 512)

13

 

Intern actions in the classroom then demonstrate the degree to which aspects of the
conversation were internalized during and after the shared dialogue. The more
experienced mentor plays a significant role in helping the intern mediate the social and
internal planes of meaning so as to make rich connections. Activity in the classroom (or
learning contexts) can be used as a measure of the success of the conversation through
reflection on why aspects did or did not play out in the classroom. It is important to

recognize that the conversation was not a failure if the intern or student is able to explain,

 

based on their understanding of the dialogue (Wells, 2002), why they chose not to engage

in a certain activity or practice.

 

As we explore issues of dialogue, the role of the field instructor as the more
experienced other becomes relevant as a member of the conversation. As one who
provides assistance to the intern in learning through this experience, the issues of
teaching - how, when, to what end — begin to emerge.

Social constructivist teaching. This section examines social constructivist

teaching practices in the classroom and includes consideration of how this perspective
informs the research needed on field instruction as one form of social constructivist
teaching. The section after this will consider the specifics of my social constructivist
teaching approach to field instruction practice.

Social constructivist learning theories imply that a novice learns from interaction
and engagement with a more experienced mentor. How that mentor, or teacher, chooses
to engage her practice has direct influence on the types of learning opportunities available
to a learner in a social constructivist environment. “Social constructivism is primarily a

tlI‘eOI'y of learning rather than a theory of teaching, so educators who identify themselves

14

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as social constructivist can and do advocate a range of teaching approaches” (Brophy,
2002, p. ix). Wells (2002) documents that there is disagreement about “what such a
theory might look like in practice and indeed, whether it is appropriate to talk about
social constructivist teaching at all” (p. 3; see also Nuthall, 2002). As the Oldfather et a1.
(1999) quote which opens the chapter claims, a social constructivist approach to teaching
does not emphasize a particular method or model of teaching. Rather, a social
constructivist teaching stance places emphasis on pedagogical and instructional decision-
making that is suited to the context and the students (see also Nuthall], 2002; Wells,
2002). Here I will make the argument that there is an existing potential base for social
constructivist teaching. Further, I believe that there is worthwhile work to be done on
defining and characterizing a social constructivist teaching stance, particularly as it
supports learning to provide instruction that is responsive to student diversity in the
classroom.

Duckworth (1996) describes how she wants students to have the opportunity to
develop their own frameworks for knowledge but that the teacher’s role is also to broaden
and deepen the scope of ideas that the student may not have thought about. In this case,
teaching is providing access to the assistance necessary for students to reach goals that
they have set or taken ownership of for their learning (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988; Wells,
2002). One example of this approach to access is Tharp and Gallimore’s (1988)
description of assisted performance, “Assisted performance defines what a child can do
with help, with the support of the environment, of others, and of the self” (p. 30). Tharp
and Gallimore believe that teaching is assisted performance and that this support is a

more deeply conceptualized version of the early notions of scaffolding that helps learners

15

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progress through the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1986). The
assisted performance that Tharp and Gallimore advocate relies on several actions that the
teacher uses to help students move from a heavy reliance on the support of others to the
development of an independent and well-developed practice on the part of the learner.
This structure decreases the involvement and the responsibility of the teacher over time
as the learner is increasingly able to manage to perform successfully without support.
This kind of teaching is based on social constructivist work that values the contributions
of the individual learner while recognizing the importance of collaborative support
necessary for learning to occur.

The challenge for the social constructivist teacher, according to Wells (2002), is
to manage the two levels of teaching that exist in the classroom. The first level addresses
the learning needs and curriculum goals of the entire class. The second level focuses on
the individual student’s learning needs and the teacher must simultaneously attend to the
class as a whole and the individual students within that classroom. For this reason, Wells
says that social constructivist teaching can not be a method because these levels require
that teachers make pedagogical decisions on the basis of the learning needs of particular
students in the class. Because of this, social constructivist teaching is more appropriately
thought of as a stance, not a method. However, also because of this reason, social
constructivism recognizes and values the importance of the individual learner in the
teaching and learning process. For issues of classroom and student diversity, this
awareness of and responsiveness to the-needs of the individual learner is a critical stance
for teacher candidates to develop. Perhaps experiencing social constructivist field

instruction practices would allow a teacher candidate to begin to develop the kinds of

16

attitudes and learning experiences that we want to see in classrooms through the
modeling that would occur. This is something that we need to learn more about.

Further research needs to be done on several aspects of social constructivist
teaching, particularly in teacher education. At this point, researchers have been
inconsistent in attempts to connect social constructivist teaching practices with
measurable outcomes in student learning (Brophy, 2002; O’Connor, 1998) and more
research has been done on social constructivist learning than teaching. Brophy also
argues that we are missing research on the “conditional knowledge” of social
constructivist teaching including when and how to best use these approaches to consider
how to support student learning. He writes:

...social constructivists tend to put forth their particular model as if it applied

universally, without saying much if anything about when it would or would not be

used or how it might need to be adjusted to different types of student, different

subject matter, different learning activities, and so on. (p. xvi)

This study attempts to address some of these adjustments by developing research that
focuses on intern learners, issues of student diversity and field instruction practices.
Much of the literature on social constructivist learning and teaching is focused on the
experiences of students in public school classrooms, often considering the students and
their experiences as a class (Brophy, 2002; see, for example, Englert & Dunsmore, 2002;
Roth, 2002; VanSledright & James, 2002). The bulk of this work has been with children
and not with adults. Teacher education provides an arena that gives research access to
adults that extends our knowledge base on how social constructivist practices change or
remain the same as the students shift from children to adults. Field instruction provides

one specific practice to be studied as an example of social constructivist teaching in

teacher education.

17

Compared to other aspects of teacher education, field instruction is a practice
conducted on a one to one level. The current prevailing belief is that social constructivist
teaching practices are more successful when students are learning in small groups
(Brophy, 2002; Englert & Dunsmore, 2002; Nuthall, 2002). Research is needed that
allows us to explore how social constructivist practices work in a one on one relationship
between a student and a teacher. Because of the heavy emphasis on talk as a centerpiece
of social constructivist learning, field instruction practices offer a closer look at the
interaction between teacher educator and teacher candidate. There is work on social
constructivist teaching approaches such as guided assistance and scaffolding (Tharp &
Gallimore, 1988; Vygotsky, 1986) that indicates a connection to student learning, there is
little work on this area as related to the focus on work with teacher candidates.

The work done in teacher education focuses more on constructivist teaching (not
social constructivist) in education courses or in the expert/novice relationship between
student teacher and collaborating teacher (F eiman-Nemser & Beasley, 1997; Fosnot,
1989; Loughran & Russell, 1997; Richardson, 1997; Smith, 2003). There is a need to
consider more carefully the role of social constructivism in teacher education practices,
particularly with interns, as a part of the constructivist research in teacher education
preparation. We have yet to learn how knowledge is used in situations when the novice
teacher has a real world need to know how to do something in order to teach elementary
students in a public school classroom. It is also worth considering whether social
constructivist practices are better suited to learners who are succeeding or struggling with
their learning experience. Does the relative ease with which the learner engages the

material or experience influence the success of social constructivist teaching practices?

18

This study allows us to take a closer look at how interns learn (or don’t) from the
use of social constructivist field instruction practices and when it may or may not be
suitable to use these approaches. The following section identifies the social constructivist
activities of my field instruction practice in order to make explicit how I conceptualize
this work. While I have acknowledged that there is not one set of activities that comprise
a social constructivist stance, I will use the term ‘social constructivist practices’ as a
means of communicating those practices that I engage in with my interns to indicate
those activities that I think are appropriate based on my social constructivist stance
towards field instruction practice.

Key aspects of social constructivistfield instruction practice. It is necessary to
understand the connection between social constructivism and field instruction practice.
Newman (1990) writes:

In effect, our beliefs about learning and teaching are largely tacit. We operate a

good deal of the time from an intuitive sense of what is going on without actively

reflecting on what our intentions might be and what our actions could be saying to
students. Unfortunately, this means that much of the time we have little contact
with what students are actually learning from our instructional activities. In order
to understand what students are learning, we first have to make our theories

explicit and open to scrutiny. (p.. 18)

Here I will make my theories about my social constructivist stance for field instruction
practice explicit, drawing on the previous review of social constructivist teaching and
learning. Wells (2002) writes, “. . .from a social constructivist perspective, effective
pedagogy requires a framework of general principles within which decision making can
be emergent and strategic in each specific situation” (p. 33). This section serves to

outline some of these general principles of a social constructivist field instruction

practice. Careful attention to intern learning needs and the structure of our internship

l9

program will follow this description. More detail about aspects of this practice
description will be provided through those lenses.

Brophy (2002) claims that social constructivist teaching approaches are best
suited for learning situations where learners (interns) need to construct “knowledge
networks” (p. xvi) and when learners (interns) need to develop processes and skills that
rely on synthesis and application of knowledge. Wells recognizes the relevance of action
in addition to the collaborative nature of social constructivist dialogues:

While it is in dialogue with others that the significance of activities is made

explicit, questioned and clarified, this does not in any way diminish the

importance of action itself, as a site for putting understanding to use and for

testing conjectures, hypotheses and problem solutions. (Wells, 2002, p. 7)

As a field instructor, one of my responsibilities is to help interns bridge theory and
practice. To do so, I need to see interns’ efforts in practice to implement the approaches
and activities we discuss as well as the efforts to implement ideas learned about
previously in the intem’s coursework.

At the same time, one of the complexities of social constructivist practice is to
balance the needs and interests of the learner with the assumptions that I hold as a field
instructor about the importance of various theories and practices in education. A
consistent tension in social constructivist practice focuses on the tendency to work from
knowledge bases that may be considered “right” and to ensure that learners do not simply
internalize all that is said without reflection or thought, ultimately mimicking the
attitudes and approaches of the collaborating teacher. We do have professional standards
as a program to which we hold interns accountable. However, in the broader field of

teacher education, “There is not an agreed upon body of knowledge or practice for

teaching towards which interns’ learning should be directed” (Smith, 2003, p. 35). This

20

lack of agreement has the potential to create conflict between the way I conceptualize
knowing and teaching as a field instructor as outlined in the program standards and the
intentions and beliefs of the teacher candidates with whom I work. The challenge
becomes to provide field instruction appropriate to the intern’s learning needs even if the
intern and I are not initially in the same place or addressing the same learning goals.
Issues of power and status may come into play with a focus on dialogue and learning
opportunities that highlight the differences in our knowledge and experiences
(Richardson, 1997). Below, I describe the components that comprise my social
constructivist field instruction philosophy and practices. In doing so, I will identify
relevant questions that I have about the effectiveness of this approach to field instruction
practices. ‘

My social constructivist field instruction stance. Nuthall (2002) writes, “. . .the
teacher [field instructor] uses the language of critical and reflective thinking, models
reasoning by thinking out loud, and challenges the students [interns] with ideas they have
not thought of” (p. 52). All of these are aspects of practice that I feel are critical for field
instructors and I have embedded these ideas in the five features of my social
constructivist approach to field instruction, particularly as I strive to engage interns in
learning about and responding to aspects of student diversity in the elementary school
classroom. These five include: (1) attention to interns’ learning needs; (2) support for
interns’ efforts to learn; (3) recognition of the teaching context’s influence; (4)
exploration of outside contexts; (5) mutual respect demonstrated through conversation
and action. I will describe each of these ideas below and make further connections to

each idea in the discussion of the university’s program and field instruction practices.

21

Attention to interns’ learning needs reflects my social constructivist belief that all
learners need to be met where they are in the learning process and supported in ways that
make the most sense for them as individual learners. Brophy (2002) argues that we need
to be attentive to the learning needs of the individuals in the classroom and Wells (2002)
says that we must consider the dual levels of teaching; one of these focuses on the
individual learner (the other level is that of the class as a group) (see also Oldfather &
West, 1999). The social constructivist approach to field instruction leaves the decisions
about when and how to progress in learning up to the pair, technically freeing up
decisions about how best to work together to the individual intern’s needs. However, the
context and the students also matter because the intern is not learning to teach in an
inauthentic setting. So the question becomes, what are the best ways to identify and
respond to the learning needs of the intern that simultaneously support interns and
recognize the needs of the context? For example, how do you decide to support teacher
candidates in their efforts to meet the language needs of an English language learner
while recognizing that there is relatively little local knowledge in the school for how to
do this? While the collaborating teacher plays a role in field instruction experiences, this
study focuses on the work done by the dyad of the field instructor and intern. As such, it
is possible to look carefully at social constructivist teaching through the way that I have
conceptualized my field instruction practice.

While working to meet interns’ individual learning needs, it is also necessary to

maintain a stance that recognizes and validates novices’ attempts to learn to teach. As a
field instructor, I strive to support the intern to reflect on ideas, and suggest a range of

options for action, etc. I try not to overwhelm the interns’ initiative and ideas with my

 

 

own; rather, I strive to work collaboratively to support novices’ making sense of the ideas
that they bring to the interactions we have together. For example, instead of telling the
intern who is struggling to figure out how to meet English language learning needs
exactly what to do, I might offer a range of options and then follow the intem’s lead in
selecting among these options for action. Interns’ ideas must be honored and supported
to foster an environment of risk taking, something that is necessary to do when trying to
learn as much as possible about teaching. However, the question still exists, how do you
honor intern efforts while ensuring the learning rights and needs of their elementary
students?

Given these concerns about the students in the intern’s placement classroom, it is
critical to recognize the influence of the teaching context on the knowledge needed and
created by both the intern and the field instructor. How interns define and understand
their context can influence how they meet student needs (Oldfather & West, 1999). It is
important to support the interns’ efforts to meet the particular challenges faced in their
context. When practice is taken on in this way, the relevance and importance of
conversation becomes salient. When discussing the context in meaningful ways, it is
necessary to consider the influence of the context on the meanings that one makes during
dialogue:

Language in social constructivism, however, does not serve to ‘transmit’

knowledge between individuals but, serves as a stimulus to negotiation, action,

and knowledge construction. Language provides an avenue for both confusion, as
when a statement made by another does not coincide with one’s or society’s
understanding, and comprehension, as when a dialogue results in an individual

testing meanings through social exchange. (Doolittle, 2001, p. 512)

This example of the influence of language and the negotiation of meaning in dialogue

emphasizes the influence of views that each person brings to the conversation and the

23

 

potential for confusion and comprehension in this process. Recognizing the influence
and features of the intem’s learning context can facilitate reduced confusion in socially
constructed situations. For example, understanding that an intern assumes that all
children have the necessary support and supplies at home to complete a project is vital for
me to know so that I can help the intern to challenge this assumption in order to meet the
needs of a lower socioeconomic student who does not have computer access outside of
school. The question for the field instructor becomes how to push this understanding of
student needs by focusing on the salient features of the context during conversation. For
issues of student diversity, it is necessary to understand the intem’s learning context in
order to provide effective support and sense-making in work together as field instructor
and intern.

When it comespto helping interns make sense of their teaching experiences, I find
it useful and necessary to encourage them to explore the possibilities outside of their
immediate context. This is true both in terms of considering varying theories for why a
teacher or student might do something as well as alternative approaches to the instruction
and learning opportunities in the classroom. One strategy for this is to share examples
from my own personal experiences and professional knowledge as an elementary
classroom teacher. Working together to make sense of what has gone on in the intems’
teaching experiences and discussing examples of things that have or have not gone well
in my own teaching practice provides real models of events in practice. This also helps
interns to think about teaching outside of their field placement context, which I believe is
a responsibility of the field instructor. I want to push interns to consider approaches to

teaching beyond their experiences in their internship classroom. In some ways, this is

24

 

representative of Schon’s (1987) conception of the coach as one who has built up a
“repertoire of examples, images, understanding and actions” (p. 66) that can serve as a
source of ideas when faced with a unique learning situation. However, it is necessary to
consider how to best share these examples without sending the implicit message that I
expect to see them do what I did. The goal is to help them reflect on and consider the
appropriateness of a range of ideas for use with their particular students in their particular
context.

Together, the four previous components comprise and are based on the fifth
proposition of my field instruction practice. Recognizing individual learning needs,
supporting interns’ efforts to make sense of their learning by providing conversation on a
collegial level and recognizing the challenges of the interns’ context are all processes
with the potential to build relationships and respect. While certainly not a guaranteed
process, structuring work together in a way that values all that the intern brings to the
learning situation creates a context where engaging conversations and risk-taking feel
safer and the possibilities of the learning to teach process are open-ended. However,
issues of power and status do have the potential to reduce the positive effects of this type
of approach. It is critical that one is conscious of these issues and attuned to potential
situations where the power or status of either member has the potential to undermine the
relationship. Richardson (1997) writes that this forces us to reconsider how we relate if
we choose to work this way, “Thinking of learning as a sociocultural process and
teaching with conscious moral intent would require our rethinking the nature of the
communities within and outside the school, as well as radically altering power

relationships” (p. 11). To ask interns to engage with students in responsive ways and

25

 

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meet their learning needs, it is necessary to utilize an approach to field instruction that
supports and models this experience. Though I believe that this is done through social
constructivist field instruction practices, the question remains open to determine the
successfulness of this approach from other perspectives.
My Field Instruction Practice: Specific Moves 1 Make

Given the social constructivist stance that I take towards field instruction practice,
I described five key principles that I try to use in my practice. In the context of these
principles, I alluded to some specific moves I might take as a field instructor. Just as a
teacher has pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986, 1987) as a piece of her
practice, I also have pedagogical content knowledge on which I act to meet the needs of
my learners as well as the complexity of the content in learning to teach. Pedagogical
content knowledge is the intersection of content knowledge, knowledge of pedagogy and
knowledge of learners in order to tailor instruction to meet the specific needs of learners
and the subject matter knowledge that is to be taught. My pedagogical knowledge is
founded on a social constructivist stance.'This stance includes knowledge about interns as
learners described later in the chapter. That knowledge intersects with content
knowledge about teaching elementary school (and in this particular study, content
knowledge of how to teach diverse student populations in the elementary classroom). As
a field instructor, I use the pedagogical content knowledge I have to design field
instruction practices that support interns’ learning about the process of becoming an
elementary school teacher who is responsive to student learning needs. The connections
between these various knowledge bases inform how I use a social constructivist practice

to support interns’ efforts to learn to teach.

26

 

 

As practitioners, “They [interns] frame problems and shape situations to match
their professional understanding and methods, they construct situations suited to the roles
they frame, and they shape the very practice worlds in which they live out their
professional lives” (Schon, 1987, p. 42). As a field instructor with a social constructivist
stance, l have a range of moves available to me to help interns do this in responsive and
productive ways. All of these moves are based in conversation with interns. With an
understanding of the program and internship experience, I describe here a series of
specific moves that I utilize in taking my social constructivist philosophy from theory to
practice. These moves include reflection, modeling talk and generating choices, sharing
personal teaching experiences that can inform interns’ dilemmas, and focused efforts to
support interns’ own development of instructional practices and beliefs through extensive
questioning.

A significant portion of my work with interns is centered on reflection about the
experiences they are having as they learn to teach. Schon (1987) describes reflection on
and in action as a learning process where novices begin to develop practices that allow
them to consider how to make sense of their experiences.2 Reflection on action is the
first step where one reflects on what happened and hypothesizes about why in order to
improve future practice. Reflection in action is a process where one reflects on and
makes choices about next steps while engaged in action. Through conversation, both
casual chats and formal debriefing conferences, I strive to support intern reflection on a
range of issues. I use reflection on several levels to explore various aspects of the

classroom — reflection on the lessons I’ve observed, reflections on what they are thinking

 

2 Schon’s ideas of reflection in and on action as well as naming and framing will be used for analysis
purposes in the case studies presented in later chapters.

27

 

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about their own development as teachers, and reflection on the students in their
classrooms and their learning. Of particular importance to me is reflection on the
learners and their progress in the classroom. How interns conceptualize the ways that
they think about their students as well as about their strengths and weaknesses in the
classroom says a great deal about the sense they are making of the challenges of working
with a wide range of diverse learning needs in the classroom. I strive to know the
students in the interns’ classrooms (as many as possible) and to use my observations of
them during time in the classroom to help the intern reflect on what is and is not working
for a particular student in a particular type of learning situation. Ideally, during the
internship year, interns would make progress towards reflection in action as the most
responsive way to work with their students’ diverse learning needs.

While focused on reflection, the way that I choose to talk with interns about
students and their experiences, learning needs, background, etc. provides a model for
interns on how to talk about students in responsive and supportive ways. Modeling how
to think and talk about students is something that I feel is critical in a socially constructed
approach to field instruction practice. Doing this allows me to demonstrate the respect
for their ideas which mirrors how I want them to demonstrate respect towards students.
If I truly advocate a learning theory premised on dialogue and conversation, then I also
need to provide the necessary support for learning how to talk about potentially sensitive
issues or topics in ways that respect students. Part of this is modeling what Fosnot (1995)
describes:

I can not understand in the same way as another human who has had different

experiences, but with language, with stories, with metaphors and models, we can

listen to and probe one another’s understanding, thereby negotiating ‘taken-as-
shared’ meanings. (p. 26)

28

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This also provides practice for conversations with future parents and administrators about
the children in their class and challenges interns to learn to make their thinking public in
understandable ways.

To model how I would do this and to provide access to content that they might not
have, I also share my own practices and experiences with interns as a former elementary
classroom teacher. Doing so reflects the fact that while I have more classroom
experience than they do, I still consider myself a learner and still consider the experiences
that I have had in the classroom as a critical part of my role as a teacher educator. Doing
so also provides a point of reference for interns and the potential that exists for
responsive practices that they may not see in their own placement classroom. Part of this
role is to also help interns develop and follow through on reasonable goals for their own
teaching and learning. Helping them to see beyond the immediacy of the current drama
in the field classroom is an essential aspect of fostering their understandings of the larger
practice of teaching and of meeting individual students’ diverse learning needs.

The final group of moves varies on the need of the intern and the practicalities of
the situation we are trying to address. Asking a lot of questions for clarification as well
as for probing and helping them think about and reflect on their practice fosters an
inquisitive and reflective approach to teaching and learning. Based on the success of this
interaction with interns, it may be possible to help them to see their own way to an action
to take. If not, another approach that 1 use is to propose options for action — especially
when asked for early on; later, once a more open relationship exists, I offer them more
freely (without being asked). However, I want to make it clear that I rarely propose these

as the only options available for action and often present them as open-ended ideas that

29

 

need to be developed to fit the students and the needs of the intem’s particular classroom
context. Each of these moves will be described in more detail as they come into play in
the case studies of my field instruction interactions with three interns.

Summary. Taking a social constructivist approach to field instruction practice is
more complicated than entering the classroom and telling interns what to do and how I
want to see it done. Wells (2002) discusses this complexity, “For teachers who see
learning as a lifelong endeavor — for themselves as much as for the students they teach —
the challenge presented by the decision to organize their teaching according to social
constructivist principles is both demanding and rewarding” (p. 36). While I feel that I
provide a supportive foundation for learning to teach by using social constructivist
practices, the challenges of a social constructivist stance towards field instruction practice
impact both field instructor and interns. Field instructors need to be able to respond
quickly to the direction of conversation, highlighting important elements for interns and
anticipating the flow of conversation in educative directions (Brophy, 2002). For interns,
social constructivist teaching practices require learners to take significant risks and to
engage deeply and actively in the conversation (Brophy, 2002). Brophy argues that the
literature and research on social constructivist teaching practices is focused primarily on
trying to argue that teachers should use these methods all of the time instead of
considering the relative trade-offs in individual situations and learning opportunities of
using (or not using) social constructivist teaching approaches. Oldfather & West (1999)
recognize the importance of the setting and context in socially constructing this meaning:

The best interest of our students is served if we attend not only to the social

construction of meaning, but also to the taking of a critical stance toward that
meaning. We are not just socially constructing any meaning; we are socially

30

 

constructing particular meanings in particular times and places, within particular
sociopolitical contexts. (p. 84)

This study will consider the effectiveness and limitations of social constructivist
approaches to field instruction practices through careful analysis of three intern-field
instructor relationships.

Interns as Learners: Learning About and Planning for Their Students

Now that I have reviewed the literature on social constructivist learning and
teaching as well as my own field instruction stance premised on social constructivist
beliefs, it is necessary to consider the broad characteristics and the contexts of learners
with whom I Work. This section lays out the knowledge base that I use to inform my
field instruction practice as well as the specific context in which I work. Michigan State
University’s teacher candidates participate in a year-long internship program after
completion of their regular four year undergraduate degree. During this fifth year, interns
are assigned to one classroom placement (from August through April) where they work
with their collaborating teacher and field instructor to learn to teach. They are
simultaneously enrolled in four graduate level courses across the school year, which are
designed to support their developing teaching practices.

One of the first issues to be addressed in considering the research that already
exists to support, question, or extend this study is that which focuses on interns as
learners as they continue their growth in the process of learning to teach through their
field placement. Ball and McDiarmid (1987) define teacher learning as the “attention to
changes in the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that may occur through teacher
education” (cited in NCRTE, 1988). All three of these aspects are key to understanding

teacher learning and can change individually as well as collectively over time.

31

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There is a mixed body of literature on the changes that student teachers do or do
not go through over the course of their student teaching experiences (Nettle, 1998;
Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1985). Reviews of the research have shown that teacher
candidates who are progressive and idealistic during their teacher education programs
often become increasingly conservative as they move through student teaching and the
first years of their careers (Veenman, 1984). Further, they begin to take on
characteristics more like their collaborating teachers if/when they do make these changes
(Gomez, 1994; Nettle, 1998). However, Zeichner and Tabachnick (1985) found that this
was not an automatic given and that the opportunity exists to maintain some control and
personal drive as a beginning teacher, often reflecting the positive learning of powerful
student teaching experiences. This alerts us to a disagreement in the existing research;
we need more attention to the distinctions between the knowledge that student teachers
have and their tendencies to enact their knowledge from student teaching experiences.
We also need to know more about the influence of the school and community context on
shaping what interns do, come to know and believe about work with diverse student
populations. Research must be done to determine how to support student teachers in
developing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions in learning to teach in ways that
benefit all the potential students that they may work with during their career.

Part of determining how interns learn to teach is to consider the various
understandings of teacher knowledge. The field of research on teacher knowledge in
general is quite broad and varied. When describing the teacher knowledge and where it
came from, teachers claim that experience is a strong determiner in what and how they

learn to teach (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985). And yet researchers argue,

32

 

 

“Classroom experience alone, whether past or present, can not justify what teachers do,
nor teach teachers to think about their work” (F eiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985, p.
61). Differing perspectives have been proposed for the decisions made and the practices
that teachers engage in during the instructional process.

Shulman’s (1986, 1987) conceptual framework of teacher knowledge helps to
explain the framework of knowledge that I use to understand intern learning. In a
description of the knowledge base for teaching, Shulman names a range of areas that
teachers must know about to inform their professional knowledge base. These include (at
a minimum): content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, curriculum knowledge,
knowledge of learners, knowledge of educational contexts, and knowledge of educational
purposes. Shulman (1986, 1987) goes on to describe in detail his conception of
pedagogical content knowledge as a blend of content knowledge, knowledge of learners
and knowledge of pedagogy. Not only does a teacher have to know the subject matter,
she needs to know her learners and how to best support the interaction between the
subject matter and the students to encourage learning. This intersection is arguably one
of the more challenging aspects for interns who are learning to teach. Wilson, Shulman,
and Richert (1987) propose a model of pedagogical reasoning that highlights the
interactive and iterative nature of teachers’ knowledge with the following steps (though
there is actually no one starting point in the model): instruction — evaluation — reflection —
new comprehension — comprehension — transformation ( which includes critical
interpretation, representation, adaptation, tailoring). The cycle continues unabated as the

transformation process informs the next instructional act.

33

 

This framework is generic in its approach to the students without paying explicit
attention to who they are and what they bring to the learning experience other than to say
that you need to know your learners. It lacks any sort of specific direction in suggesting
how to support beginners in learning how to teach diverse student populations. As a
framework, it does demonstrate the complexity of teaching. However, additional
attention needs to be paid to the role of the K-12 learners in how teachers make sense of
their contexts and design instructional activities that support the learning needs of all
students in the classroom. With the increasing diversity of the public school classroom,
we can no longer afford to represent a teacher’s knowledge without considering how
she/he takes particular students into consideration in instructional planning and/or
teaching.

There has been little research on the nature of learning to teach in student teaching
(Slick, 1997) with little attention also paid to the knowledge of culturally diverse learners
(Grant, 1997). lntems need to know their students as learners in order to respect and
respond to their diverse needs. This leads naturally to the question of how they come to
know this information and part of the learning process is learning how to gather this
information about their students. Ultimately, the interns need to learn how to respond to
this information pedagogically and make effective instructional decisions that respect and
support their learners. Each of these topics will be taken up in this section of the
literature review in order to set the stage for what needs to be considered during the
interactions with the field instructor that occur as a part of the internship experience.

Knowing students in particular ways. In order to design instruction for students

that is responsive to their learning needs, interns must know their students in ways that

34

 

inform their understanding of students’ backgrounds and the influence of students’
culture, language, ability and/or socioeconomic status on their learning needs. The first
significant step that must be addressed in helping interns to know students in particular
ways is dealing with the existing beliefs that teacher candidates bring with them to their
teacher preparation program. Teacher candidates possess beliefs about students, the ways
that students learn, who students are on the basis of their backgrounds, and so on. These
beliefs become particularly evident and influential when the “rubber hits the road” and
they must begin to design and implement instruction for real children in real classrooms.
There is a great deal of literature on the strength of interns’ beliefs as they enter
teacher education as well as throughout their teacher preparation programs (Colville-Hall,
MacDonald & Smolen, 1995; Joram & Gabriele, 1998; Marxen & Rudney, 1999; Mason,
1997; Richardson, 1996; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). Richardson (1996)
found that it was more successful to promote change in both beliefs and practices than on
either one alone and that conversations that supported the interns’ opportunity to think
through their beliefs and practices as well as to experiment with new ideas was
supportive of this change. This speaks to the potential of the dialogic nature of social
constructivist field instruction practices to support interns’ learning about their students
as well as their personal beliefs about work with diverse student populations. Because
social constructivism relies so heavily on the dialogic nature of learning, and because the
learning situation around issues of diversity is so heavily based on personal beliefs, this
opportunity to talk through situations is critical. Being able to explore their ideas in

conversation with another will support an intern in hearing about and receiving feedback

35

 

 

on their ideas in order to make meaning about what they mean and know in regards to
diverse student populations.

Additionally, in their review of studies on learning to teach, Wideen et a1. (1998)
found that short term interventions had much less success in influencing the preservice
teachers’ beliefs, with greater success found with interventions that occurred over a year
or more (the length of the Michigan State internship program). Beach and Pearson
(1998) found that as student teachers “became more aware of the complexity of teaching,
they were more likely to interrogate their own perceptions and personal theories of
teaching, self-interrogation that stemmed from a heightened sense of the need to change”
(p. 345). This provides some hope that there is the possibility to make some changes in
beliefs in the course of the year that we work with our intern candidates.

Beginning teachers consider the complexity of working with a range of individual
differences among students to be one of the most difficult challenges of the early stage of
their career (Stansbury & Zimmerman, 2002; Veenman, 1984). Beach and Pearson
(1998) found that student teachers attributed 57% of the tension and conflict in their
experiences to the students and that this increased to 64% during the first year of
teaching. Teacher interns claim that the point of their student teaching experience is all
about the students (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon 1998) which provides the perfect
opportunity to help them think broadly about their students’ learning needs and design
appropriate instruction that reflects their students. Students come with a range of
learning needs and issues that must be addressed to teach responsively. This can include

linguistic, racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and ability issues that must be considered for

36

 

 

effective learning experiences. Interns need to know about their students in all of these
ways.

Feiman-Nemser (2003) writes of the need for induction programs to do more than
simply provide emotional support because beginning teachers ask questions about a wide
range of issues. These questions include many about how to best meet the diverse
learning needs of their students (see also F eiman—Nemser, 2000; Renard, 2003; Veenman,
1984). This ties back to Shulman’s (1987) conception of knowledge of learners as a
critical part of the knowledge base for teachers. One of Feiman-Nemser’s
recommendations is to have preservice teachers learn about students’ learning needs and
cultural backgrounds during their first years of teaching because schools have not
historically been set up for novice or expert teacher learning around these topics. New
teachers have to learn to teach in a particular context (Feiman-Nemser, 2000, 2003).
Their knowledge must become contextualized to the students and school in which they
work. While we obviously do not have a crystal ball to discern and anticipate the specific
setting where each preservice teacher will end up teaching, we can make efforts to
support their learning about the range of needs, situations, and issues they may face as
they move from their preservice field settings to teaching positions. Research, such as
this study, that explores how this can help interns in learning to teach is needed to better
inform our practices and understandings of how to support their learning to teach
processes.

Knowing how to come to know students. In establishing that interns need to know
their students in particular ways in order to effectively meet their learning needs, the

problem arises of how to help them come to know their students in these ways. The

37

 

challenges of learning to teach in ways that are responsive to all students’ learning needs
are nested and complex. Three issues must be considered here: addressing the
preexisting beliefs of interns about students, the readiness of interns to address students’
needs, and the possibilities for ways to come to know students.

Calderhead & Robson (1991) question where student teachers’ knowledge
comes from. Lortie (1975) found that prior experiences as students in classrooms were
strong influences on teachers’ understandings of teaching and learning. This complicates
our notion of teaching and learning to teach if interns’ experiences as students and as
interns are all in classrooms and schools with relatively little diversity as perceived by the
interns. This may serve to reinforce the existing beliefs that they brought with them to
teacher preparation. During their years as students, particularly in elementary school,
teacher candidates are never aware of all that each student brings to the classroom that
must be addressed by the teacher in order to learn effectively. A teacher’s instructional
actions and decisions are not explicit and transparent for students.

Calderhead and Robson (1991) found that student teachers had strong, preexisting
mental images that they used to solve problems and propose actions in the classroom.
Student teachers’ images were inflexible in their minds and they had difficulty taking the
actual context and the real students of their student teaching classrooms into account and
reconciling them with their preexisting images which were guiding their actions. This
presents a challenge that must be addressed in helping interns to take into consideration
the actual students they are attempting to teach and the learning needs they possess. As a

relative outsider, the university supervisor is in the position of helping them to consider

38

 

 

their students and ask probing questions that guide reconsideration (or new consideration)
of the students as learners.

Fuller and Brown (1975, cited in Boydell, 1986) described a three level approach
to the concerns faced during student teaching and suggest that these be taken on in order
as one learns to teach. Student teachers begin the student teaching process most
concerned about themselves and their ability to successfully survive the experience. As
they progress in the process of learning to teach, the third level of the concerns relates to
students once the novice has moved outside of him/herself and the immediate need to
teach and survive. This is where the intern will be able to change focus and spend more
time learning about the students and their learning needs, providing knowledge of
learners that can inform their instructional design and implementation. The time and
course work to increase knowledge provided in the internship allows one to move to the
third level of focusing on students and less on themselves while still in a supportive
environment with a collaborating teacher, university supervisor and course instructors
available to guide and suggest strategies for responsive instruction.

Ladson-Billings (1995) makes some recommendations for strategies that help
teachers come to know their diverse students at the same time that they engage in
meaningful instruction (knowing how to respond to their students pedagogically - see
section below). She advocates that parents, family members and community members
are invited in to help explore and represent the students’ cultures outside of school. This
provides the teacher with additional knowledge about the lives of students and suggests
connections that can be made between the students’ experiences and approaches for how

to respond to these students instructionally. Additionally, she suggests that developing a

39

 

fluid relationship where students and teachers are simultaneously students and teachers
for and of each other allows teachers greater insight into their learners and how to best
support their learning. This is just one example of how a teacher might respond to the

diversity present in their classroom.

Knowing how to respond to this information pedagogically. Wideen et a1. (1998)
argued that attitudinal change is possible for intern teachers and will result in changes in
teaching practice. Further, their suggested support for this is embedded in the design of
this study. I have strived to maintain constant and significant support for the process of
change, working with others and maintaining a systematic message over time (such as
emphasizing a focus on meeting the learning needs of all students) as a field instructor.
Learning how to respond pedagogically to the learning needs of their students involves a
range of processes from reasoning pedagogically, to implementing effective lessons, and
responding to the broader societal issues that affect their students.

Interns need to learn to reason their way through instructional decisions and
actions that are responsive to their students. Key to this reasoning process is the act of
contemplating and planning for students’ learning needs. Wilson, Shulman and Richert
(1987) propose two steps in the model of pedagogical reasoning that would support
interns in designing and implementing instruction that is responsive to the needs of their
learners. They describe the processes of adaptation and tailoring during the
transformation part of the pedagogical reasoning cycle in ways that support learners.
Adaptation involves “fitting the transformation [of materials and lessons] to the
characteristics of students in general” (p. 120) including features such as ability, gender,

etc. Tailoring “refers to adapting the material to the specific students in one class rather

40

 

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than to the student population in general” (p. 120). Together these two processes allow
intern teachers to look at their students in both general and specific ways in order to
design instruction that meets their learning needs. Simply applying a lesson without
consideration of the students is an ineffective approach to instructional design and use.
However, one limitation of this framework is its inattention to specific issues of diversity
among learners because of its more generic nature. This notion of pedagogical content
knowledge is the focus of the intern teacher knowledge explored through field instruction
practices in this study.

“Good will must be accompanied by pedagogical knowledge and skills as well as
the courage to dismantle the status quo” (Gay, 2000, p. 13). Finding ways to engage the
elementary students beyond the classroom and their own immediate needs is an effective
way to challenge the status quo and help students to develop socially active and
responsive approaches to the world around them (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Some of this
responsibility falls on the shoulders of the supervisor in supporting interns in developing
these pedagogical responses, “During the internship supervisors can fashion questions
that encourage student teachers to consider an ever wider range of factors that explain
how their instructional events proceed” (Ellwein, Graue & Comfort, 1990, p. 13). For
example, questions like those that ask an intern to consider how the physical placement
of the desk of an English Language Learner in the classroom can help an intern to begin
to explore why the child might choose to disengage from instruction. This final step
provides the reflection and transformation that Wilson, Shulman and Richert (1987) find

necessary in the continuing development of responsive instruction.

41

 

rs.

A poem from the Talmud (cited in Lee & Smagorinsky, 2000, p. 122) sums up
these aspects of the learning necessary for interns in one succinct way:

“To look is one thing.

To see what you look at is another.

To understand what you see is a third.

To learn from what you understand is still something else.

But to act on what you learn is

All that really matters.”
We must do more to help interns make effective decisions about how to act on what they
learn about students. Fraser (1997) writes, “While no teacher can understand all of the
reality of any other culture, much less the many different cultures represented in some of
today’s classrooms, every teacher can develop a series of critical skills and perhaps most
important, attitudes of curiosity and respect, which will foster a sense of engagement, for
the students and the teacher” (p. viii). The challenge is to use field instruction practices
in ways that encourage teacher candidates to develop this kind of responsive approach to
students’ backgrounds and learning needs.
Field Instruction as an Educationally Supportive Practice

Field instruction during the year-long internship at MSU is a version of
supervision that overcomes many of the typical constraints that commonly exist in other
programs. Field instruction, as a practice defined by an elementary teacher education
preparation team serving schools in a 40 mile radius, is the act of playing “a key support
role in helping the intern develop standards-based practices in planning, teaching and
assessment, and in becoming a fully participating member of the teaching profession”
(Michigan State Teacher Preparation Team Two, 2003). While not explicitly advocating

a particular stance or approach to field instruction practice (i.e. not everyone is required

to have a social constructivist stance towards his/her practice as a field instructor), I

42

 

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interpret the “key support role” as one that allows me to engage in a social constructivist
approach to field instruction while these broad guidelines inform the practice I try to
develop as a field instructor. As a former Michigan State University field instructor
describing her practice, Denyer (1997) writes:
The word ‘instructor’ is key because we see our role as just that -— a person who
will engage in instruction in the field, a person who will teach our teacher
candidates about teaching, a person who will learn from teaching. We do not see
ourselves primarily as supervisors who observe and evaluate the actions of
teacher candidates, pointing out what needs to be changed and offering
suggestions on how to make those changes, although that is part of our role. We
are there to help our teacher candidates think carefully about their own practice
and find ways to improve it. We are there to provide a series of scaffolded
learning experiences as teacher candidates engage in the complex task of learning
to teach. We do this in a variety of ways that might include asking questions,

modeling, instructing, role playing, choosing those strategies carefully in order to
support the growth and development of our teacher candidates. (p. 39)

This quote describes the purpose of the role of the field instructor in more
complex ways than a traditional model of supervision would likely be defined. The
structure allows for embedded assistance and assessment over a long period of time,
which allows interns to become more comfortable with the practices of field instruction
because there are multiple opportunities for success and struggle in learning to teach and
working together. Additionally, efforts such as renaming the supervisory position and
calling it field instructor at Michigan State, remove the obvious emphasis from the
supervisory capacities and responsibilities of the position and open doors to more
instructional and assistive practices in working with interns. As such, this study focuses
on the assistance aspect of learning to teach. In many fundamental ways, Michigan State
University’s vision of supervision for preservice teacher candidates is a far cry from
practices described in much of the research on traditional supervision accompanying

student teaching. The field instruction practice at MSU highlights additional time for

43

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support, small cohorts for each field instructor, guided practice in learning to supervise,
and weekly field instructor meetings to support and guide field-based practices. It is the
intention of the university to try and move our practice beyond something that is the
typical supervisory role. However, because this more traditional model is the primary
vision of supervision that exists in the literature, this will be explored here in some detail
to help locate field instruction in the broader supervision literature. The following
section will look closely at both the existing literature as well as my understanding of
how MSU’s conception compares and contrasts with the other ideas out there.

History of supervision research. The bulk of research on the roles of the field
supervisor is outdated and does not address the responsibilities of the supervisor (Enz,
Freeman, and Wallin, 1996; Slick, 1997). Historically, student teacher supervision has
been seen as a low status, peripheral occupation within colleges and programs of teacher
education commonly completed by adjunct faculty or graduate students (Slick, 1998a).
Additionally, the supervisor is commonly seen as an outsider interfering in the public
school classroom and serving only an evaluative role in the relationship with cooperating
and student teachers (Slick, 1998a). Research attention was paid to the conflicting and
controversial issues of assistance versus assessment in the context of supervision
(Boydell, 1986). At MSU, the field instructor is seen as one who is closely involved in
the intern’s experiences in learning to teach. Further, it is desired that the field instructor
is more than an evaluator — she also serves as an instructor who is valued in helping the
intern learn to teach. The program is similar, however, to the existing research in that

most field instruction is done by graduate students and adjunct personnel. Yet, Michigan

44

 

State does much to help them define a well-conceived practice as a field instructor
instead of simply hiring and sending them out. This support is described below.

In 1979, Bowman wrote a short piece for the Journal of Teacher Education
advocating the end of student teaching supervision provided through and from the
university as a result of limited outcomes, drains on resources, and little involvement
from university faculty. Instead, Bowman argued that all supervision should come from
the schools and collaborating teachers. Although not the only person to claim such a
stance in the literature of the 1970’s, this piece seemed to rejuvenate interest in research
around supervision. Research conducted in the 1980’s found that the university
supervisor does play an important and relevant role in the student teaching experience,
but most of these findings paid little attention to how the supervisor helped the novice in
actually learning to teach (e.g. Zimpher, DeVoss and Nott, 1980). Again, conflicting
results were found where studies also questioned the impact on the student teacher.
Boydell (1986) believes that the supervisor is isolated intellectually and that survival
techniques are undertaken to protect the relationships in the triad. She goes on to write:

...there is no guarantee that a supervisor with unlimited time, great sensitivity to

students’ concerns, and immense pedagogical expertise would be able to raise the

intellectual level of supervision appreciably, given the need for traditional types
of assessment and the apprenticeship approach to teaching practice with its brief

and transient relationships between triad members. (p. 118)

Michigan State attempts to provide a range of supports to field instructors in engaging in
their role as a meaningful member of the triad. Weekly meetings are held with all field
instructors on a team, the program staff, and the faculty leader for the team. These

meetings serve as a place for communication about details as well as a place for problem

solving, strategies for working with interns, and opportunities to talk with the graduate

45

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level course instructors about what is going on out in the schools. Additionally, for
graduate students learning about this new role, a doctoral level course on supervision is
provided for first-time field instructors that serves as an educational support for
developing a new and complex practice. This is a much more integrated model of field
instruction than is likely found in many more traditional models of student teaching
supervision. There is a consistent effort to focus on balancing the time spent on
assistance and assessment appropriately with the bulk of the time spent on assistance.
Also, at Michigan State, the field instructor is supposed to support both the intern and the
collaborating teacher and bears a responsibility in assisting both parties in this complex
model of learning to teach.

More research has been done on the interpersonal relationship aspects of the
supervisor/collaborating teacher/student teacher triad and on focusing specifically on
labeling what the supervisor does, with much less attention paid to the impact of the
actual activities in which a supervisor engages or the complexity of the role (Slick, 1997,
1998b). Models of clinical supervision presented as specific actions to follow have
dominated the field instead of approaches that are seen as “a set of ideas from which a
variety of actions could be generated” (F eiman-Nemser, 2001, p. 19). Richardson-
Koehler (1988) suggests that the university supervisor is in the unique position to raise
the discourse of feedback provided to interns. As one who is somewhat removed from
the immediacy of the classroom situation, the opportunity exists to enter into the
relationship in ways that allow the field instructor to challenge the status quo and to help
to connect the work of the field with the work of the university classroom as the field

instructor is someone who has one foot in each camp.

46

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A number of classification systems for supervision have been created, both on the
practice as a whole and on specific aspects of this activity structure. Zeichner and Liston
(1985) found four different types of discourse used between interns and university
supervisors during post-observation conferences: factual, prudential, justificatory, and
critical. Justificatory and critical stances allow the interns to continue to grow beyond
simply what happened to their decision—making processes and rationales for their
instructional actions. Grant and Zozakiewicz (1995) advocate for a supervisor who will
“listen and support their [student teachers’] work, while challenging students to think,
grow, and act as multicultural educators. As with children in schools, supervisors need to
accept and get to know each student teacher and their cultural background, educational
knowledge, and unique experiences” (p. 271-272). MSU encourages a high level of
feedback and a long-term investment in the well-being of the intern with the idea that we
have the time to really push on our interns’ thinking and learning and help them to see
what could be — not just what is — as a teacher.

Hawkey (1997) writes, “It is not clear whether the student teachers are learning
what is intended from their interactions with different personnel” (p. 326). She goes on
to write that there is little understanding of how student teachers “integrate” and make
sense of the various perspectives they are given — particularly if they are receiving
differing information from the various personnel. Zimpher, DeVoss and Nott (1980)
suggest that because the university supervisors are relative outsiders in the triad simply
because of the limited time spent with the student teacher, they are in the exact position
supportive of the opportunity to be more analytical and constructively critical in helping

interns learn to teach. In their research. the university supervisor became a motivating

47

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presence in the learning process for the intern. Richardson (1996) found that teachers
were more likely to generate alternative practices when faced with dilemmas while
teaching (as opposed to isolated study of teaching). This would suggest that support for
generating these alternative practices would benefit interns as they are engaged in their
experiences. Michigan State is making attempts to move in these directions by
emphasizing work with diverse student populations and working to help interns foster
attitudes and practices that are responsive to student learning needs in lessons outside of
the university classroom context. However, at this time we need more research to
understand the consequences of these moves. Clearly it is necessary to see how much the
field instructor becomes a source of learning for the interns and how this is supported or
negated by the learning that comes from the collaborating teacher.

The learning process as seen by the field instructor. This redefinition of
supervision to emphasize the various roles played by the field instructor makes it possible
to consider other alternatives and perspectives that are engaged by the field instructor in
helping interns learn to teach. This model sets the stage for exploring the ways that the
field instructor can use a social constructivist stance to engage interns in learning to work
responsively with all students in their classrooms.

Various researchers and research participants have described the role of the
supervisor in helping interns learn in different ways. Stone (1987, cited in Slick, 1998a)
argued that supervision should involve theoretical work in pedagogy and that “students
and supervisors jointly explore teaching analytically and experimentally” (p. 77). Slick

(1998a) argued that no one has yet explored this work of “sharing-of-professional-

insights” (p. 831) between supervisors and student teachers and is an area ripe for

48

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consideration. Rust (1988) acknowledged that supervisors’ “tacitly held images of ‘good
teaching’ appear to influence the work of preservice supervisors” (p. 57). A supervisor
who participated in Slick’s (1997) research study reported that her role was to “initiate
and establish a positive, caring relationship that fostered the student teacher’s growth and
development professionally” (p. 716) while also being responsive to the needs of the
collaborating teacher. Enz, Freeman and Wallin (1996) found three roles played by the
university supervisor — mentor, professional resource and interpreter. The mentor role is
of most interest here and was defined as “actions a university supervisor might take to
e>1131‘ess support, encouragement, instructional guidance, and feedback to the student
teEleher” (p. 137).
In this study, the attention paid to the instructional guidance piece of the field
it‘lStructor’s role as a mentor is particularly salient. Cohn (1981) found in her research
tIlat part of the supervisor’s role was to “stimulate relationships between previously
itltroduced ideas and the specific situation at hand” (p. 28) which shows the potential of
tIle role to help interns see connections between their university learning and the
aCtivities and experiences of the field placement. The student teaching field experience is
rlot simply a place to apply ideas already learned but to continue the learning process in a
different context than the university classroom. The supervisor is, in effect, a teacher
Who asks “probing questions to encourage students to see relationships and draw
Conclusions” (Cohn, 1981, p. 28). In a study of mentoring practices in an induction
program, F eiman-Nemser (2001) found that a mentor for beginning teachers looked
Carefully for “openings,” places where the mentor could support the new teacher to

engage in productive conversations about a range of topics important to all new teachers

49

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while trying to balance his/her knowledge of teaching with that of concern to the new
teacher. There is an intersecting relationship in the process of helping intern teachers
learn — they must be supported emotionally and feel a level of trust in order to open
themselves to new ideas, critique and reflection with others. All of these emotional
supports are necessary to engage in the actual processes of learning to create and
implement effective instruction for students — a complex task that is the ultimate focus of
the learning to teach process. Thus, it is my intention to provide the emotional support
necessary in order to free the interns to take the risks to support their own learning and
teaching practices.

The role of the field instructor in engaging this process of intern learning. Given
this conceptualization of learning, I see the role of the field instructor as one type of
mentoring that can occur in this context of social construction. Enz, Freeman, and Wallin
(1996) found that the act of observing student teacher lessons and providing feedback
was universally seen as the most important activity engaged in by the university
SUPCTViSOI‘. In this study, that process will be used as the central focus of the learning
Opportunities as I work with interns to help them meet all students’ learning needs.
Chapter three includes more detailed discussion of the research design.

Zahorik (1988) conducted a piece of research specifically focused on the
observing and conferencing aspects of the university supervisor’s role in learning to
teach. This research determined that there are types of supervisors, types of supervision,
and Various goals and styles that supervisors used in their work with student teachers.

HiS Work included a group of 10 supervisors (six faculty, three graduate students and one

fiXEd term employee) with varying feelings of success and degrees of commitment to

50

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their role as a supervisor (the full professors found this role least enjoyable and felt the
least success in the role). Zahorik determined that there were three styles and three goals
for the work that supervisors engaged in, influencing the experiences that the student
teachers had in learning to teach. These three styles were behavior prescriptive
(supervisors who told student teachers what to do in specific areas and what not to do —
for example, classroom management), idea interpretation (this supervisory style involves
presenting the supervisor’s ideas to the student teacher on what classrooms and schools
should be like), and the person support supervisor (one who focused on teacher decision
making and thinking for themselves by providing an environment in which this was a
safe activity). There were subset variations in each of these styles capturing more subtle
variations in approach. However, the main message of this study was to begin to attempt
‘0 ClaSSify some of the various approaches that supervisors used during the observations
and debriefing conferences they held. In attempting to locate myself and my approach to
SUPeWiSion, I struggled to find the “best fit” in the ideas Zahorik proposed. Initially I
thought these categories may be a useful starting point to uncover patterns and themes
that emerged in my own practice. At the end, I found Zahorik’s questions to be more
useful in informing the focus of this study — including how flexible supervisors might be
with their use of different approaches, how these decisions are made, and what sort of
response interns and collaborating teachers have towards these approaches.
Rust (1988) focused on how supervisors communicated their knowledge about
teaching to the teacher candidates that they were working with in the schools. She
described a common practice used by supervisors in their responses to interns,

“Hondirective strategies such as open-ended questions to guide thinking, challenging,

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perception checking, and focusing the students’ attention on the classroom environment”
(p. 60). Additionally, Hoover, O’Shea, and Carroll (1988) present a chart (originally
found in Blumberg, 1980) that describes four different supervisory styles. My current
conception of my own field instruction practice fits best with style C -— low direct, high
indirect: “The supervisor’s behavior is rarely direct (telling, criticizing, and so forth);
instead he (or she) puts a lot of emphasis on asking questions, listening, and reflecting
back the teacher’s ideas and feelings” (p. 27). By choosing to enact this stance towards
field instruction, I feel that it validates the attempts and efforts of the intern in learning to
teach and opens the lines of communication that free interns to take risks, expose areas of
weakness and develop a learning attitude (as opposed to a performing attitude).
There is also a body of literature on supervision more generally defined (see for
ex511111316, Costa & Gamoran, 1994; Sergiovanni & Starratt, 2002). This work explores
the notion of supervision for practicing teachers and those who supervise them.
GliCkman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, (1995) advocate a developmental approach to
suvaWiSion that requires supervisors to have developed three bases — knowledge,
interPet‘sonal skills and technical skills. They write of a supervisory belief continuum
that moves from nondirective moves through a collaborative approach and finally to
directive approaches (of which there are two types — directive informational which
provides choices to make and directive control where the supervisor lays a clear plan for
action). Glickman et a1. provide a series of behaviors that are spread across this
Continuum of supervisory approaches. Moving from the nondirective to the directive end

0f the continuum, these include: listening, clarifying, encouraging, reflecting, presenting,

52

problem solving (this is where collaborative stance is listed), negotiating, directing,
standardizing, and reinforcing (p. 113-114).

These observable or identifiable behaviors provide an appropriate starting place
for interrogating the field instruction practice as a form of supervision that is responsive
to student learning needs. From a social constructivist approach, it would seem likely
that most action would occur at the nondirective/collaborative end of the continuum
because a social constructivist stance values the contributions made by the teacher
candidate, following their lead for the shared work together. The nondirective end of the
continuum provides the most room for the active involvement and voice of the teacher
candidate. While these behaviors may align with the learning needs of practicing
teacher S, the learning needs of novice teacher candidates are such that nondirective
(which also might be considered social constructivist) behaviors may not fully meet the
learning needs of each and every intern. Because Glickman et al. intended for this to be a
developmental continuum, in this study I investigate where my practices with interns fit
(0? 1101) on the continuum. While I see this continuum as limited for use with novice
teachers in the way that the categories are organized, I chose to use this material as a
richer source of supervisory behaviors than many of those written for student teaching
supervision. Glickman et al.’s work is better suited to a program that allows for
extension and development across time, something we need to support exploration of

supervision in our year-long program. I used this framework to analyze the types of
activities appropriate for teacher candidates guided by my social constructivist stance

throughout each of the three case studies described in chapters four, five, and six. This

53

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framework also will be revisited in the third chapter on the analysis of the data in this

study.

F eiman-Nemser (2001) describes the process of educative mentoring as one that

includes the following actions from mentors:

They interact with novices in ways that foster an inquiring stance. They cultivate
skills and habits that enable novices to learn in and from their practice. They use
their knowledge and expertise to assess the direction novices are heading and to

create opportunities and conditions that support meaningful teacher learning in
the service of student learning. (p. 18)

Cohn and Gellman (1988) described a process called “situational teaching” that
connected the context of the field setting to the supportive actions of the supervisor —
explicit connections were made between course learning and field experiences to help
interns see the relationship between their learning and their practices. This is surely
something I strive towards — helping interns see the relationships that exist between their
learning and their teaching. F eatherstone (1992) suggests that an outsider can challenge
the interpretations and propose different ways of looking at situations the novice is facing
in the classroom. I think that the university supervisor is in the position to be an outside
and an insider. She has some in depth knowledge of the context, the intern as a learner,
etc. to be of valuable use in providing those alternate interpretations and visions of what
is happening with students. Featherstone further proposes that down the road as
beginning teachers without this kind of support, “a problem may become educational if
the novice is able to connect it in some useful way to past experience” (p. 14),

strengthening the importance of working through these complex issues with interns while

they have the support necessary to guide them.

54

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The previous discussion represents my current stance on learning to teach and the
ways that I intend to approach this workwith interns. Certainly, there are changes and
shifts made in this approach as warranted by individual needs of the interns but this
would well represent the overall approach I commonly take in engaging in field
instruction practices. Either way, this is representative of the strategies I think are needed
for social constructivism - supporting interns in making meaning of what they see and do
in the classroom while simultaneously learning and making meaning for myself as I
engage in these interactions with the interns and their students. This study provides an
Opportunity me to examine my own conceptions and enactment of field instruction
Practices more deeply, perhaps leading to revisions of both.

The Internship Structure and Connections to New Teacher Induction

The previous section discussed Michigan State’s program in the context of the
literature on supervision and my ideas about how to use this information to inform my
social Constructivist field instruction stance. This section gives additional detail on the
specifics of the internship structure and program.

There is quite a bit of literature that refers to the constraints of the student
teaching situation and the challenges of helping someone learn to teach in such a short

Period of time (Richardson-Koehler, 1988; Wideen, Mayer-Smith & Moon, 1998). The
Year-long internship structure used at Michigan State University to provide the
experience necessary to certify teacher candidates offers advantages in supporting the
challenging process of learning to teach: The internship is structured in seven phases that
gradually increase the involvement of the intern in the classroom activities of teaching

and learning. During the fall semester, with the collaborating teacher, the intern designs

55

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and implements one unit of instruction in science and one in social studies that
correspond to and are supported by the Master’s level coursework in which they are
enrolled. During the spring semester, the interns take Master’s level courses in literacy
and mathematics as they increase their involvement in the classroom. These courses and
course instructors provide additional support for the development of interns’ teaching
practices and philosophies. During February and March, they are engaged in lead
teaching which is a period of time for which they bear primary responsibility for the
teaching and learning in the classroom. Throughout all of this, the role of the field
instructor is to support the intem’s development of teaching practices through classroom
observations and debriefing conferences, weekly seminars, and one-on-one involvement
with both the intern and the collaborating teacher.

Two potentially beneficial features of the internship are extended time and the
support 0f additional professional learning in multiple contexts. Interns have a greater
amount of time to develop and practice their instructional strategies and beliefs about
helping children to learn. Collaborating teachers have a longer period of time to scaffold
the teaching process into meaningful segments allowing for greater feelings of success
and development of self-confidence in interns’ feelings about themselves as teachers.

Elementary students benefit because interns are there long enough that they are obligated
to attempt to design and implement the most valuable educational learning experiences
for each student over a sustained period of time. Field instructors have the time and
Opportunity to develop trusting relationships that provide a foundation for truly
Challenging conversations about students, teaching and learning. At Michigan State, field

instructors are also typically given a load of only six interns; this is significantly less than

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the larger supervision loads at other places. Michigan State also supports a ten hour per
week time commitment to this practice which is an extensive amount of time to work
with a small cohort of six students. Not only are we committed to intensive time across
the year, interns are given extensive support on a weekly basis.

Additionally, weekly seminars for all interns in a group led by the field instructor
provide further opportunities for professional learning to occur. A common focus of this
work is to connect the experiences of the internship classroom to the broader ideas and
theories of interns’ previous and current university coursework. Since all interns are
enrolled in four Master’s level courses across the internship year, it is possible to support
and extend their field-based learning with current learning in the classroom. This
interplay between coursework and seminar experiences can serve to extend the learning
Opportunities that interns have as well as provide additional support for helping the
interns (and the field instructor) to address the challenges that they face.

This additional time spent learning to teach in and of the classroom as interns
before assuming a formal teaching position has the potential to create beginning teachers
who are more prepared their first year than those candidates that complete shorter 10-15
week student teaching experiences. Berliner (198 7) described a progression of teacher

development that moved from novice to beginner, to competent teacher, on to proficient
teacher, and finally to expert teacher. It is feasible to argue that interns leave the
internship experience much closer to well started beginners than their peers in traditional
Student teaching programs who are more like novices (Hawkey, 1997). In order to be

prepared for the rigorous early years of teaching, interns must develop the capacity to

57

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connect classroom experience with formal knowledge and to then learn from these

connections.
This is something that F eiman-Nemser and Buchmann (1985) find critical to learn

d uri n g preservice preparation because it is not a quality typically supported or developed
once on the job. Given that the additional time of the internship year is spent in the same
0 lassro om, affording interns the opportunity to work in the same context with the same
students and collaborating teacher over the course of the year, additional emphasis can be
made on the advanced status that interns have as beginning teachers. They have had the
Opportunity to watch and work with students and collaborating teachers from August at
the start of the school year through the end of April. Renard (2003) writes that the
“thi n gs new teachers find most problematic are the things that come with time,” (p. 63)
PFOVi d i mg further support for the investment in time during the internship program as well
as the need for additional study as they struggle with actual educational issues. As such,
both the student teacher literature (as a source of information about novices) and the
ind ucti on literature (as a source of information about early challenges beginning teachers
face) provide information necessary to consider in this study.

Given the description of how interns learn to make decisions that are reflective of

and responsive to the students in their classrooms, it seems appropriate to engage in a

modi fied model of this reflective and responsive process when working in field
instruction learning opportunities. Teacher education is not ideologically neutral
(Boydel l, 1986), necessitating a careful look at the messages and perspectives that are

Dr .
eselited in the course of working closely with interns. All of the roles described above

58

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f0 1- the supervisor entail learning to work collaboratively with another person in multiple
ways to support learning. The conception of field instruction in this study is that the
work of supporting another’s learning in a novel context (new to both the intern and the
field instructor because of the new blend of students each year) is an act of helping
novices socially construct an understanding of the students, the expectations of the
col 1 aborating teacher and the school as well as district, and ultimately, a process of
supporting the intern through conversation, reflection, and questioning. “A constructivist
approach requires that teacher candidates build, or restructure, their knowledge about
teac hi r1 g so that it makes sense to them. Exposing their attitudes, values, and beliefs to

the l i ght of critical inquiry builds teachers who have a sense of learning—and how

students learn” (Pankratius, 1997, p. 76).

Pushing the edge of this more cognitive definition of constructivism, into a

conception of SOCial constructivism, the intern is simultaneously engaged in similar
acti V i t i es with the collaborating teacher, the other interns in the school, the students, and

so on - Interaction with all of these people informs how the intern makes instructional

dec i Sions as well as larger professional decisions, such as where to seek a job and what
sort 0 f relationships to have with colleagues and teaching peers. The goal of this study is
0 explore the role of a SOCial constructmst approach to field instruction practice in

s . . ,
upporti ng interns as they learn to teach all students in an intern s classroom. In

00 - . . . . .
ne luslon, “Soc1al constructiVism stretches us to think beyond narrow, curricular goals
an . 9
d to read toward broad purposes of learning such as students self-knowledge,

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ye lo11>l'nent of identities, and belief that they can make a different in the world.”

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(Oldfather & West, 1999). This stance pushes us forward to consider the realm of

possibilities in field instruction practices for teacher education.

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Chapter 3

STUDYING FIELD INSTRUCTION PRACTICE: RESEARCH METHODS
AND DESIGN

This is a qualitative study, designed as case studies of my field instructor work

with three interns. Specifically, it followed the growth of three interns over the course of
the lead teaching portion of the spring semester of the internship year and documented
intensive field instruction practices designed to support interns’ learning to meet the
learning needs of diverse student populations. A case study approach to the research was
chosen because case studies allow for an in-depth look at a phenomenon while
maintaining a focus on the characteristics of real-world events (Yin, 1994). Case studies
all 0W us to explore the “how” and “why” of situations with careful attention to
experi ences in context. Case studies are also used to make analytic generalizations, ones
that al low us to use case studies to consider the data as it relates to theory — in this case,
SOCial constructivist learning and teaching theory (Yin, 1994). Because social
constructivist theory was the framework of this practice, case study research is a logical
Choice to use as a lens to consider these field instruction/intern interactions (Yin, 1994).

A critical incident (Newman, 1990) is defined as those actions, experiences, or
moments in the act of learning to teach diverse students that appear to raise significant
questions, challenges or new ideas in the process of the intem’s teaching experiences.
For thi 8 study, critical incidents were identified for each intem’s experiences in learning
to teach diverse student populations. For. David, the critical incident focused on the
interactions we had around an English Language Learner in his classroom. For Jane, our
interactions focused on the issues of ability in her classroom as a result of the school’s

cl
Lister grouping policy that put all special education and gifted education students in the

g 61

 

 

same classroom at each grade level. For Elizabeth, the critical incident focused on our
work together to help her learn to support Sam, a student from a lower socioeconomic
background in a predominantly upper middle class student group. In this chapter, I will
describe how these critical incidents served as the center of the analysis of my interaction
with these interns. Identifying a critical incident and then focusing on the data pertaining
to these experiences provides a focused, careful look at the interactions we had together,
highlighting the specific moves that each of us made in supporting the intem’s efforts in
learning to teach. The following sections detail the specific research questions that frame

the Study, and data sources and analysis strategies used to develop the cases.

METHODOLOGY
Research Questions
The primary focus of this study is on the use of field instruction practices intended
to SLIIDport interns’ learning to teach diverse student populations. The overarching

queStion is:

During critical incidents where interns are working to address learning needs of
diverse students, how does the field instructor support three interns who are
learning to teach responsively to meet these needs?

The Subsidiary research questions are divided into three areas - those focused on interns,
tho Se focused on the field instructor/instruction, and those that provide information on the
context in which this research study is taking place. Context is defined as the school site,
the Collaborating teachers’ stances towards diverse learners in the classroom, and the
School as well as classroom demographics. These three areas are critical to inform the
larger question of the study given the interactions among participants, setting and

p ii 'ore specifically, the sub-questions include:

62

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Questions Focused on the Interns
These questions focus on interns’ understandings of diversity along several

dimensions.
Interns ’ broad understanding of diversity:

1 - How do the interns define diversity (e.g. socioeconomic, ability, linguistic,
culture/race) and how does this definition change over time during the spring
semester?

Interns’ understanding of their students as diverse learners as evidenced through the

critical incidents:

2 - How do interns discuss the needs of selected individual students in the classroom?
How do they interpret these students’ needs and to what extent and how are they
able to provide evidence of working with these needs in the classroom?

In terns’ understanding of their context:

3 - How do interns broadly perceive their collaborating teacher’s stance towards
diversity and the ways in which they enact this in the classroom? How do they
compare or contrast this to their own views on diversity in the classroom? How
do the interns act on their perceptions of the collaborating teacher’s views in these
critical incidents?

Questions Focused on the Field Instructor/Instruction
The following questions focus both on the specifics of my field instruction action

as Well as the theory that underlies these actions.

I .
I“Struction:

1 . What did I do to support interns in learning to assess their students’ learning
needs?

2 . What did I do that involved supporting interns in developing instruction that is
responsive to the diverse characteristics of their learners?

3 . How did they respond to me and to these interactions? How did I respond or
follow up?

Theory;

4. Why did I choose to do what I did in helping the interns?

63

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5. How did the theories of social constructivism influence what I did? What other
theories or guiding principles influenced my thinking?

Context:

6. What interaction did I have with interns’ ideas that related to new demographic
shifts in the school’s populations? What interaction did I have around ideas that
were related directly to the collaborating teacher’s beliefs about responding to
diversity in the classroom?

Questions Focused on the Context
The following questions explore the role of the school and the collaborating

teachers on the context.

Sc311001:

1 . How did the context of the school -— in terms of student diversity — change this
year as a result of the redistricting that occurred over the summer? Which
aspects of the context do interns pay attention to?

2. How does this change in the context provide increased opportunities/needs for
interns to respond to the nature of diversity in the classroom?

Teac hers:

3. How do the collaborating teachers respond to this change in their context?

4. How do collaborating teachers’ views shape/influence/constrain what interns
believe they can and/or should do in teaching responsively to diversity in the
classroom?

Study Design
This section considers the responsibilities that I have as a field instructor and then
deSCI‘i bes the context and participants in this study. This section also explains the data
s .
Olll‘ces and prov1des examples of what was gathered.
Field Instruction Support
As a field instructor at Michigan State, my duties consisted of regular classroom
bsel’vations of each intern With post-observation conferences (at least five formally

d . . .
ocumented for each intern in my cohort during each semester) and a weekly seminar

Cc . . . . . .
tICIllcted With all interns in the school. The seminar is deSIgned to address

64

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programmatic issues as well as professional issues of teaching, learning, and working in a
school community. I also provided support in lesson and unit development as needed or
desired by the intern, support for resume and portfolio development, and one on one
support in whatever additional ways were needed. Additionally, I provided support to the
collaborating teachers (C Ts) in their mentoring practices both informally and formally
through monthly collaborating teacher meetings with all CTs in the school. The goal was
to embed most aspects of this study into the practices that mirror the regular day to day
activities of one field instructor and thus provided data that are situated in the context and
Process as it naturally occurs. This design was intentional in order to use the outcomes to
inf Orrn actual fiiture practices of field instructors instead of creating unusual conditions
that Would be far beyond the scope of regular practices with interns. Nevertheless, I will
e)(IJIain below some data collection activities (interviews, student interviews) that did
req‘~-1il‘e spending additional time with the interns. Field instruction provides a wide range
0 f data sources and “the case study’s unique strength is its ability to deal with a full
Variety of evidence” (Yin, 1994, p. 8). Case studies for each intem’s work with the field
illstt'Llctor have been created that illustrate how the field instruction practices provided

O1’1301'tunities for the interns to learn to work with diverse student populations over the

COLllt‘se of the lead teaching period.

School and District Context
The selected school, Lancaster Elementary (pseudonym),3 was chosen for this
Study because of my existing relationship with the interns as their field instructor. The
School is located in a middle to upper-middle class neighborhood in a suburban

c
orbul'llinity that serves primarily a middle class professional population. According to

 

3
I I I I
ll names, including interns, collaborating teachers. elementary students and the school, are pseudonyms

65

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Standard and Poor’s School Evaluation Website, the school district (with total student
enrollment of 4,208) has an economically disadvantaged population of 5.6%, a special

education population of 9.7%, a MEAP passing rate of 80.1%, and high graduation rates

(2002 data).
The demographic make-up of Lancaster Elementary shifted somewhat over the

summer preceding the 2003-2004 school year as a result of an elementary school closure
and subsequent redistricting of school boundaries within the district. No children were
moved out of Lancaster Elementary, but the school received a low income housing
COmmunity in the redistricting process which introduced greater diversity to the make-up
0f the student body. During the 2002 school year, Lancaster Elementary’s student body
of 3 5 5 made it the largest elementary school in the district with an economically

d i S£1<1vantaged population of 1.9% (below the district average of 5.6%). The racial/ethnic
composition of the school was as follows: Asian/Pacific Islander: 8.2%; Hispanic: 2.8%;
African American: 1.7%; and White: 87.3% (2002 data from Standard and Poor’s School
Eval uation Services). Data for the 2003-2004 school year has not yet been publicly
released but informal conversation with the principal informed me that at least 30 new
Stl1C1€nts were picked up directly from the redistricting process. Additionally, there were

a Ill-ll'rlber of students in the three focus classes who moved to the school’s attendance

2
one from other locales.

Although some may see the changes in the school’s demographic make-up that

es‘Jlted from this redistricting as relatively minor, informal conversations With the
131‘an ipal and collaborating teachers indicated that teachers in the building were

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01"‘cet‘ned and challenged by this change in their student population. Further, this shift in

66

a

 

DOpulation and teacher attitude reinforced the importance of helping the interns to learn
to teach in ways that meet all students’ learning needs effectively given that they will not
necessarily be teaching in a context similar to this for their entire careers.

Participants

The participants for this study included three interns as well as their collaborating

teachers at Lancaster Elementary.

The Interns and Collaborating Teachers

Several criteria were used to select interns and collaborating teachers to
participate in this study. I sought interns who were (a) placed in a range of grades from
Primary to upper elementary; (b) at different levels of success in learning to teach at the
time of the study but also willing to seek feedback to improve their teaching; (c) placed
with collaborating teachers who had worked with me before and were comfortable with
my presence in the classroom; and (d) in classrooms that had a range of issues related to
diversity in the student population.

Three interns agreed to participate in this study, covering a range of grades (1",
4th, and 5‘”) and consisted of two females, Elizabeth (1St grade) and Jane (5’h grade), and
one male, David (4‘h grade). They varied in their “success” during initial stages of the
internship ranging from one intern who was consistently exceeding program expectations
(E 1 iZabeth), to a more ‘typical’ hard worker who was doing a solid job (Jane), to an intern
who struggled to get started but was beginning to show real progress by the end of the
first semester (David). This range of ability in learning to teach was an important factor
to incorporate into this study to consider how the overall readiness of the intern impacts

t . . . . .
he nature of the work done in helping interns to learn to teach effectively for a diverse

67

a

range of student learning needs. Additionally, all three of these interns consistently
sought out feedback and support from me in ways that made it natural to embed this

additional aspect into our work together over the course of the study. Although this
might indicate a tendency not present to such a degree in all interns, it seemed necessary

to select interns possessing this trait in order to explore the full potential of field

instruction practices more effectively.

All three interns were placed in classrooms where I had established relationships
with their collaborating teachers that preceded this particular internship year. One
teacher, Rebecca, was in her third year of working with me and the other two, Amanda
and Catherine, were in their second year of working with me. These extended working
relationships gave me additional insight into their approaches and attitudes as well as
making them more comfortable with my regular presence in their classrooms. All three
teac lier/ intern pairs had strong and supportive working relationships, which means that
my role as a field instructor continued with an emphasis on the instructor aspect without
r eq uiring a strong mediator role that would redirect the focus of my time with the intern
(or With the teacher) from working on practice to dealing with issues such as
‘30 Ilenunication or personality conflicts. At the time of the study, Catherine had taught
f0 1‘ 8 years (4th grade), Amanda had taught for 16 years (1St grade) and Rebecca had
ta‘ngit for 18 years (5th grade). Each teacher had a variety of mentoring experiences with

both interns and student teachers under more traditional models of teacher education.

Th 9 Elementary Students

Informal demographic data about the classroom populations of the three interns

“‘dicated that there was a range of issues to address in each classroom in learning to teach

68

diverse populations effectively. More detailed descriptions of each classroom make-up
will be provided within the context of the relevant intem’s case study chapter.
Documentation of my own perceptions of the students’ learning needs took place in my
field notes. My perceptions informed how I responded to the perceived learners in each
classroom through the observations and conversations with the interns. The interns were
each dealing with the range of issues that I’ve raised as critical to meeting the learning
needs of diverse students in a classroom setting. Variances of ability (both special

education and gifted education), language, socioeconomic status, and race/culture were

present in all three classrooms.
Classroom Context
Da 121d

David’s classroom of 23 students included seven identified gifted students who
received periodic pullout services from the gifted resource teacher. The classroom also
inc: luded four students identified with special education needs who also received pullout
resource services as well as two students who received support from the reading teacher.
TWO children in the class were identified with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
and one of these children with ADHD also qualified for services relating to his learning
disElbility in writing and his emotional impairment label as well as depression. The
Cl"<18 sroom also benefited from the presence of students from several cultural backgrounds

inc 1 uding one African-American student, one Venezuelan student (an English Language

Le arner), two Asian students and one student from India.

Jane

This classroom of 24 students included one autistic student, one student with Downs

Syn(irome who participated in specialties and select classroom experiences, four students

69

with learning disabilities, one student with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and one
student with Attention Deficit Disorder. Four students received services from the gifted
resource teacher. The classroom also benefited from the presence of students from several

cultural backgrounds, including one student from the Middle East and one student of Puerto

Rican heritage.

Elizabeth

The classroom of 25 students included a wide range of student learning needs
including six children reading below grade level who met with the reading specialist and
one student involved in the math at-risk program. One child, diagnosed with ADHD,
worked with the math resource teacher, the special education resource staff, and the
soc ial worker. One child in the classroom exhibiting autistic-like characteristics received
additional classroom support from the teachers. One student with mental impairment had
a c lassroom paraprofessional and worked with the special education resource staff, the
occupational therapist, the social worker, and the speech therapist. One student with
cerebral palsy worked with the occupational and physical therapist. Additionally, three
students received differentiated curriculum for their gifted learning needs. The classroom

also benefited from the presence of students from several cultural backgrounds including

tWC) Asian students and one Indian student.

Below is a table that summarizes the diverse characteristics of each classroom. While

't m ay not seem to be especially diverse, the range of diverse learners in each classroom is
exte nsive and would challenge even an experienced teacher. It should also be noted that a

scl“Col-based policy put in place the summer before the data collection on this study resulted

in the cluster grouping of all gifted and special education students in the same regular

70

education classroom at each grade level. By chance, all three of the study classrooms were

the selected classroom for the cluster group at their grade level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

needed writing
support

 

reading teacher; 1
student with math
at-risk services; 1
child with ADHD;
1 child with
suspected
Asperger’s
Syndrome; 1,
student with
mental
impairment; 1
student with
cerebral palsy; 3
gifted students

 

1" Intern: Race/culture Language Ability Socioeconomic
_ Status
David (23 students 1 African- 1 novice ELL 7 gifted students; 4 All students
in 4th grade) American student; student; 3 students students with considered middle
1 Venezuelan who need language special education class by teacher
student; 2 Asian support in writing needs & resource and intern
students; 1 Indian support; 2 students
student who saw reading
teacher; 2 children
with ADHD (one
of whom has a
written language
disability and
emotional
_ impairment)
Jane (24 students 1 student from Middle Eastern 1 autistic student; 1 student
in S a“ grade) Middle East; 1 student has 1 student with considered to be of
student of Puerto language Downs Syndrome; low SES and 2
Rican heritage processing 4 students with students
disability; Puerto Ieaming considered to be
Rican student has disabilities, 1 lower middle class
autism student with SES
ADHD; 1 with
ADD; 4 gified
students
Elizabeth (25 2 Asian students; 1 1 Asian student in 6 students reading 2 students
Students in 1" Indian student her second year; below grade level considered to be of
grade) other students worked with lower SES by

teacher and intern

 

 

Tab 1e 1: Diverse learners in each intem’s classroom

Data Sources

The data sources for this study were varied and designed to address the range of

clueStions covered. All data sources provided information that could be used to support

71

the identification of the critical incident and the larger issues of an intem’s attitudes and
beliefs around that critical incident. The following is a description of each data source
and purpose as well as the frequency and timing of the data collection for each source.
Interviews

Winter interviews. Winter interviews for both interns and collaborating teachers
were conducted by another graduate student in order to protect the rights of the interns
Since I served in a supervisory and evaluative capacity for them during this portion of the
data collection. All interview tapes and transcripts were held by my advisor until the end
of the semester and the submission of my final reports on each of the interns. (See

Appendix A for questions used in winter interviews with interns and collaborating

teachers.)

Interns: These interviews inform several of my research questions. The winter
interviews determined a baseline for each intem’s conception of diversity and could be
used as the “starting place” for each intern in looking at changes over the course of the
Spring semester. Questions were asked that explored how they conceptualized diversity
(6- g - When I use the term “diversity” in relation to your classroom, what comes to mind
fOI‘ you? What issues have you faced in your classroom?) Winter interviews also served
a; a baseline for how they thought about various students in their classrooms and how
th ey were able to describe their Ieaming needs. This also served as a place for interns to
begi n to conceptualize their understanding of their collaborating teacher’s practices and
how that influenced what they felt able to do in the classroom to meet their students’
leE‘J‘rling needs (asking them to think about how their collaborating teacher and field

Instl‘mctor have helped them to learn about these issues). The interns’ perceptions of the

72

changed context as a result of school redistricting could be apparent here and provided
another baseline look at their classroom context for teaching and learning to teach.

Collaborating teachers: The winter interviews of collaborating teachers done by
another graduate student served as a way to understand the classroom context and
determined the collaborating teacher’s experiences with a demographically altered
student population in comparison to past years of teaching experience (e. g. How does
your class this year compare to classes you’ve had in the past few years? Describe this
year’s class. Who are your learners? Have there been changes in your typical class
make-up as a result of the redistricting from closing another elementary school?) This
informed their interactions with their interns and their students and thus, was an
important element to include in these interviews. Questions in the winter interviews were
also designed to determine the collaborating teacher’s conception of diversity in the
Classroom in order to determine whether a collaborating teacher’s stance may have
influenced the beliefs and/or practices of an intern (e. g. When I use the term "diversity"
in relation to your classroom, what comes to mind for you? What issues have you faced
in your classroom?)

.Spring interviews. I conducted the spring interviews so that I could probe particular
areas of interest and utilize my knowledge of the classroom context and the students each
l."tel‘n worked with over the course of the school year. These interviews were conducted
afiel‘ the submission of all final reports that I prepared for each intern. Therefore, there
was no longer a formal supervisory or evaluative relationship at the time of the interview.

(See Appendix B for interview questions used in spring interviews with interns and

CO 1 l aborating teachers.)

73

Interns: Spring interviews served as an opportunity to revisit the interns’
conceptions of diversity. This allowed me to make comparisons against what they had
discussed in their winter interviews. The spring interviews were also an opportunity to
probe ideas that arose out of the data from the focus on critical incidents in each intem’s
classroom over the course of the semester. These questions focused on the development
of interns’ ideas about selected students with specific learning needs related to diversity.

I also asked questions about the effectiveness of various field instruction practices that
may have provided some insight into the role of the field instructor in helping interns to
learn to work effectively with a range of diverse students (e.g. What else could a field
instructor do in this role that would help interns in Ieaming to teach all children?)
Additionally, during the spring interviews a question was asked about the development of
each intem’s portfolio (see data source below) because this provided an opportunity to
88k about their representation of their understanding of student diversity and whether that
was a salient feature of their portfolio.

Collaborating teachers: The spring interviews were a place to talk with the
CO 1 laborating teachers about their perceptions of their intem’s growth over the course of
the lead teaching period and their responsiveness towards the Ieaming needs of all their
Students. Additionally, this served as a time to reconsider the diverse learning needs of
St‘~1Cients in their classroom and how their interns needed to grow to continue to meet a
rmge of needs (e.g. Did you sense a change in your intem’s approaches, challenges, etc.
0" er the course of lead teaching? How do you feel that your intern has changed over the
CD Urse of the semester in their ability to meet the needs of all of your students over

time?) Questions here focused on the intem’s ability to meet students’ Ieaming needs by

74

the end of their lead teaching period. I also asked questions that worked to try to identify
the chosen critical incident for each intern from the CT’s perspective (e. g. From your
perspective, what one moment, experience, etc. in the semester was the biggest “aha”
moment for your intern this year? What stood out to you about the intem’s Ieaming to
work on teaching practices this year? Particular issues, students, etc.) I also asked
questions about their perceptions of the role and the approach of the field instructor to
determine how well they felt that my practices worked for their interns’ Ieaming (e. g.
What else could a field instructor do in this role that would help interns in Ieaming to

teach all students?)

Student interviews. At the end of the year, I interviewed each of the three interns
with a focus specifically on their students as leamers. I asked the interns to talk with me
about each of their students and describe them along a range of dimensions (academic,

social, any specific learning needs, etc). Interns were prompted to:

Talk me through your class list and tell me a little bit about each student. Start
with some descriptive words about each child as a learner as well as anything else

you think I should know. Pretend that we haven’t been talking about these
children on and off all year — some we’ve discussed a lot and some I don’t know

very much about. (student interview protocol)

Tflese interviews served as a place to confirm or disconfirm my perceptions about how

each intern viewed the specific students in their class. It also served as a final
C0 nversation to discuss each student’s specific learning needs from the intem’s
per S pective. In this instance, I asked several questions that also tied together some loose

threads about interns’ perceptions of how to best use assessment and accommodation for

SL11):)orting students’ learning needs.

75

Classroom Observations and Debriefing Conferences

Classroom observations and the debriefing conferences held after each
observation were a significant source of data in this study. Observations and debriefing
conferences provided a place to discuss and document an intem’s experiences in learning
to meet the learning needs of specific children in the classroom. This provided access to
the specific practices that each intern used in teaching to meet these needs.

Classroom observations. Videotaped classroom observations took place over the
second half of the lead teaching period, beginning at the end of February and continuing
through the end of March. This is the time period of interns taking primary responsibility
for the students and for all activities in the classroom ranging from instruction to
management to parent communication. Classroom observations were scheduled in
collaboration with the intern in order to see a range of content areas and activities.
Observations lasted anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour. There is data on five
observations each of David and Jane and nine observations of Elizabeth (who invited me
in for additional observations beyond the normal requirement of five). Elizabeth’s
observations were shorter because her students were in first grade. The classroom
observations provided the data on whether and to what extent interns were actively
engaging in complex visions of diversity (focusing on more than one aspect of diversity
when engaging in instruction with the students) in the classroom and how they go about
working to meet their students’ Ieaming needs. This was usually noted in reference to
attempts during lessons to meet needs as they focused on particular children in the
context of the activity in class. Additionally, this informed my understanding of how

interns saw their students and what they did to respond to this vision (the evidence of

76

 

their attempts to meet their needs). These observations took place across a range of
subject areas and topics to ensure that the relevance of different student characteristics
came into play (e. g. a student may need special assistance in math due to a Ieaming
disability but do very well in language arts). Classroom observations were videotaped to
serve as a record of what occurred during the lesson and field notes were taken during the
observation and served as a point of conversation during the subsequent debriefing
conversation. Classroom observations also served as a place where data was collected on
students who appeared to have a significant impact on the intem’s learning to teach
(those students who repeatedly appeared in conversations with the interns and
collaborating teachers). This student focus helped to center attention on the specific
students who ultimately were featured in critical incidents in the learning and teaching
process of each intern.

Debriefing conferences. Debriefing conferences were audiotaped and provided
the opportunity to connect interns’ teaching to their talk about their teaching. This served
as the place to probe their ideas and actions and look for connections between what they
thought they did during a lesson and why they believed that they did so. Additionally,
this served as a place to help them reflect on how a certain strategy or approach worked
and to push their thinking on different ways to develop their instruction to be reflective of
the Ieaming needs of all their students. I anticipated that debriefing conferences would
also be a place where context would reappear — how the students or the collaborating
teacher supported or constrained interns’ efforts to learn to teach in this responsive way

and how the interns responded to those supports or constraints.

77

HO

The video and audio tapes of classroom observations and debriefing conferences,
in addition to the artifacts collected through observations in fall semester documented
normal parts of my field instruction practice. They served as sources of data that allowed
me to revisit my own practices with the interns and discern patterns in my responses,
approaches, etc. to develop some ideas about effective or ineffective use of field
instruction practices.

Intern Lesson Plans from Classroom Observations

Lesson plans served as artifacts of the intended and attempted practices of interns
as they planned, taught, and assessed through their instructional cycle, documenting the
types of adaptations they were making for the various learners in their classrooms.
Interns were expected to plan for adaptations and accommodations along a range of areas
(social, academic, linguistic). Lesson plans were collected from each intern at least one
day before the observed lesson so that I could have time to read through it and generate
any questions I may have had for the intern before or after they taught the lesson (a
normal field instruction practice they expected from me). Lesson plans served as
documentation of the intem’s intentions for the activity as the lesson and acted as a
source of data for questions and ideas discussed during the debriefing conference as well
as a source of confirmation or disconfirmation during the data analysis process.
Portfolios

Portfolios created both throughout and at the end of the year serve as a source of
evidence of the intem’s ability as a teacher to impact student learning. Our teacher
preparation team has defined this approach to the portfolio as a programmatic expectation

of the internship experience while recognizing that interns may also have additional uses

78

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for the portfolio. It is not a scrapbook of the year but rather a document that
demonstrates professional approaches to teaching and Ieaming. Because the portfolio
development process is supported through the work of the field instructor, this served as a
natural place to ascertain the intem’s ability to develop, document and explain teaching
practices that are responsive to diverse students’ learning needs. Field notes were kept
that documented the work done together to support interns’ portfolio development
throughout the spring semester. Ideally, if the interns developed practices that were
responsive to student diversity and began to take these commitments seriously, the
portfolio would provide evidence of these commitments.
TE 5 02 Seminar

Weekly seminars, facilitated by me as a regular practice of my field instructor
responsibilities, were held with all seven interns in the building as a means of supporting
their learning experiences in the school context where they were Ieaming to teach. Our
conversations in seminar reflected issues in this study as interns were engaged in close,
careful work with students during the lead teaching period. Access to conversations that
occur as a part of seminar supported an understanding of happenings in the school
context as seen by the three focus interns. Comments made in seminars provided
additional insight that reflected an intem’s understanding of their students and issues
around meeting the diverse needs of an individual student. For example, Jane would
often share stories of her experiences working with the gifted cluster of students in her
classroom. Field notes were written about relevant conversations that occurred at
seminars alter the meetings concluded. Conversations were considered relevant if they

addressed aspects of diversity or mention of students in the three focus intems’

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classrooms. For example, Elizabeth spoke regularly about her work with Sam during our
seminars. I would document these comments when they arose. Field notes were taken
later so that it did not become a distraction to the larger group or the flow of the meeting
since my obligations in this context were to work with and across a larger population of
interns. Because not all interns in the school were participants in the study, seminar
conversations were not audiotaped.
Field Instruction Field Notes

Field notes were collected throughout the semester to document the practices that
I engaged in as the field instructor in working with the interns. These notes were distinct
from the notes taken during classroom observations. These included notes on seminar
conversations that related to the study, conversations around portfolio development,
informal conversations with collaborating teachers and interns on study-related issues,
etc. For example, in my field notes from January 14, I documented a conversation I had
with Elizabeth about some of her goals to meet her students’ varied learning needs in the
context of writer’s workshop. These notes served as an important place to document
impressions of the collaborating teacher’s influence on the practices and beliefs of the
interns that were expressed in informal conversations. Additionally, the notes served as a
place to document ongoing initial ideas and thoughts about the direction of the study.
Student-specific Field Notes

In addition to broader issues of field instruction practice and the happenings at
school documented in the field instruction field notes, student-specific field notes
provided a more focused look at the specific interactions with and about children in the

field placement classrooms for each intern. These field notes ultimately served as a

80

 

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significant source of evidence about the critical incidents in each intem’s classroom as
documented through specific students. However, during data collection, critical incidents
were not identified so as to not limit the possibilities that may surface during the
semester. Regardless of the data source, every time a student was mentioned, I
documented the conversation and context of this material. Field notes were kept that
detailed specific events with children in the classroom documenting the student’s
involvement, the intem’s activity and response and any thoughts that I had upon
reflection on the intem’s teaching and interaction with the child. I documented ideas that
I needed to follow up on as well as questions I had about specific students and the
interns’ interactions with these students. For example, on March 2, I noted in my field
notes on Elizabeth’s students:

I’m wondering what sense Elizabeth is making of the Sam’s behavioral issues in

the classroom in ways that challenge or confirm her understanding of kids of

lower socioeconomic backgrounds as well as what it questions it asks of her

understanding for how children benefit from grade repetition. I’ll continue to

monitor this situation and think about how the situation might continue to

influence her when it comes to Sam. (March 2, student specific field notes)
These notes included observations of the student and intern interaction during an
observation (formal or informal visit to the classroom), any conversation that I had with
an intern focused on a specific child, as well as occasional conversations I had with
collaborating teachers about specific children in the classroom. These field notes served
as data about how an intern worked with and talked about specific children in the
classroom and how they talked about issues related to diversity.

Data Analysis

Initially, each case was analyzed independently. Data analysis began by reading

through field instruction field notes and student-specific field notes with a focus on the

81

overarching research question while attending to each individual intern. Using the sub-
questions as a guide, broad categories were identified in the data focusing on intern
conceptions of diversity, contextual influences/elements, perceptions of field instruction
practice, student-specific interactions, and the intern as a learner. These categories were
revised and adapted by working with interview transcripts to seek confirming and
disconfirming evidence from the participants in the study about their perceptions of these
issues. As I moved through the cases, these categories were refined and the features of
each were more specific. I revisited the first case as new ideas were presented in the
second or third case to ensure that the categories encompassed relevant data from all
cases. Ultimately, the categories were refined to consider certain elements described in
the following statements.

Intern conceptions of diversity included comments they made about their
understandings of diversity from places such as their coursework experiences. For
example, Jane told me several times about what she had learned about cultural diversity
through her TE 250 course as well as her senior-year field placement at a highly diverse
local elementary school. Contextual influences/elements included comments that made
reference to the recent redistricting, the population of students at the school, and interns’
perceptions of the parents and school community. David asked me repeatedly to talk
with him about the situation of the redistricting and to hypothesize with him about the
influence this was having on the teachers. As well, all three interns commented on the
significant presence of the parents in the day to day lives of the classrooms in this school.
Comments related to field instruction practice were either of two possibilities. The first

included comments made in reference to what I did to help interns in some way. For

82

example, Jane commented on the value of the debriefing conferences after the
observations I did of her teaching. The second aspect included any references to our
activity together or specific moves that I noted I made in response to my perceptions of
their needs. Here this included things like finding resources to share to support Jane in
her efforts to differentiate her math instruction or noting that I needed to check in with
Elizabeth about her stress levels after a difficult week in her classroom with Sam.
Student-specific interactions focused on any mention in the field notes of comments or
interactions around specific students in each field placement classroom. The final
category included any references made by the intern or others to the intern as a learner.
This included comments related to how an intern perceived his/her own Ieaming needs or
any reflection on their experiences as one who is learning to teach. For example, David
commented that he was a learner who needed to see things modeled before he could try
them for himself.

The same broad categories were used with the data focusing on collaborating
teachers as well and as categories were refined, the data was reread to ensure that all
aspects were considered. The only significant change focused on the fact that the
collaborating teacher was talking more about the intern than about herself in relation to
some categories (so in the case of the intems’ Ieaming needs, they were speaking on their
perceptions of the intern as a learner as opposed to talking about themselves). For each
case, I engaged in a cyclical process of analyzing and writing about the data. This
included writing analytic memos about each of the findings under the coding categories
for each intern and each collaborating teacher. Memos on each category were compared

and refined by looking carefully at the overlap between the ideas reflected in each. For

83

example, after writing a memo on David’s understandings of diversity, this information
was compared with the memo on Catherine’s (his collaborating teacher) perception of
diversity looking for signs of influence and/or overlap between the two. Memos were
revised to document the new understandings I had as a result of the comparison with the
additional data source.

A second layer of analysis was then done that allowed me to document more
carefully the data related to each intem’s critical incident in learning to teach diverse
student populations. Critical incidents were identified by looking carefully across all
pieces of data to determine prevailing ideas and areas of intense focus in our work. By
looking at the data, it was possible to identify those topics on which we spent the
majority of our time working together. Memos were written about each of these critical
incidents for each of the interns in a case by case approach. This included information
from a variety of the categories of the data about a particular student. The critical
incidents became an analysis tool. This process allowed me to use the broader
understanding of the data developed above to explore more carefully the specific critical
incident that influenced the intem’s experiences in Ieaming to teach diverse student
populations. Analysis was done of classroom observation field notes and debriefing
conferences transcripts to trace the specific elements of work focused on the critical
incident described in each case study (in this instance, a focus on the data pertaining to
interactions around a specific student in each intem’s classroom). For example, David’s
critical incident memos included references to Lucia, the English Language Learner who
had a critical influence on his Ieaming to teach, as well as data on our interactions around

her, contextual elements that influence his experiences (such as his collaborating

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teacher’s approach to helping him with this challenge), and so on. These memos
documented relevant data, possible theories about my findings and implications across
cases that might be pursued as well as questions I had about my findings. In David’s
case, I questioned my interpretation of his actions with and towards Lucia in relationship
to other diverse students in the classroom (e. g. Did David do anything to support Mary or
Ashok’s more advanced English language Ieaming needs?) To write these memos, data
was culled from each of the memos from the earlier stage of the data analysis and
resorted and reorganized to focus on the work and experiences of both the field instructor
and the intern as related to the critical incident identified in each case.

In order to seek confirming or disconfirming evidence, portfolios and lesson plans
for the classroom observations served as data that could confirm or challenge the findings
related to interns’ claims about their performances and teaching beliefs. For example,
Jane’s portfolio was full of references to her beliefs about and approaches to
differentiated instruction, a significant element of her challenge in meeting the learning
needs in her classroom. David’s inquiry project also served as a source of data that could
serve this purpose because his project was focused on teaching ESL students (which was
also the focus of the critical incident in his case). Jane and Elizabeth’s inquiry projects
are not included as sources of data because they did not relate directly to the critical
incidents identified in their classrooms.

This set of final memos on the critical incidents ultimately led to the outline of the
chapter for each intem’s case study. To consider carefully the field instruction practices
that were evident in each case, attention was also paid to Glickman et al.’s (1995)

supervisory behavior continuum to question and challenge my perceptions of my social

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constructivist practices during the analysis phase. Glickman et al.’s continuum provides
a comparative point to interrogate the social constructivist nature of my practices as well
as to serve as one way to identify the specific behaviors I engaged in with each intern.
For example, I was able to use these ideas to name the practices I was engaging in with
David (such as suggesting options for action) and identify when I moved from my social
constructivist stance as a result of what was going on during our interactions around his
work with Lucia, his English Language Learner. Schon’s (1987) work on naming and
framing problems as well as reflection in and on action were used to guide the analysis
from a theoretical perspective. Schon’s work highlights how practitioners learn their
practice and looked at the interactions between mentor (field instructor) and novice
(intern). For example, I was able to use this framework to identify areas when David and
I were succeeding at or failing to name and agree on the problem that he was attempting
to address in the classroom with Lucia. For both Schon and Glickman et al.’s
frameworks, analysis was done that compared my perspectives of the data with their
theories to determine places of overlap and places where my data seemed to move away
from their descriptions. This analysis served to connect my work to the research of the
field and helped to identify broader themes in the study.

After working on each step of the data analysis process on a case by case basis,
cross-case analysis was done to identify broader themes and issues of field instruction
practice that existed across the experiences of the three interns (such as how to provide
support from a social constructivist perspective that also met intern learning needs). For

example, I strived to look across all three cases to identify patterns and activities in my

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own practice that served to be effective without limitations to the context of a specific
classroom.
Study Limitations

There are several potential limitations in this study that could influence the
findings. Some might argue that case study research provides a limited look into a small
set of cases about a phenomenon. Yin (1994) argues that a small number of cases is not
particularly a drawback to the research method of case studies because the purpose of the
method is served by a careful look at the setting in context-rich ways. In this case, I feel
that the trade off is worth it in order to take a deeper look at the specific situations of the
interaction between interns and field instructor. This study provides a more
comprehensive look at the specific activities and interactions between field instructor and
intern (particularly around issues of student diversity) than is currently available in the
research literature of the field.

Additionally, the research setting influences the outcome of the study. In this
case, I chose interns who I felt would be supportive of the research effort in their
classrooms and who would benefit from the additional time and energy spent working
with them. I also chose classrooms where I had positive, standing relationships with the
collaborating teachers who would tolerate the additional presence in their classroom and
could appreciate the dual role I would play as field instructor and researcher. What I did
not anticipate was the influence of the school’s new cluster grouping policy for gified and
special education students4 on the experiences in each of the three study classrooms. All
three of the study classrooms were the site of the cluster, meaning that both special

education and gifted students were placed in the same classroom. It is possible that this

 

’ This policy will be explained in more detail in Jane’s case study.

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new policy influenced the emphasis on certain aspects of diversity as it was represented
in their classroom. I will explore this issue and potential study limitations more carefully
in Jane’s case study on issues of students’ academic learning needs in the classroom.

In this study, one potential limitation is that I was both an insider to the
experience, acting as the field instructor, as well as the researcher of this study. As a
teacher researcher, I feel a commitment to my students as well as to my research goals.
There were times in this study where the research took a back seat to the field instruction
(teaching) practice. For instance, there were several times in each case when my research
interest in how interns were learning to work with and make sense of diversity took a
back seat to more immediate concerns in the classroom context. In Elizabeth’s
classroom, an emergency arose with a student requiring Elizabeth to interrupt a
debriefing conference until later in the day so that she could support her collaborating
teacher in managing the classroom and the student’s situation. Also in Elizabeth’s
classroom, a video taped observation was cancelled and rescheduled in order to support
the parent’s need to video tape a student who was being tested for seizure-type activities.
In this case, I did a regular field instruction observation of the lesson without using my
video camera. Although tangentially all issues are related to meeting students’ Ieaming
needs in classroom situations, moments did arise when I felt a need to worry less about
my personal questions of interest to focus on the needs of the intern and to place my role
as a typical field instructor above my situation as a researching field instructor.

While this inside role might seem a limitation to some in terms of the conflict
between researcher and teacher, I also feel strongly that I could not have completed the

quality of study from a more removed position. Field instruction is a complex task

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focused on the needs of those who are learning to teach. Because the relationships are
key to understanding the ebb and flow of the practice, I would not have been able to gain
access to the degree of knowledge and experience by studying another’s field instruction
practice. Studying my own practice also supported the interns by not intruding on the
relationships of another field instructor and her interns. I would not have had the degree
of access in another field instructor’s experiences and the day to day nuances of the job
and relationships with interns. Given this, I feel that the benefits of studying my own
practice outweighed the costs of trying to be both researcher and teacher at the same time.
To that end, I attempted to make strides to improve the rigor of the study in order
to avoid bias about my own feelings and perceptions of what was going on. During data
collection, I had another graduate student conduct the fall interviews with both interns
and collaborating teachers to bring another perspective into the mix and to protect the
interns’ rights as research subjects. I also conducted interviews about the students in
each intem’s classroom to make sure that my perspectives were or were not accurate
about the sense I was making of what each intern thought about various students. I took a
variety of measures during the analysis process to ensure that the data was reflecting what
I was seeing, limiting my own biases from taking center stage. During analysis, I sought
to corroborate my perspective by comparing intern and collaborating teacher perspectives
of what was going on in the classroom. I also sought outside perspectives in the reading
of various memos and data sets by colleagues (both those with a great deal of experience
with field instruction and those with relatively little knowledge of the practice) to ensure
that my personal experiences and relationships with each intern were not clouding my

judgment about their critical incidents or about the process of Ieaming to teach.

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Chapter four presents the first case study of an intern and his critical incident of
working with Lucia, an English Language Learner. David’s experiences in Ieaming teach
are described as we work together to support his efforts to meet the needs of a newly

arrived English Language Learner during his spring lead teaching period.

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Chapter 4

FIELD INSTRUCTION SUPOPRT FOR DAVID: NAMING AND FRAMING
THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER

David’s collaborating teacher, Catherine, and I considered him to be an intern
who competently completed the internship experience. He learned a great deal about
teaching, effectively utilized quality instructional practices and exhibited the ability to
deal with many of the challenges of teaching. During the fall semester of the internship,
David struggled to step into the teacher role, feeling more comfortable as a friend to his
students. As the semester progressed, David developed appropriate relationships with his
students and placed himself in the teacher’s role, learning to effectively manage the
classroom. It took David longer than the other interns in this study to make the switch
from focusing on himself as he learned to assume the teacher’s role to an emphasis on the
students and their place in the classroom. In the spring, Catherine offered a great deal of
praise for the growth David demonstrated across the year and was quite proud of the
teacher he was by the end of the internship:

I think one word is growth. I mean you know I was a little shaky at the

beginning of the year, thinking ‘ahh!’ And I’m so, so pleased to see how far he’s
come. So that’s it in a nutshell. I’m really happy with where he’s at now (spring,

p. 1).
David took a position teaching third grade in a community an hour from Lancaster
Elementary for the year after the internship.

However, this story highlights a different aspect of his learning process and is an
example of how he struggled to bridge the gap between the cultural/language needs of his
students when those aspects directly influenced or impacted his instruction. Lucia’s

arrival in January was an event that fundamentally altered David’s experiences in

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Ieaming to teach, challenging him in multiple ways. David’s work with Lucia, his new
English Language Learner, serves as an example of a critical incident in learning to teach
that took place during his internship experience. Newman defines a critical incident as
“those occurrences that let us see with new eyes some aspect of what we do” (Newman,
1990, p. 17). For David, working with Lucia complicated his understandings about
teaching all students and my notions of field instruction practice. Her arrival set up a
series of interactions between David and myself about Lucia’s Ieaming needs, serving as
a focus for my work as David’s field instructor. In this chapter, I focus on how he
reflected on her as a student and a member of the classroom as well as my field instructor
responses during our experience together.

Lucia’s arrival was an incident that I consider “critical” because it affected the
remainder of David’s internship and serves as the foundation for this semester-long story.
The chapter is structured around a key theme that emerged from my analysis of David’s
experiences with Lucia and my attempts to support his Ieaming. Naming and framing a
problem (Schon, 1987) is a key skill that teacher candidates must develop. Schon argues
that the problems practitioners face are not “well-formed structures” but rather issues that
require one to “choose and name the things he will notice” (p. 4). In order to work on the
challenging aspects of teaching practice, novice teachers must learn to name and frame
any particular problem that needs addressing in order to propose action to manage the
problem. David’s experiences and approaches with Lucia, as well as my responses and
approaches to working with David, reveal the challenges that we faced as field instructor
and intern that occurred across three phases of the internship: (1) communicating about

and naming the problem that we were addressing, (2) developing and implementing

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curricular and instructional actions to manage the problem, and (3) maintaining a
common focus across the semester on the goals and identity of the problem. I divide the
story into three phases because my analysis showed that there were three critical shifts in
mentoring moves that I took as a field instructor in my work with David. As his field
instructor, I’m a central part of the story of naming and framing David’s work with
Lucia. Examining my moves helps us see how our interaction did or did not move his
teaching and learning forward.

The Story of Our Interactions
Phase One: Negotiating the Naming of the Problem

The first phase of the interaction focuses on our negotiation about the naming of
the problem. How were we identifying and defining David’s goals in working with
Lucia? Schon (1987) suggests, “Through complementary acts of naming and framing,
the practitioner selects things for attention and organizes them, guided by an appreciation
of the situation that gives it coherence and sets a direction for action” (p. 4). Exploring
our work together to achieve this goal is the primary focus of this section.

The secondary storyline addresses how I approached my mentoring practices to
support David’s attempts to understand and name the problem. I explore my practice of
nondirective (Glickman et al., 1995) actions as a field instruction practice that respected
and responded to David’s learning needs and attempts at learning to teach. This was
done while also recognizing my own instructional goal that I wanted David to figure out
how to support Lucia as an English Language Learner and to make a plan to address her
learning needs. I will argue that from my perspective, David and I ultimately appeared to

agree on Ieaming approaches for Lucia that included a focus on both Spanish and English

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Language Learning during Book Club instruction. I will show that this process of

naming and framing took time and involved a range of conversations focused on David’s
Ieaming needs as well as Lucia’s.

Phase one covers January and early February, a period of the internship program
when interns are heavily involved in university coursework (two days a week in January)
and focused primarily on preparing materials for their eight week lead teaching period in
February and March. During this time, interns typically have less responsibility for
teaching in the internship classroom because of their erratic schedules and tight university
coursework deadlines.

Lucia ’s arrival. On my second day back as a field instructor at Lancaster
Elementary after the winter holidays, David informed me that he had a new student in his
classroom who had arrived the week before. Her name was Lucia and she had come to
the United States from Venezuela after spending a year in Spain. Lucia spoke only
Spanish and David was working hard to make sure he sat with her and utilized his three
years of high school Spanish instruction to translate the activities of the classroom. Of
central focus on this day in mid-January were his attempts to translate what the Junior
Achievement guest instructor was doing with the fourth grade children on the economics
of various types of resources.5 Translating all of this into Spanish was a challenge for
David but he was commenting that she was “quite bright” and was “raising interesting
distinctions” with him as they discussed the material. He then proceeded to show me
several examples of what he was doing to help her with the workbook that went with the

Junior Achievement lessons.

 

5 Junior Achievement is a program provided by parents or members of the school area community who
come to public school classrooms and engage children in a series of 4-6 lessons about business and
economics.

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David commented that he and his CT, Catherine, did not just want her to be
sitting there all the time but were not sure what to do with her when she spoke little to no
English and only received English as a Second Language (ESL) services once a week
from a teacher whose primary language knowledge was in Korean (F I field notes, p. 17).
This early comment from David sparked my hope that aggressive efforts would be made
to adapt instruction to meet Lucia’s language Ieaming needs as well as capitalize on
David’s interest in her presence in the classroom.

David acknowledged that it would be a challenge for him to figure out how to
instruct Lucia in meaningful ways. Lucia’s arrival was the critical incident that
introduced our joint process of naming and framing ways that he might support her
learning. This first step at acknowledging the challenge seemed like evidence that David
was starting to explore how to name the problem. As the semester progressed and our
conversations continued, David’s attitudes towards and thoughts about Lucia as a student
became more evident. Three main contexts served to center and focus the majority of our
conversations about Lucia and David’s attempts to learn to work with an English
language learner in the fourth grade. The first two included aspects of the curriculum
related to literacy instruction and science instruction. The third was David’s university
coursework requirement to complete an inquiry project. The first portion of phase one
provided evidence that David was intrigued by Lucia’s needs and showed an interest in
supporting her as a learner while expressing some uncertainty about what approaches
might work best. As a field instructor, this led me to take the nondirective stance of
exploring together his options for Lucia and her English learning needs. While Glickman

et al. (1995) might consider this to be more of a collaborative stance, because I asserted

95

 

no control, power or limitations over his decisions for Lucia at this time I believe this to
be a nondirective approach when used with a novice teacher (who still may need some
ideas about the possibilities available for instruction). At this point, we were both
continuing to try and figure out what the problem was and how we could best name and
frame the problem.

Making choices for a focus. Schon (1987) writes that one must “choose and name
the things he will notice” (p. 4). This section explores how David went through this
process of choosing and naming with my support. One of the early areas where David’s
concern about Lucia as an English Language Learner started to manifest itself connected
to the inquiry project he was required to complete for his graduate level course on
reflection and inquiry (a course that also maintained an emphasis on advanced literacy
methods). His struggle with making choices about what to notice influenced the focus of
his inquiry project. It also highlights how much confusion he ultimately held over how
best to work with Lucia in the classroom, especially during January and the earliest
portion of this phase. However, it also reflects my early sense that there was something
going on here that would ultimately support his attempts to work with Lucia. I was
choosing to focus on Lucia’s needs and his sense of curiosity and range of ideas that he
had for ways he could support her learning during his science unit (focusing on this as his
inquiry project). David was choosing to focus on his coursework assignment with Lucia
as a means to an end in completing that goal. This reflects the power of the period of the
internship in that his primary focus was to consider his own needs as a student.

David emailed me at the beginning of February to ask me to meet with him and

discuss his options for topics for his inquiry project, knowing that a proposal for his

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project was soon due to his instructor. He was frustrated that he did not really know what
he was trying to do and wanted to talk through his ideas. Initially, David had chosen to
focus on the notion of conceptual change during science instruction and how this is
expressed through illustrations; but it quickly became clear to him that his greater need in
terms of his own Ieaming was to focus on ways to support his English language learner. I
encouraged him to make the switch in topic because I was not convinced he had any n
ideas for how to follow through on his science idea. It also seemed clear that this might

encourage a regular focus on and attention to Lucia’s Ieaming needs. He was interested

 

in this idea and it was easy to make suggestions for him in terms of what he was doing to
initially support her and how he might further this in terms of a project (such as specific
attention to how to support an ELL in a fourth grade classroom, how to develop literacy
activities for a single student in the context of 4th grade literacy instruction, etc.)

I was able to use my role as a field instructor in this instance to encourage him to
use an existing course activity as one means of achieving my instructional goal for him
that he learn to teach Lucia English. Although the general flow of my practice in this
phase was to suggest options and support his ideas and choices (a nondirective stance),
here I did choose to exert some power as the field instructor. I opted to more overtly
encourage a particular choice for his inquiry project so as to support Lucia’s learning
needs, feeling a conscious responsibility for her learning as well. This appeared to me to
be a solid first step in Schon’s (1987) process of helping David to select a focus and
through that focus, name the problem as needing to meet Lucia’s learning needs.

When David told me he could not think of a narrow question about Lucia and

English language Ieaming, I recommended he focus on specific strategies that he could

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use to help her in a specific content area. Over the course of our conversation, we
narrowed the focus to science because of his initial interest in this topic as a part of his
inquiry project. He thought this would also give him some time to think through how this
might work because it would allow him to delay starting his inquiry until he taught the
unit at the end of February or beginning of March. This would give him more time to
consider his approaches before beginning to collect data. I suggested he find some
readings as soon as possible that would support him in considering these ideas and help
him think through what he wanted to plan to incorporate in his lessons (this search for
and use of relevant literature is a required component of the inquiry project).
Specifically, I suggested to him that he think about different ways that he could support
Lucia’s science Ieaming as well as her language learning.

I suggested that the first step in doing so would be to find out her knowledge of
the science content he planned to cover (both in English and in Spanish because of his
reasonable fluency in Spanish). At this stage, I was the one who suggested all aspects of
the English language Ieaming component of the inquiry project. David took a back seat
on this aspect and focused more on the science component. We discussed how this pre-
assessment would allow him to design activities that would support his efforts to help
her. He suggested that activities like drawing pictures, having conversations on tape,
listening to tapes, using a website he found that translates, etc. would all be helpful for
the learning process. I was pleased to see that he had a range of Ieaming strategies in
mind and was heartened to believe that he could come up with a variety of approaches

that would be responsive to her English language Ieaming needs. At this point, David

98

 

 

stepped up and began to form a direction for action in order to manage the problem of
how best to meet Lucia’s ELL needs.

By the end of this conversation, I thought we had really centered on a focus for
how he might handle this inquiry project. I felt that I had helped him to see the
importance of considering Lucia’s English Language Learning needs as a part of this
project and that this focus on science instruction would carry over to the larger problem
we had identified in helping Lucia learn English. My way of helping him address the
ELL issues was to provide support through our conversation and affirmation for his ideas
about how to incorporate her needs into his instruction. This was a nondirective
approach to supporting a novice teacher. But, he described himself as a “monkey-see,
monkey-do” learner and stated that he really needed some guidance in doing this type of
work (student-specific field notes, Feb 3). Reflecting back on this, I recognize that the
type of help given likely did not achieve his more concrete desire to have something
modeled for him before he tried it himself. It seems as though David might have
preferred a directive approach to this process (which I find to be problematic given that
this was his course assignment to develop and engage in classroom inquiry). However,
we had made progress in deciding how to name the problem as needing to support Lucia
in learning English in the context of science instruction.

Yet, after this extended conversation about ways to incorporate his interests in the
science aspect of the inquiry project with the need he felt to focus on Lucia’s English
language Ieaming needs, he came back to school the next day having shifted his likely
f0cus. David mentioned that he might narrow his inquiry project focus to how he was

supporting Lucia during literacy instruction in his classroom which would be utilizing the

99

immmmumnl'mmmmn

Book Club instructional model during his lead teaching period. David initiated this
second conversation about his inquiry project with me when I came across him in the
teacher’s lounge during lunch. He wanted to know what sorts of ideas I could give him
on what he should do with Lucia during Book Club. He thought maybe he should
include this in his inquiry project but he seemed really confused and acknowledged that
for the purposes of the course, it was becoming an unnecessarily large project. I
suggested that he focus on Lucia’s work in science to follow his interest and not
complicate this by also including Book Club for the inquiry project.

At this time I thought we were sticking with the original plan to focus on Lucia’s
ELL needs during science instruction. This conversation introduced a period of waffling
back and forth between the two curricular contexts (science and literacy) that highlighted
his semester-long uncertainty with how to develop and scaffold Lucia’s English language
skills — particularly in literacy instruction (F 1 field notes, p. 20 and p. 22). By introducing
Book Club to the conversation, David was beginning to recognize that this focus on
Lucia’s English language Ieaming was the problem he needed to choose and frame in
ways that helped him to meet her needs. The following section highlights evidence that
we were struggling to negotiate and name the problem of Lucia’s English Language
Learning needs (and ultimately, to maintain a focus on one identified problem across the
semester) when the attention shifted to the challenge of including Lucia in Book Club
instruction.

Becoming more focused on literacy instruction. The following description
focuses more closely on the specifics of our joint exploration about how David thought

he might be able to structure or adapt Book Club literacy instruction to incorporate

lOO

 

Lucia's needs into the model. Book Club is an instructional model that has students
reading authentic literature, engaging in whole class conversation and analysis of the
book while also fostering student-led group discussion and personal response (Pardo,
2002). David and I were still struggling to come to some sort of agreement about his
goals and purposes for Lucia during instructional times and we began to focus
specifically on literacy instruction as the central piece of the problem.

Apparently, he had spoken to [the school’s reading specialist] about whether she
had access to any Spanish versions of the Mildred Taylor books that he planned to use
with the rest of the class during Book Club. While she did not have those, she gave
David several other translated sets of books (one English and one Spanish of each of two
different titles —- The Mouse and the Motorcycle [Cleary, 1990] and The Ghost in the
Attic). David later claimed during his inquiry project presentation that he “collaborated
with the reading specialist. She was really helpfirl” (inquiry project presentation notes,
p.l). However, he was not sure how to use these texts in his instruction because he
recognized that these were not at all similar to the texts read by the other students.

David wanted Lucia to have opportunities to read in Spanish because he realized
that she was a capable student from his Spanish conversations with her. David’s initial
idea was that she read the Spanish chapter first and then read the English so that he could
provide opportunities to both languages. However, the book he chose for her was one far
beyond where she was as a reader for the English component of the structure. He thought
he might also be able to adapt some of the Book Club written activities for her to do in
the support of reading these other texts. I expressed my concern that Lucia would miss

out on some of the social support that she might need (e.g. assistance making sense of

101

 

1|.

some aspect of the reading or the written activity she was to complete) because no one
else would be reading that book at the same time. He did find a Spanish translation of
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (one of the books in the Mildred Taylor series that he had
not planned on having the class read; Taylor, 1991) on the web and wondered whether
that would be enough to support her in a Book Club group if he had other children read
this text. We tossed this idea around but since he had not originally planned that any of
the other students would be reading this book it became clear that maybe this was not
really a solution for how to include Lucia.

My attempts as a field instructor up to this point were to support his developing
independence as a teacher and to explore the ideas with him that he generated about how
he might meet Lucia’s Ieaming needs. He would describe an idea and I would play
through the choices, issues and consequences of that idea. For example, when deciding
whether or not to use Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry as a book club text, I helped him to
consider whether this fit with his original goals for the rest of the class by asking
questions about his approach to Book Club, his instructional ideas, and the needs of other
students in the classroom (student-specific field notes, Feb 4). My attempts to support
his novice efforts at planning and adapting instruction for her needs met my own
instructional goal of helping him pursue a plan to meet Lucia’s English Language
Learning needs but also validated my own nondirective, stance to field instruction by
allowing him to socially construct ideas about how to teach.

That said, we entered a debate about his real purposes for Lucia during literacy
time. Talking him through his rationale by asking whether his main point was to have

her reading the content of the Taylor books (and thus finding a way for her to do that in

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Spanish) or Ieaming English at a functional level, he came to the conclusion that, in this
context, the English was more important and so that precluded the necessity of forcing
her to fit into a Book Club book. At the end of the semester, David commented during
his inquiry project presentation, “There’s no way she knows enough English to
participate in our Book Club” (inquiry project presentation notes, p. 1).

Instead, he thought maybe he would use different strategies to support her reading
in English. One idea that he had was to have her read The Mouse and the Motorcycle in
Spanish to give her some age appropriate content to focus on but then I encouraged him
to have her draw and write about it in English with some specific activities that were at a
more basic level (he called them “more like K-l activities”) in English (e. g. working with
words, creating visual dictionaries, using English to label key characters and responses to
the Spanish book, etc.) This seemed to be the final conclusion that he came to for how
he would handle this unit. ...for the moment (student-specific field notes, Feb 4).
Reflecting back on this, I do not believe that David understood the purpose of the dual
approach of Ieaming in Spanish and English. Although I recognized this to be an
educationally valued practice for ELL students (Harper and deJong, 2004; Villegas and
Lucas, 2002), I do not believe that David realized this from a theoretical perspective.
Perhaps as a result of my nondirective approach to my work with him during this phase, I
failed to recognize that he did not share this knowledge with me. Instead, I assumed that
because he was the one who originally proposed this idea for Lucia’s literacy instruction,
he was aware of the rationale for doing so as well as the necessary supports she would

need to engage in this model.

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At this point in the process, I felt that we had come to a conclusion about what he
intended to do to support her Ieaming and that we had successfully named and framed the
problem as his desire to have her learn English. As David later described during his
inquiry project presentation, the main goal was to “get her to learn English as fast as she
can” (FI field notes, April 21). We had named the problem and also began to frame some
ideas about how he would work with this issue in the classroom and in his coursework, I

beginning to set “directions for action” (Schon, 1987, p. 4). I also felt that I had

 

respected his Ieaming process, giving him the time he needed to come to his own
conclusions and to explore and consider a range of options that he felt were viable. And
yet I also felt I provided the kind of support that allowed him to make meaning for
himself while still coming to a reasonable conclusion that showed he recognized his
responsibility for the Ieaming needs of all the students now present in his classroom.
Phase Two: Managing the Problem

The analysis moves to phase two because it appeared we’d come to the
conclusion that David’s primary instructional goal in working with Lucia was that she
focus on learning English. I was now focused on how to support David in addressing
Lucia’s Ieaming of English while also trying to implement Book Club instruction with
everyone else in the class. He was beginning to explore different ways to make this
possible and hypothesize about what he could do in this context to work through this.
Over the course of this phase, my field instruction practices moved from nondirective
approaches to directive approaches where I told him what I would like to see him do to
support Lucia in Ieaming English. I will document that shift in approach and analyze

why I thought it was necessary to move from a more open, nondirective stance to a

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directive approach to field instruction practices. I will argue that David’s struggle with
the complexities of literacy instruction complicated his ability to maintain a focus on
Lucia’s language Ieaming needs as the problem we’d identified as our goal in phase one.
Phase two covered the early portion of lead teaching (February into early March) when
David was taking on increasing responsibility for classroom instruction and all aspects of
running the classroom (e. g. organizing parent volunteers, writing weekly newsletters,
etc.)

David, Lucia and Book Club. In mid-February, students completed the 4th grade
Michigan Educational Assessment Program and then began to learn the Book Club
instructional format with much scaffolding provided for each piece of the model. It was
the first time David had ever worked with the lesson format. He hadn’t seen it modeled
in the classroom because they used the Reader’s Workshop (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001)
instructional format during the fall semester when his CT was responsible for the
majority of the literacy instruction. He did participate in the model in his senior literacy
methods course as a student as well as debriefing and analyzing the model as a future
teacher. On February 19, David began his first Book Club discussion lesson. As the
lesson was beginning and he was getting organized, David came up to ask me what he
should do about Lucia during Book Club. He wrote on his lesson plan for Book Club that
day that she would read the Spanish version of A Ghost in the Attic, then the same section
in the English copy of the book and do the same type of Book Club written response
activities as the rest of the class was doing in English while she did them in Spanish (this
included activities such as prediction, summary, etc). David later said during the inquiry

project presentation that he wanted her to make text to text connections reading

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paragraph by paragraph between the English and Spanish versions of The Ghost in the
Attic (inquiry project presentation notes, p. 1). This was a very limited use of English
and seemed to provide little instructional value for Lucia if she was reading in Spanish
first and writing in Spanish for her response. At the point at which he asked me, there
was no time to make changes before he needed to begin his lesson. He decided to try his
plan and see what happened. This is just one example of a time where David asked for
assistance in deciding what to do with Lucia at the zero hour before a lesson was to
begin. This is also an example of where his instructional plans did not match what it was
that David and I had previously framed as a logical response to his problem of helping
Lucia learn English.

During the lesson Lucia was busy at her own table away from all the other
students, appeared to be on task and to have produced a noticeable amount of text on her
summary page (student-specific field notes, Feb 19). Overall, he later reported that he
was reasonably satisfied with the way the Book Club lesson went because he had never
tried anything like it before but was not convinced that it was anywhere close to where it
has the potential to be once he became more comfortable with the Book Club format. He
had little to say specifically about Lucia’s experiences with the lesson. He seemed
satisfied that she was on task and engaged with a piece of literature during this time
period.

While trying to validate David’s early attempts to try a new instructional model
for the rest of the children in the classroom, I expressed my concern that he do something
more to engage Lucia in Ieaming English if this was his primary goal during this time. I

suggested to him again that he might revisit a range of ideas I had made earlier for how

106

he could utilize the Spanish novel with English writing and response activities (e. g.
engaging Lucia in writing activities such as creating visual representations of characters
in the book and using English to identify and describe these characters). Because this
was the first day of Book Club, I still held out hope that he would restructure his
approach to Lucia’s work during this time. He seemed to recognize that his plan might
not be solid since he asked for help before the lesson. My stance continued to be to
suggest and guide at this stage. However, I was now conscious of the fact that he had
done something for Lucia’s literacy instruction that was not in line with my earlier
understandings of what he had in mind for her learning. I considered this to be
something I needed to keep in mind as I worked with him during future Book Club
lessons.

This was early evidence that David and I held different expectations for how he
would manage the problem. Our versions of the solution were varied in terms of the
amount of attention to English. His attempt to manage the problem relied on her Spanish
language knowledge (and to some extent his) without tackling the more complex issue of
her English language Ieaming in meaningful ways. I was still trying to validate him and
support him in meeting his goals of having her read in Spanish while developing her
English through word and language activities related to her reading. This was an attempt
to seek balance between his need to learn as an intern and my need to help him
understand how to work with an English Language Learner. This tension continued to
build, leading to a shift in my field instruction practices as it became clear that Lucia was

not benefiting in ways that I had hoped.

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Bringing another voice into the conversation: David’s literacy instructor. His
literacy methods course instructor, Laura Pardo, was in the building visiting another
intem’s classroom one morning and she stopped in to talk with David about some aspects
of his literacy unit. I encouraged him to ask her for advice on Book Club methods and
strategies because she was a member of the original design team for the Book Club
instructional model. I also encouraged David to ask her for suggestions and ideas about
how he might support Lucia’s English language learning while he had her engaged in
Book Club instruction (Fl field notes, p. 27). I hoped that this would reaffirm what I was
suggesting to David because he would hear it from another person, and one who I knew
be respected for her knowledge of literacy instruction. When Laura was meeting with
David while the rest of the school as at an assembly, I came in to check and they were
discussing Book Club. I asked him if he had asked her about Lucia, he had not done so
and I got him to do so while I was still there. Laura didn’t think it made much sense to
have her doing the English reading portion of such a complex task in the way that he had
structured the back and forth nature of the work with The Ghost in the Attic. If David
wanted her to be reading in Spanish, Laura was encouraging him to have Lucia use
English to make word books, out up magazines for pictures, draw and label responses to
key vocabulary in the Spanish book, etc. This would allow her to engage in the level of
reading she could do in Spanish but would also have her engage in learning to utilize
English to express herself. This suggestion from Laura was similar to the types of basic
work in written English that I was encouraging in our earlier conversations (student-

specific field notes, Feb 19).

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Additional observations would show that he never took advantage of the
suggestions provided by Laura or reaffirmed by me as valuable ways to begin to engage
Lucia in learning English while still recognizing her ability to do more complex work in
Spanish. This is the point at which it became clear to me that we were not managing this
problem in the same way and that I disagreed with how he was handling this situation. I
felt that I could no longer allow him to continue on like this without making any changes
to his format and began to shift my approach to field instruction from suggesting and
collaboratively working together to make meaning (a nondirective approach) to more of a
directive approach where I was more specific about telling him what I expected to see
him to do support Lucia. I feel that I have a dual obligation as a field instructor — to
support interns in learning to teach but to also work in the best interests of their students.
This was a place where my concern for David’s student required that I shift my
approaches in working with David in the hopes that it might better support Lucia.

Continued resistance/disagreement. During March, David engaged in the bulk of
his lead teaching and had more consistent opportunities to utilize the Book Club model
during his literacy instruction now that state mandated testing, school breaks and snow
days were over. When I made an observation on March 8th of David’s Book Club lesson
on Mississippi Bridge (Taylor, 1992), I questioned in my field notes what Lucia was
doing while the children were in groups having conversations about the book because I
observed her working on something that looked like worksheets (March 8 observation
notes). The following conversation occurred during the debriefing conference about this
lesson. We discussed Lucia’s role in Book Club instruction and how that does or does

not support her English language Ieaming opportunities.

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David: ...this is what I’ve been doing, Alisa, with Lucia during Book Club. I
might have already told you this but she has an ESL packet that [guesses at name
of ESL teacher] whatever her name is, the ESL lady put together. And so I’ve
been either having her work on that to help with her English or whatever.

_ Alisa: ...So you dropped the Ghost in the Attic in the thing?
David: No, I just rotate.
Alisa: Oh, okay.
David: So one day will be that, one day will be read and respond in the packet
[for Book Club].
Alisa: In Spanish?
David: Yeah, in certain ones. Well, I don’t know if she’s catching on or not, but
she’s [whispers something about her attitude], but I thought I could kind of...
Alisa: So you think she’s getting wise to the fact that you don’t know the
Spanish?
David: She probably just realized that I’m not a good speaker. So I’m not sure
whether I should just have her write it in English.
Alisa: I don’t think she has the written English to do it.
David: Yeah, but I don’t have the Spanish to decode it.

This conversation makes it clear that he was not using literacy time to help her learn
English aside from the days when he had her work with her packet or worksheets '
provided by the ESL teacher.6 While he may have engaged in English language
instruction during content area periods to the service of the content area material, this was
the only time out of his day that was designed to specifically support English language
learning during literacy instruction. He also recognized that it was no longer entirely
feasible to engage in this method that he devised for her to do the work for Book Club.

Alisa: But if you want to go back to those ideas Laura was throwing out of
creating word books of words that were in the book or illustrations of key
moments in the text that she then tries to label with English terms like girl
and

David: Ghost.

Alisa: Yeah, yeah. That I think would probably be

David: Something simple.

Alisa: Yeah, yeah.

David: Okay

Alisa: She still has a text to base it on

 

6 Researchers have argued that “the literacy curriculum for ESL students should include more authentic,
meaningful reading rather than less” (Li and Zhang, 2004, p. 97).

110

 

g

II.

David: No, I agree, I just was so excited; I was hoping I could do the actual Book

Club format. I don’t have the Spanish that goes with that book

Alisa: And she’s not, she’s got to be learning English so it’s going to be

whatever it takes

David: Yeah

Alisa: Reading the book in Spanish and doing a basic activity with it in

English would be a nice variation from doing a workbook packet

David: Right

Alisa: For ESL purposes

David: Right

Alisa: So I think it’s still great to have her read the Spanish book because it

does engage her brain in a different way, but you’re just going to have to ask

her to start doing some English things with it.

David: Okay. (March 8 debriefing conference)
It is evident in this conversation that David was still struggling with how to support Lucia
through her adapted Book Club work and hadn’t yet hit on what it takes to have this work
for her. Although David expressed continued interest in and support of cultural diversity
in the classroom, his actions did not match his talk. Yet, his desire to have her continue
to use her native language is one of the strategies valued by experts in English language
Ieaming and culturally responsive teaching practices because continued Ieaming in the
native language does much to support transfer of skills between languages as well as
demonstrating respect for the native languages and backgrounds of children (Harper and
deJong, 2004; Villegas and Lucas, 2002). During his inquiry project presentation, David
commented, “I wanted her also to. . .the whole conceptual. . .how is she doing as a reader
in Spanish” (inquiry project presentation notes, p. 1). This raises the question of whether
or not he knew that this was the culturally responsive thing to do or something that he felt
comfortable with in this situation because Lucia’s first language was Spanish and he
could speak it to some degree.

My attempts to meet him halfway and validate some of his instructional decisions

(having her read the book in Spanish) did not seem to support him in exploring other

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ways to use English in this format. He was still trying to achieve something that was
starting to appear to him to be beyond the scope of reason for instruction when he could
not support her Spanish writing. This would suggest that he would have to alter the
activity to support her English writing needs and yet he made no reference to initial
attempts to do that when he realized that she seemed to know that his Spanish was not
that good. At the same time, it’s clear that he had not taken many of the suggestions
made by Laura or myself for how to support her work in English. Although David said
“okay” to my requests that he do some English work with the novel, additional
observations provided no evidence that he had followed through on this request.

There are two possibilities here. One is that David never really understood the
problem as helping Lucia learn the English language, which is how I’d framed it. His
version of the naming and framing of the problem was substantially different from mine
in some way. The second possibility is that while he understood the problem as helping
Lucia learning the English language (like I did) — and perhaps even understood the
solution (to some degree) as something that required intensive work during literacy
instruction, he could not clearly see how to implement this in a way that would help him
manage Lucia’s specific learning needs as one piece of his larger classroom context.
While David was able to effectively differentiate his Book Club instruction in ways that
allowed a child reading at the first grade level to participate in Book Club with his grade
level peers, he was not able to do this for Lucia.

It became apparent that my attempts to get him to engage Lucia in more work
with English were not effective. Clearly, we were not approaching the management of

this problem — Lucia’s English Language Learning needs — in the same way, to the

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detriment of the student. Schon (1987) argues that our backgrounds influence how we
frame problems. My assumption that we were coming from the same perspective as
educators — a desire to help Lucia learn English in order to succeed in the American
public schools — was clearly not enough of a common ground to assume that we had
agreed on the problem as well as the solution that would help us to manage this problem.
While I can hypothesize that if asked, David would agree with me on the problem, my
sense now is that David did not possess the knowledge or the skills as a novice teacher to
effectively implement a solution that involved extensive support for Lucia’s language
learning. Although I had shifted to a directive approach where I was telling him what to
do and working to be more explicit with my expectations, my field instruction practices
still failed to have the input that I would like to have seen in helping him to adapt and
improve his instruction. In the next phase, the focus of our conversation and work
together shifted because of comments that David started to make which highlighted some
of his thoughts about Lucia’s behavior and attitude that concerned me.
Phase Three: Redefining the Problem as a Field Instructor

Phase three began when it all started to appear to fall apart in terms of our
progress with David’s work on Lucia’s ELL needs. Increased attention and time for
Lucia from the ESL teacher provided by the district seemed to shift David’s focus from
Lucia’s ELL needs during literacy instruction. He put the responsibility more on the
shoulders of the ESL teacher.7 Additionally, during this phase, David increasingly
commented on Lucia’s behavior and attitude as a student in ways that concerned me as a

field instructor. My stance moved from direct guidance on what he might do to support

 

7 A lack of communication and awareness of what the other is doing to support an ELL student is common
between ESL and classroom teachers (Li and Zhang. 2004).

113

 

Lucia during literacy instruction to redefining my instruction to focus on David’s
responses to her behavior and comments on her attitude. By offering him opportunities
to reflect on what was going on in the classroom as well as letting him know how his
ideas were coming across, my instructional goal was to deal with these responses in ways
that made him more aware of the connection between his actions as a teacher and her
behavioral responses and attitude as a student in his classroom. Phase three covered the
last portion of lead teaching as David began to complete his instructional units and began
to phase out of primary responsibility for the classroom and the students. During this
phase, interns also began to work on portfolios, prepare for interviews and reflect on the
year’s experiences.

Focusing on behavior and attitude. During a debriefing conference in March, we
revisited Lucia’s behavior during the mini-lesson that the whole class was having about
characters and point of view in Mississippi Bridge before engaging in Book Club group
work. It appeared to me during the observation that she might have been reading a
Spanish version of a book from the Goosebumps series for children. He seemed to lack a
solution or even ideas for how he might address the challenge of having her doing her
own work while the rest of the class was engaged in something else. Our discussion of
her behavior was an initial indication of a shift towards David’s focus on her behavior
and less on his instruction or her Ieaming.

Alisa: Hey, what was Lucia doing during the discussion?

David: I don’t know.

Alisa: She was reading this.

David: Actually I did see that.

Alisa: Spanish Goosebumps.

David: That’s so hard, Alisa, I don’t know what to do.

Alisa: Well, I just wondered about having her go ahead and get started on
her own Book Club stuff. She’s not listening to and getting into the

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_ "'9'"

discussion, which she really can’t because what does she know about the

point of view of these characters? [Since she’s not reading the same book as

the rest of the class] Going ahead and saying it’s Book Club time, get started.

David: Get started while we’re discussing

Alisa: Yeah, yeah. Because then she’d have a half hour instead of 15

minutes.

David: Yeah, it’s kind of, yeah and sometimes I think about that. Other times she

fits in, you know? It’s like she’s normal. (March 8 debriefing conference)
This conversation illuminates some of David’s challenges in working with his own
understanding of reasonable expectations for Lucia when he comments that sometimes
she fits in and sometimes she doesn’t meet the typical expectations for the classroom. He
commented that he did not “know what to do.” At the time, I took this to mean that he
did not know how to handle her behavior and encourage her responsibility for working
independently. I responded accordingly and focused on how he needed to direct her
activity in ways that supported on task behavior. Reflecting back on this through
analysis, David may actually have been acknowledging his uncertainty about the larger
issues of educating an English Language Learner. His ambivalence and confusion seems
apparent when he says, “Other times she fits in, you know? It’s like she’s normal.” I
view this use of the word normal as problematic because it alerts us to an inability to
manage the problem in the same way as I had understood it. He had not reconciled
himself to her specific needs or the idea that it was his responsibility to ensure the
necessary accommodations were available to support her as a learner in the classroom.

This demonstrates one of two possibilities. The first is that that he did not
successfully step into the role of being Lucia’s teacher and seemed to want her to
conform to the norms of the classroom without recognizing how that may or may not be

possible for her during different periods of the instructional day. The second is that he

realized that this was his role but was unable to enact this role in ways that positively

115

 

impacted the situation. While it is typical of novice teachers to teach to the group,
without recognizing individual learning needs, I had hoped that he would tackle this
additional challenge because of his earlier enthusiasm about Lucia’s presence. His
attitude towards her left me worried that he continued to make little progress in his work
with her when it challenged his plans or methods for the rest of the students. It also
indicated that perhaps his more positive responses towards her and comments about her
were masking some underlying attitudes towards English Language Learners in the
classroom (Allington and Walmsley, 1995; Harper and deJong, 2004; Li and Zhang,
2004)

Leaving the focus on literacy instruction behind. During a March 23 debriefing
conference about a science lesson I had observed, David alluded to Lucia’s continued
challenges in Ieaming English and the support from home as well as the increased ESL
services she would be getting because a new teacher would be taking over Lucia’s
support. David seemed relieved that she would be receiving additional services and
from a teacher that he perceived to be more interested in Lucia and more engaged in
helping her to learn. This further supports the idea that David was disassociating himself
from the problem as I’d understood it to be defined earlier, that he needed to learn to help
Lucia with learning English as a part of his literacy instruction in the classroom. In this
case, he was able to hand over the problem to someone else who he viewed as being
responsible for teaching Lucia English and remove the feeling of responsibility from his
own shoulders. David also failed to recognize the potential of the ESL teacher as a
resource for his own Ieaming about how to support Lucia in the regular classroom.

David: Yeah, we were talking with her mom and dad that her attitude, even at
home in trying to learn English is not, not so hot but it’s getting better.

116

Alisa: Did you have her conference yesterday?

David: Yeah. It was we were thinking that, you guys moved me away from
Venezuela, I don’t want to learn the language, I want to go back to Venezuela.
Alisa: Oh she does?

David: So, I’m getting a little tired of this game. [. . .] Even the ESL teacher, do
you know [new ESL teacher], she’s an Asian lady? [. . .] I just know that [new
ESL teacher’s] still going to work with Lucia and do good stuff and she actually
wants to come twice a week.

Alisa: And how often does she go to her?

David: To [former ESL teacher]? Just, every Friday and so now she’s going to
get, instead of one hour a week she’ll get two hours a week. [. . .] Which is very
awesome. (March 23 debriefing conference)

‘1‘"!

This conversation included the second reference that David made to the fact that he now

questioned Lucia’s attitude and implied a connection between her attitude and her

 

classroom performance. Earlier, he questioned her attitude in response to whether she
was getting wise to the fact that his Spanish was not as good as he had hoped it would be
to get through the year together. At this point, he questioned her willingness to try and
her desire to learn as well as his increasing frustration with “this game.” It also appeared
that he was choosing to not engage her in situations that he felt would force a
confrontation by requiring her to do something he thought she didn’t want to do. By
April, in the final interview with me, David described Lucia as “a sweet girl, but a little
conniving” (spring interview, p. 15). This instance of suggesting that she was unwilling
to try and implicating her desire to learn, by accusing her of playing a game with him,
seemed to me to be a case of blaming the victim. This was where his inability to see and
implement a solution that would help him to manage his work with her in the classroom
could be attributed to her attitude and less about his uncertainty or confusion about what
might work best. By washing his hands of responsibility for her because the new ESL
teacher would pull her from the classroom more often (and for more time), he was able to

remove himself from the equation. He made no mention of his own responsibility to

117

 

 

work with her or to build on whatever the ESL teacher was doing with her during their
time together. David commented during his inquiry project presentation at the end of the
semester that they had Lucia making extensive use of the work provided by the ESL
teacher, “For academic work, she was doing those oral language packets 50% or more of
the time” (inquiry project presentation notes, p. 1).

Enforcing expectations for Lucia. On March 25, I observed another Book Club
lesson in David’s classroom. During the first few minutes of the lesson, Lucia was not in
the room. She eventually returned. I assumed during the observation that she was at an
ESL class because the majority of her work with the ESL teacher was occurring during
classroom literacy instruction times. The following conversation occurred during our
debriefing conference and highlights David’s lack of awareness about what Lucia did
when returning to the room.

Alisa: Where was Lucia?

David: Uh, ESL....Did I tell you she gets that twice a week now? Tuesday and

Thursday which we said yeah, go for it.

Alisa: And then was she working on her ESL while you were doing science?

David: Yes. Oh, I don’t know.

Alisa: Because she was sitting over there looking like she was doing her own

thing and I just wondered

David: I didn’t notice. (March 25 debriefing conference)

When Lucia returned from her ESL instruction, she went to the classroom library and
stood there touching many of the books. Eventually she stopped doing this and went
behind David’s desk and was hanging out back there spinning in his desk chair. David
came up to her after she has been there a few minutes to ask her to get started on her ESL
work. Lucia left to retrieve a folder but eventually returned to sit with the folder and do

her work at David’s desk (March 25 observation field notes). Perhaps he was too focused

on what he was doing during this time to notice Lucia’s return, but it seemed to me that

118

he also did not notice a number of distracting behaviors that she engaged in upon her
return that would have been more likely to draw his attention. I questioned whether it
was really possible to ignore all that she was doing or whether it was simply easier to let
her entertain herself while he was in the throes of something else with the rest of the
students.8 This concerned me because of the possible underlying implications of his
attitude towards her.

David had not succeeded in consistently implementing the earlier
recommendations I made about ensuring that she was quickly focused and on task with
her learning activities. Because we had discussed this previously, I had hoped to see that
he was attentive to how his reactions as a teacher influenced her as a learner and that he’d
need to see that she was engaged and on task with the lesson at hand. My directive
behavior did not change but the focus of my concerns moved. Here I had shifted my field
instruction towards his attitudes and approaches with her in a management sense because
these communicated some powerful, often unspoken messages about her place in the
classroom and his responsibility towards her as her teacher. Holding her to the same
expectations for work and behavior as the other students was one significant area that he
was beginning to struggle with as she became more comfortable and he had to work
harder to balance this. I began to push hard on issues related to Lucia in all conversations
that we had about what was going on in his classroom regardless of topic or focus,
instead choosing to consistently ask him about what she was doing, how it was going
from his perspective, etc. This identified a shift in my focus on the problem as well. I

was no longer focusing as heavily on her English language Ieaming needs and instead

 

8 Li and Zhang (2004) found a similar pattern for an ELL student when there were no appropriate
instructional materials available to help the teacher direct the student’s Ieaming.

119

 

focusing on all aspects of her involvement in the classroom as well as his response to
them — and to her as a member of his class for whom he bore responsibility.

It is important to note that Lucia was expected at all times to participate in the
content area instruction that was going on in the classroom, especially David’s science
unit on plate tectonics that was occurring at this time. While novice teachers are often
unable to focus on the actions of individuals in the classroom while focusing on their
instruction and teaching to the whole group, David was successful in having all other
students besides Lucia complete their Book Club work and transition to their science
lesson. The following conversation indicates how unaware David was of what she was
doing during some science instruction that was held immediately after the Book Club
lesson. He did not help her make the transition between the two lessons and redirect her
to participating with the rest of the class as is expected of her during science lessons.

Alisa: But I was just thinking that you might want to make sure when you
change topics that Lucia knows you’re changing topics too.

David: See, and ugh [makes frustrated sounds]

Alisa: Something that just says we’re doing science now and during science
you participate.

David: Okay.

Alisa: Or some clue

David: I’ll be honest with you. In previous science lessons, I’ve had that before,
I’ve said okay switch and she understands that. She knows not to do work [. . .]
What do I do?

Alisa: Take it away from her [referring to other things she’s trying to do
during lessons instead of paying attention and participating].

David: Yeah.

Alisa: I mean treat her the same way you would treat everyone else.

David: She’s so sweet.

Alisa: When a lesson is going on that you want her to participate in...
David: I know.

Alisa: She does it.

David: She’s just going to try to get away with it every time.

Alisa: I mean you can’t

David: It’s just hard. [...] She can, and I know she can pick, she will be picking
up bit by bit little things of English even when I’m talking about science. She can

120

 

 

pick up little parts of that so. . .I think that’s a good idea I just. . .it’s tough you

know? Especially when you have a sweet girl, cute, never would hurt anybody,

you know, stop! Listen to science, you know?9

Alisa: But you’ve thought that about some of the others at the beginning of

the year and you got over that real fast. I mean when you think about it in

terms of [...] your own learning curve. (March 25 debriefing conference)

Later in the lesson, as they were copying some study guide information from the
overhead, David went to Lucia and told her to move so that she could see the overhead
screen in order to copy the material that was up there (March 25 observation field notes).
It should be noted that Lucia was assigned to sit in an area of the classroom that often put
her behind the teacher as David or Catherine moved forward from the front-center part of
the room to talk with other children and was somewhat in a comer of the classroom
seating area.

Alisa: I appreciated the fact that you moved Lucia. I thought that was a

good move. To make her make that...

David: Yeah, her attitude, we’re starting to notice that more.

Alisa: I couldn’t tell from what she said to you, but I got the sense that she

didn’t want to move.

David: No.

Alisa: Was she working on the sheet (for the science lesson)? [...] Before you

moved her?

David: Nope. (March 25 science lesson debriefing conference)

While he considered her to be a “sweet” individual, he also seemed to consider
her to be somewhat manipulative as a student. He seemed inclined to cut her some slack
in behavior and meeting her responsibilities based on her English language Ieaming
status and did not seem willing to be the one who pushed hard and said, as the teacher,

what needed to happen. He again mentioned her attitude and he referred to her resistance

to do as asked as demonstrated through her attitude. However, he also structured the

 

9 Earlier in the year, David struggled with his teacher role and the issue of being “friends” with his students.
Throughout the year, David continued to speak regularly about his students in endearing terms like sweet,
kind, etc. regardless of gender. 1 interpret this comment as a general reference to his impression of the
student and not evidence of any bias on his part for or against students in the classroom.

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”—v —_-._ a.

classroom, and in this case - her seat assignment, to support an attitude of disengagement
and disassociation with the classroom and Ieaming activities. Her position in the
classroom allowed her to disengage and to ‘hide’ from his line of sight by doing nothing
other than staying seated and attempting to not draw attention to herself. He enabled her
resistance to participating in what was going on as well as creating structures for helping
her to avoid. It appears that his behavior was contributing to the situation that he found
so exasperating as he expressed earlier as well as implicitly endorsing her behaviors that
were ones he considered manipulative.

Perhaps this also contributed to her behavior during Book Club. Because she was
not expected to participate in the same activities as the rest of the class, it was likely to
feel easier to try and get out of something that she was not interested in doing in another
area of the curriculum. At the time, it felt to me as though he was enabling her to have a
bad attitude, to choose not to participate in things that she found less than interesting
because he was unwilling to confront her behavior that he did not like and do something
about it that would force the confrontation with a student who was “sweet.” I redirected
my field instruction practices towards getting David to enforce the same expectations and
practices that he expected of all students when it came to issues of behavior and
participation in content area work. On reflection, it may be that he was simply confused
about what to do to make this situation work. In this case, he was willing to settle for the
fact that she was quiet and was not disturbing the Ieaming of the rest of the class.

Phase three of the lead teaching period became a period where David and I
appeared to no longer be communicating about the same things. In this case, I shifted my

field instruction practice to meet what I thought David was doing and where I felt like he

I22

was going with some of his comments about Lucia’s behavior and attitude in the
classroom. I continued to be directive in my approach but shifted the focus of my
comments. No longer were we negotiating a problem about how to best meet her English
Language Learning needs in the classroom. It felt to me as though we had taken a major
step backwards and were dealing with more fundamental issues related to helping David
accept and accommodate her presence in his classroom. My attention shifted over this
period to focus more on how he was helping her in the classroom, how he was including
her in activities and what behaviors of his were contributing to her attitude and behavior.
Shifting the focus to his role as a teacher and leader of the classroom moved us away
from Lucia’s English Language Learning needs, effectively renaming the problem from
my perspective and taking us back to square one. The terrain of our problem had more
assumed pitfalls and implicit gaps than either of us realized from the start of the naming
and framing.
Mixed Successes

While the bulk of this story documents a challenging situation that did not
ultimately come to the desired conclusion that I held for David’s Ieaming to teach, there
were moments of success. For several possible reasons, David’s science instruction
better supported Lucia’s learning than most other aspects of the daily curriculum and
learning environment. As described during his inquiry project, David recognized the
value of using visuals in the classroom and was aware of instructional benefits that came
from doing this in support of Lucia’s language Ieaming needs (Echevam'a et a1, 2004;
Harper and deJong, 2004). In science, this seemed to be easy for David because it was

something that he already felt he needed to do to make the complex concepts of plate

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tectonics concrete and visible for all of his students. One distinct possibility is that Lucia
simply benefited from that which he already thought he ought to do.

From early in the year, David seemed to have a better grasp on science instruction
and showed more interest in figuring out how to work with conceptually difficult
teaching models and strategies. Once he got a good start on this in the fall, there was
extensive motivation on his part to engage his students in high quality science instruction.
While a number of the examples shared above document inattention to her behavior
during science instruction, David also was aware of her participation in many science
activities, commenting that “during our group experiments she was always participating”
(inquiry project presentation notes, p. 1). He was able to connect her participation to
exactly those activities which he felt would be beneficial visual representations to support
her Ieaming.

On March 30, David showed me Lucia’s science test for the recently completed
unit on plate tectonics. He was very proud of how well she had done and made sure to
tell me so. He was showing me the short answer parts of the test in particular and was
interested in showing me how each of her English answers, while choppy and
incomplete, were accurate representations of the knowledge of the unit. When describing
the success he felt that he and Lucia had with this test, David said:

I know with Lucia, when we did her science assessment, 1 never answered a

question for her, like give her the answer, but I would sit and try to say, okay this

is what this word means. You know? Plate tectonics, no, I didn’t even do that
because that was a big concept she needed to do. But um, you know the word
vibrate, okay this means shaking the table. You know I changed it with her a little

bit but [not much]. (student interview, p. 8)

The next day, David again sought me out for the purposes of showing me her test and

talked with me again about how pleased he was with how she’d done on it. He went to

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great lengths to document for me how her English answers connected directly to specific
scientific ideas he’d taught (field instruction field notes, p. 40).

While this was a story of some success for David, it was still an area where my
impact was limited. Although I felt that I had provided extensive support to David in his
first science unit in the fall, discussing ideas for pre-assessments, unit activities and
experiments, Lucia was not present in the school at that time and so was not a part of our
efforts to support David in this instance. However, in the spring unit on plate tectonics
David commented that he had not pre-assessed her knowledge:

Yeah, and [. . .] I wonder [. . .] if I should get Catherine to teach a lesson and

audiotape a discussion with her [Lucia] and try to find out where she’s at because

I’ve been doing all these hands-on things but maybe it’s like, maybe she’s, maybe

I’m the Charlie Brown teacher to her, “Waa, waa, waa.” [laughter] Not knowing.

(debriefing conference, March 25, p. 9)

Early in the semester, while discussing his inquiry project, I encouraged him to engage
her in two pre-assessments to find out what she knew about plate tectonics. One would
be in Spanish to see what she might have already learned on this topic. The second
would be in English to see if she recognized any of the vocabulary or primary concepts of
the unit (student-specific field notes, Feb 3). This approach supported his earlier interest
in using her Spanish to support her English Ieaming (Harper and deJong, 2004; Villegas
and Lucas, 2002). However, this period of the semester was also when I utilized a
nondirective approach to field instruction. My ideas were presented as options in a range
of possibilities, not mandates for action. This comment indicated that he either did not
take the earlier advice given about finding out exactly what Lucia did/did not understand

about the scientific concepts he planned to teach prior to instruction of the unit or was not

monitoring her Ieaming as the unit continued to progress. Without the pre-assessment

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knowledge, it was difficult to help him figure out how much of the Ieaming growth that
occurred in the unit was due to his instruction and how much was related more to her
ability to understand more English about a topic she already grasped. My field
instruction practices felt limited in this instance, even though he was proud of the overall
work that she did in the unit, because I was unable to help him see how it mattered that he
find out what she was capable of as an English Language Learner before going
continuing this far into instruction. Given what I learned about David, I recognize now
that my field instruction stance of social constructivism may have complicated matters.

Never did David offer up any of Lucia’s work in Book Club or other areas of
literacy instruction as examples of her work or his instructional successes. In literacy,
David expressed more concern over the curriculum, the instructional models, and the day
to day reality of how to help students learn.
A Final Look at David ’s Talk about Lucia

Two final pieces of data document some of David’s perspectives on Lucia and his
talk about having an English Language Learner in his classroom. The final period of the
internship focused on the development of the professional portfolio and the inquiry
project as a completion of the graduate level coursework taken during the internship. His
talk in both of these places was mostly positive when he was removed from the reality of
his day-to-day work with Lucia.

In his portfolio, David documented his experiences with Lucia in the area of
math. There was no mention of explicit attention to her English Language needs in the
areas of literacy, neither reading nor writing. David wrote of his work with Lucia,

“Because I can understand some Spanish, I modify my English Language Learner

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student's tasks so that I know if she understands the main concepts in our math unit. By
using illustrations, both text and student-made, she was able to communicate her ideas to
me with minimal language barriers.” Here his primary example relied on how he used
visuals to create learning opportunities, an effective strategy for English Language
Learners to bridge the gap to content area work. The same is true of what he claimed in
his inquiry project presentation for what he successfully did in science. However, there
was not any other reference beyond use of visuals to concrete approaches to English

Language instruction during the remainder of his portfolio or included in his inquiry

 

project presentation.
On the 21St of April, I attended David’s inquiry presentation with a group of his
classmates and had the opportunity to hear him reflect on his experiences with working

Lucia across the semester. He chose to focus on Teaching an ESL Student across the

 

curriculum instead of in only one content area. I compiled notes on his presentation as he
gave it and did not audiotape this presentation because we had not agreed on my doing so
prior to the experience. David reflected back on his early thoughts about Lucia’s arrival
into his classroom. He said he remembered thinking, “Oh boy what are we going to do?”
when Lucia showed up. David described Lucia to his audience saying that she had “a
good attitude, good humor” and that she “wanted to fit in so that’s a good sign.”
Nowhere did he mention his impression that she played games or that she was somewhat
conniving or manipulative in the classroom. The surface level of his discussion of
teaching an English Language Learner in the classroom made it appear as though he

thought he was expected to provide a glossy, successful image of the ELL process at

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work, perhaps to please his instructor. Yet, he never got to the point of synthesizing his
successes into a meaningful, reflective teaching practice.

By the end of the semester, David said he realized that when it came to working
with English Language Learners in the classroom, “You can still do, you can still do it.
You just have to fit it into your plans. Like in science, I just went visual, lots of pictures
and activities.” Even at the end of the semester, David failed to use the inquiry project
presentation and paper requirement as an opportunity to get inside the problem and
explore possible solutions to having an English Language Learner in the classroom.

The Complexity of the Case

David faced similar challenges of meeting several other students’ learning needs
in the classroom, though none that were as complex as Lucia’s story. Because Lucia did
not come until January, there is no fall semester data commenting on the challenges
David faced working with ELL in the classroom that matches the complexity of this
example. However, there was reference in the field instruction field notes about two
students in the classroom who have different home languages. Catherine and David had
begun to realize that Mary [Chinese] had more difficulty with written language than they
had perceived. They came to this conclusion because they met Mary’s mother and
discovered that she spoke very little English. They determined that they needed to do
more to support Mary in English language use in the classroom and shared this concern
with me. They also commented that they were beginning to identify similar issues of
written English language use for Ashok [Indian] and that they would need to
accommodate these needs (Harper and deJong, 2004). This conversation occurred in

early November as Catherine and David were preparing for parent teacher conferences

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and documenting notes on the students (field instruction field notes, Nov 3, p. 10). After
this time, there was no more mention made to me of specific efforts taken to support
Mary and/or Ashok’s newly identified needs in the English language. This description of
two other incidences helps to identify a pattern of a tendency to deal minimally with
English language Ieaming issues if the child is otherwise thriving in the classroom.

The real question here is, “Why did this not go better?” How come we were
unable as intern and field instructor to communicate effectively about an important
problem and work together to implement a solution to help David manage Lucia’s
English Language Learning needs in the classroom? This section explores why a social
constructivist stance towards field instruction both did and did not work out well here,
considering what opportunities it offered David and what limitations it imposed on our
work together as well as his Ieaming. This revisits issues of Schon’s (1987) notions of
naming and framing as well as the needs of individual teacher candidates as learners in
the process of Ieaming to teach. Schon recognizes that, “Often, situations are
problematic in several ways at once” (p. 6). In this case, there are several tensions in the
larger context of helping David learn to teach through the use of field instruction
practices. This section discusses David’s needs as a learner, and the resulting matches
and mismatches between his needs and my field instruction practices. This discussion
continues the exploration of how we were unable to successfully name and frame the
problem for our work together. Implications for field instruction practice in helping

interns to learn to work with English Language Learners in the classroom are considered.

 

 

David as a Learner
Just as children in public schools have specific learning needs, so too do adults.
In this case, David was fairly cognizant of his learning needs and expressed these at
various times over the internship year. When talking about the way he and his CT
interacted, David came up with the following description of himself as a learner and how
Catherine had worked with that:
“It seems like towards the beginning of the year it was just strictly [. . .] - I kind of
talked to her about this - I felt like I wanted to, for as long as I could, just stay in
the comer and soak up everything. But, she’s like... I have a good analogy. I
told her I don’t know how to swim so let me get some waders on, some floaties.
And she was good at that. Just like a parent who is trying to get their kid to not be
afraid of the water, eventually you have to take them in. And she kind of did that
and she was always right there. In case she knew that I wasn’t comfortable with
something she was always right there to step in. And now it is at the point where
I can do, if I want to ever do a lesson, feel free, or “David, how ‘bout you take on
this newspaper?” Okay. I think I can do it now. (Fall interview, p. 8)
Yet in the spring, David acknowledged this approach to his learning to teach and
recognized the value of Catherine pushing him to take more responsibility and try more
activities in the classroom throughout the year:
You know I was dilly dallying around the bush. I told Catherine so much about
don’t throw me in the pool; I don’t know how to swim. She did pretty good
through September and when it got more to October it was okay, you’ve got to do
it. [laughs] And it was fine; it was good, I’m glad she did. (spring interview, p. 3-
4)
He recognized that he needed the push to go ahead and try new things and explore this as
a part of the field-based experiences of Ieaming to teach.
David described himself as a “monkey-see, monkey-do” kind of learner who
needed to see activities and teaching approaches modeled for him before he attempted

them for himself (student-specific notes, Feb 3). Both Catherine and David described

him as someone who wanted to talk a lot about what he was seeing and experiencing in

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the classroom to support his understanding of what was going on with his learners (Fall
interviews with Catherine and David). Catherine and I discussed his need for structured,
guided learning during the spring interview as an aspect of this approach to learning:

Alisa: Because he strikes me as someone who without that structure, because

he was constantly asking you for structure, if you weren’t giving him

structure for whatever reason, he would come ask and me how do I figure
this out? How do I make this fit?

Catherine: Yeah, yeah I think he needs those boundaries. He’s got great

questioning. He’s a good wonderer, but we, he just needs to make sure he’s

steered on the right course. That’s why I hope next year, [. . .] I hope he’s
somewhere where he’ll have mentors who will do that for him because he can be

an awesome teacher. He really can be (spring, p. 3).

This section explores how David’s needs as a learner intersected with challenges
of teaching Lucia, the university coursework and internship program expectations,
Catherine’s (his collaborating teacher) approach to literacy instruction, and Catherine’s
and my responses to these learning needs. The potential causes for David’s uncertainties
over literacy instruction — and in particular for an English Language Learner — reside in
several areas and correlates to his Ieaming needs in multiple ways.

Coursework and program expectations. There are several aspects of the
university’s teacher preparation program structure that relate to this issue. In the fall,
science and social studies content areas receive intensive attention as the focus of the
university coursework for the semester. David was required to plan and teach units in
both areas as a part of this coursework and received instructor support to do so during this
time period. David’s exposure to formal literacy instruction during this period was more
limited, although there was a literacy practicum that he was expected to complete as a

step towards preparation for spring coursework in literacy and increased teaching

responsibilities. This practicum required that he complete a series of activities in the

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classroom that were structured to scaffold his exposure to and awareness of literacy
issues, materials and practices in his classroom. Although David engaged in some
limited teaching opportunities in the area of literacy during the fall semester, his comfort
level with this was simply not as high during spring lead teaching as it was in science.

The timeline of this study overlapped the intems’ increasing responsibility for all
aspects of the teaching experience, a period referred to as lead teaching. During the
spring semester, the interns have the opportunity to teach all content areas at the same
time, take on the additional tasks of the classroom (such as weekly newsletters and parent
communication), and maintain this responsibility for a period of eight weeks. For field
instructors, this time is also a period of increased expectations, searching through
classroom observations and formal as well as informal conversations for evidence that
interns are able to successfully manage this responsibility for teaching and classroom
policies. For collaborating teachers, including Catherine, this is a time of pulling back
and allowing the intern to take the increased responsibility for the classroom, including
primary interaction with students and all instruction.

The challenge for David was that Lucia showed up at the beginning of the spring
semester when expectations were increasing and his responsibility for aspects of the
classroom increased. Because the other students in the classroom who were English
Language Learners were not novice speakers, this was not something that David had seen
Catherine addressing during the first portion of the school year. In some ways for David,
the timing of this situation was unfortunate. Because of the type of learner that David
claimed to be, the timing of this situation complicated his ability to learn in the ways that

he felt were most successful for him. Since lead teaching was moving into high gear and

132

 

Catherine was pulling back and providing increased responsibility for David, he did not
have the opportunity to see Catherine model how she would accommodate the needs of
an English Language Learner in the regular classroom activities and instruction.

His classroom context. David’s collaborating teacher chose to use the
instructional model of Reader’s Workshop during the fall semester and Book Club as the
instructional model during the spring semester. While this approach to literacy in the
fourth grade gave David an opportunity to explore two different instructional models, his
exposure to Book Club in this particular classroom with these particular children was
nonexistent at the time he began attempting to implement it himself. While David had
experience with Book Club as a student during his senior year methods course in literacy,
this did not seem to carry over to his practices and understanding of the model in this
particular fourth grade classroom or provide insight into how students might respond to
Book Club. He struggled with the reality of implementing this instructional model with a
range of diverse learning needs present in the classroom and varied student reading levels
that went from first grade to tenth grade. David recognized this struggle that he faced
and was able to connect some of this tension to his sense of himself as a learner:

Alisa: Looking back on it, is there something you wish had happened in the

fall that didn’t happen but now that you’ve had the spring you wish you’d

know?

David: Yeah, I can see how book club is supposed to work. You already know

me as a learner. I like to see how things are done. [. . .]I don’t know how much

they took out from book club, I don’t know, Alisa. (spring interview, p. 4).

He seemed to use this as a rationale for why it might not have gone as well as he would
have liked; that lack of understanding of what he was trying to create interfered with his

ability to really pull off a great unit. And yet, he admitted that he was able to do this in

science without any modeling of the science lessons or units. Perhaps this was due to the

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t—ZI- ...“ .

fact that he was able to see other science units and that fundamentally, only the content
was different this time and not the instructional approach. Later, he went on to comment
that he could have done more with Book Club to make it challenging and “a bit more
fun” for his gifted students but acknowledges, “But that’s kind of learning, I was learning
with them, you know?” (spring interview, p. 8). He seemed to recognize that he could
have done more once completing his experience with the model and acknowledged that
he was still learning about what he was doing. Yet, interestingly and perhaps
unsurprisingly by this point in the year, he never made mention of Lucia as a challenge
for him that complicated the implementation of Book Club or that pushed his
understanding of how to best engage in literacy instruction in a way that helped (or did
not) an ELL student in the classroom.

Reflecting back on the spring semester, Catherine recognized how David’s
Ieaming needs influenced his teaching experiences with Book Club.

Catherine: David has to see it, he has to see it and the whole book club to him

was just overwhelming even though it goes step by step in the book.

Alisa: He couldn’t visualize it?

Catherine: He could not, same thing with mini-society. Until he saw the video he

just couldn’t conceptualize it at all. So, I think, I think she [Laura Pardo] really

helped him. She gave him video from the early 90’s, [. . .] just him able to see that

was helpful. So and you just with your observation and your redirection, I think

the thing that probably helped him most from what I did was the handholding,

taking him through it, lots of dialogue. We had lots more dialogue than Kay and I

ever had. I thought Kay and I talked a lot, but no, and he initiated a lot of it.

Alisa: I think that once he figured out, back in October and November that

we were trying to help him, we weren’t going to shoot him down

Catherine: Yep, yep.

Alisa: It’s been constant ever since. (spring interview, p. 4)
While I had hoped that this would be enough modeling and exposure to help him make

the leap to a new instructional model, it was clearly not enough to support his use of this

strategy at the same time that he was Ieaming to support Lucia’s ELL needs.

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As a learner, David expressed a need to experience things in certain ways in order
to master them for himself. However, the structure of the program and the classroom
colluded to make this a more difficult proposition. As a field instructor, my role also
placed practical limitations on my ability to serve in this role for him. The next section
explores how David’s learning needs both did and did not match the approaches I took as
a field instructor in my work of helping him learn to teach.

How Catherine and I supported him (or didn ’t) as a learner. Catherine and I
reflected at the end of the year on how we addressed the challenges of helping David
learn to teach Lucia. Recognizing that Lucia arrived as lead teaching was fast
approaching, Catherine and I discussed how this did not work for David as a learner who
felt that he needed to see everything modeled for him to be able to learn how to do it.
This segment of text from the spring interview, refers to the strategies we used to help
him try to work with her in literacy:

Alisa: So you weren’t modeling for him this is how I’ve incorporated her
Catherine: Exactly right.

Alisa: And now that I think about it, maybe we’re back that. I didn’t step in
and say let me make you a book [for her to use for English language
Ieaming].

Catherine: Let me show you how to do it.

Alisa: Let me talk with her and show you.

Catherine: Yeah, I didn’t do that either.

Alisa: And whether that was some of his hesitancy. I thought if I could push
Laura to say it and she did, she jumped right in and said exactly what I
wanted her to say

Catherine: But that didn’t do it for him. She didn’t show him.

Alisa: Hmm...maybe that’s my, that’s my thought. (spring interview, p. 12-
13)

[. . .]

Catherine: I wasn’t giving him direct instruction either at that point but you were
Alisa: Well, I know and that’s why I

Catherine: But he had no idea. . .the telling, the telling was over his head. (spring
interview, p. 21-22)

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This conversation began to illuminate our attempts to connect why David may not have
engaged in certain strategies with the type of learner that he perceived himself to be and
what he claimed to need to explore a new idea. Because Lucia showed up when David
was beginning his lead teaching (most of January was a wash-out because of the MEAP
and Lucia did not participate in the MEAP) and Catherine was phasing out of modeling
nearly so much of the instruction before David attempted it on his own, he did not see as
much explicit attention from Catherine for how to work with Lucia. She left this
challenge up to him because it coincided with his increased responsibility for instruction
and for the students. Reflecting back, this may have been unfair or a mistake to assume
that he could step up and engage in approaches or strategies that he had not seen,
knowing that he relied on this support to facilitate his own Ieaming process. At the same
time, in my role as field instructor, I did not feel that I could take the leap and step in to
model this for him without it being intrusive to him and to his students.

Although I paid repeated attention to what he was doing with Lucia during each
lesson I observed, without explicit modeling of instruction it did not seem to carry over to
his plans or his comfort in altering the curriculum to support her in new and untried (and
thus un-modeled) ways. However, Catherine did comment on how he was able to
transfer from co-teaching the mini-society together with her to working independently on
his science unit because she felt less qualified to support him in science and I was unable
to spontaneously provide many ideas, having never taught plate tectonics. This
highlighted that our attempts in literacy to suggest strategies and approaches had not
worked, leading to direct instruction as a strategy for helping him learn, which we

determined was still unsuccessful.

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The question that still exists, however, is why he was able to make the transition
from teaching social studies to developing his own science unit with relatively little
support and a great outcome for most students, but could not do the same with very
specific suggestions (and even directions) from me and from his literacy instructor to
support Lucia’s English language Ieaming in the classroom. Does this connect to a
confusion over diversity issues and his hesitancy to explore something as complex as
English language learning? Was he simply overwhelmed at the thought of one more
challenge while trying to create and implement instruction for all of the other students
and their learning needs that he already felt obligated to maintain? Was he focused more
on hoping that Lucia would pick up English from her peers and less worried about her
content learning (though this would be challenged by his interest and support of her work
during his science unit)? Was all of this somehow compounded by the fact that he chose
Ieaming to work with ELL students in the classroom (and specifically in science) as his
inquiry project for the year? Did his confusion over the project seep over into his work
with Lucia by mere association between her as the ‘topic’ of his project and his
frustration with the assignment? All of these questions pose reasonable hypotheses for
some of the challenges that David faced in making meaning and sense of what was going
on around him as he learned. One possibility that I can continue to explore is how our
work together as intern and field instructor did or did not support him.

Upon analysis, one of the primary problems that David and I faced was our
inability to name and manage the same problem over time and work together to maintain
that referent point as a source for solution. My attempts to work with David to make

meaning together seemed to mask the lack of agreement that we had on the actual

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problem that we were addressing. I took something different from the conversation than
he did. Our conversation continued to explore some of the difficulties that David still had
as a learner, talking about his teaching experiences and how he represented them to
people who were not familiar with his learning context, his students or his collaborating
teacher.

Catherine: His thinking has, his wondering about teaching, and his thought

process you know, oh gosh, I think, the questions he’s asking of his instruction, of

our kids, that’s really. . .it’s very good, it’s very good.

Alisa: But he can’t turn that around yet.

Catherine: Yeah.

Alisa: And talk about it in professional language with somebody who doesn’t

know him or what was going on or can sit there and say ‘oh you mean...’ and

pull the pieces out for him.

Catherine: Yeah, because we can.

Alisa: We’re still doing a lot of naming.

Catherine: Yeah. (spring interview, p. 7).
As the conversation continued, there was discussion of how this naming played out and
how he was engaging in practices without realizing the connection to the theory or term
that he was already familiar with. This gap served to slow his growth as a teacher and
was something that had to continually be provided through other people to help him see
what it was he was actually doing. Perhaps one thing that both Catherine and I should
have realized earlier was David’s need for us to explicitly name the practices we were
engaging in and help him to see and learn to identify the connections between the day to
day routines and activities and the more formal theories and structures of which they
were exemplars. Although Catherine and I both felt like we were doing a great deal of
talking with him about what he was seeing, doing and Ieaming, it may be that we did not

use enough ‘educational jargon’ to help him see how some of what he was doing was

directly connected to the language and activities of the profession in ways that made it

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possible for him to name for himself what it was that he felt he was doing to help his
learners.

We may not have also provided him with enough theory and rationale for why we
wanted him to take certain approaches to Lucia’s English Language Learning. As a field
instructor, this is a lesson that I took from my work with David to apply in future
situations. While this could be evidence of a larger contextual issue about David as a
learner, it also reminds me of the need to be explicit about the knowledge that field
instructors and collaborating teachers share with interns during the process of Ieaming to
teach. By engaging him in conversation and knowledge exploration at a child-specific
level, our mentoring practices may have masked some of our attempts to help him learn
to work with Lucia. The final section pulls together a range of these issues and concerns
as related to field instruction practices with implications for potential changes and
improvements in practices that would support interns’ work with English Language
Learners.

Implications for Field Instruction Practices

What do we learn about a social constructivist take on field instruction that
directly connects to work with diversity — specifically when working with English
Language Learners in the classroom? In this instance, a social constructivist stance
towards field instruction practices where the intern and the field instructor work together
to collaboratively create meaning and action about teaching and learning was somewhat
unsuccessful. On the English Language Learning front, there is the sense that this was

largely unsuccessful but when it came to respecting and valuing the contributions of the

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INI—

intern in the process of learning to teach, there was room for David’s voice and
perspective in the interactions.

From a social constructivist perspective, there is evidence that there needs to be a
careful balancing act between the approaches of the field instructor and the needs of the
learner. Early on, David’s expressed interests and curiosity about how he would learn to
work with an English Language Learner influenced my decisions to allow him to explore
his own ideas and understandings of how to best support Lucia’s needs. My emphasis
was on working with David to make sense of what he was thinking and wondering
without pushing my own agenda at the cost of his voice or knowledge. This seemed to
work because I understood us to ultimately come to a common conclusion about what
needed to happen during the second phase of the lead teaching period as we moved
together into managing his problem of working with Lucia.

Even though David and I were negotiating about best ways to work with Lucia
during phase one and I was providing suggestions and ideas during the early portions of
phase two, it became clear that this type of approach to field instruction no longer
impacted what David was doing. As David’s teacher, my approaches to constructing
knowledge required too much discovery learning on his part. Phase two became a
process of shifting my field instruction approaches from suggesting and negotiating to
telling David what I’d like to see him do to support Lucia. Although I was more
comfortable with a stance that allowed David and myself to be mostly even players in the
process, it became clear that I needed to switch to meet the needs of my learner, as any
teacher should do when original approaches are not working. For example, for the

purposes of his work with Lucia, my approaches to mentoring and supporting David

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could have shifted to include mini-lessons on the theories of appropriate instruction for
English Language Learning. However, there were still many ways and other areas in
which I could maintain my preferred social constructivist stance that made it possible to
incorporate and respect David’s ideas about teaching practice. Like all good methods of
teaching and learning, stances taken towards field instruction should not be seen as
limited, one way roads to an end. Flexibility and creativity in redesigning mentoring
moves to best meet the needs of the learner can often be necessary steps in field
instruction practices that meet the needs of those Ieaming to teach. If we are to see
evidence of teacher candidates working to meet the needs of all learners in their
classrooms, then we must be willing as university supervisors to make those ~
accommodations for our learners as well.

However, there are programmatic and logistical limitations to this process as there
are for many aspects of teaching and Ieaming. When it comes to meeting David’s
Ieaming needs, there as some aspects of field instruction that did not match. My inability
to model the instruction at the level that David would clearly have desired is one
fundamental issue of field instruction practice that is complicated by the practicalities of
the job. Time limitations make it impossible to spend the amount of time in each intem’s
classroom that may be necessary to engage in the level of the mentoring that is necessary.
Because this is a collaborative job with the support of classroom teachers as mentors in
the process, it is necessary to share this burden, to communicate about interns’ learning
needs, and to devise strategies that support the intern from all perspectives. With aspects

of diversity in the mix, this may be complicated by personal views and attitudes towards

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diverse student populations, but is a task worth tackling when it serves the best interests
of the elementary students as well as the intems’ futures as teachers.

Additionally, one of the things that would have served David’s learning needs
well, from his perspective, would be extensive modeling of teaching practices. While

Catherine provided extensive modeling in the fall semester of various teaching practices

 

and instructional models. without a beginning English Language Learner in the classroom
during the fall semester, David did not see this modeled. As I mentioned above, my role
as a field instructor does not provide me with the same type of access to the students or

control over the curriculum or instructional models in a classroom to step in and provide

 

the degree of modeling that David would have liked. Because Lucia arrived during the
lead teaching period, there was little Opportunity for me to model how David might work

with her in the classroom in a formal sense.

 

How this might be addressed or modified is of interest to future field instruction
practices. One strategy is to encourage that the collaborating teacher step in and model
appropriate practices, temporarily suspending the more typical progression of the
internship. The value of the modeling in this case would likely far outweigh the
temporary inconvenience of restructuring the lead teaching period to make this
accommodation. Co-teaching is a practice that is encouraged and endorsed by our
teacher preparation program and would also serve as an approach to teaching and
Ieaming in the field classroom. It would support an intem’s opportunity to learn from the
collaborating teacher’s knowledge while still participating in the larger acts of teaching.

This is an instance where field instructors could step in and provide the leadership, the

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encouragement and the ‘permission’ to stray from the model to the benefit of all
involved.

Meeting learning needs of interns is a critical point taken from this story of
David’s work with Lucia. All involved asked David to work hard to meet the needs of
Lucia in his classroom. We owed him the same respect and support. We met that
challenge with mixed success. In affirming ways, the social constructivist stance for field
instruction supported David’s sense of self as a teacher and his desire to learn and to
engage in conversation about his teaching practices. In other ways, my practices - and
the practical limitations imposed on the larger practice of field instruction —- failed to meet
David’s Ieaming needs as he approached the challenge of teaching an English Language
Learner. The next case explores an example of my field instruction work with an intern
centered on the experiences of teaching a wide range of ability needs in the same fifth

grade classroom.

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Chapter 5
SUPPORTING JANE’S EXPLORATION OF LEARNING ABILITY

‘ This chapter presents the case of my interactions with Jane, a fifth grade intern.
Jane was a quiet person who was well-matched with regard to both the instructional
approaches and personal teaching style of her collaborating teacher, Rebecca. Rebecca
commented that “because she’s quiet like me and we both try to be patient (laughs), I
think we worked well together” (spring interview, p. 1). The two of them bonded quickly
and Rebecca commented at the end of the year that Jane was definitely “one of my top
[interns]. I think she found a nice balance” (spring interview, p. 17).

Jane’s internship placement was in a classroom where the teacher was dealing
with the complex challenge of working with a wide range of student Ieaming abilities,
serving all identified gifted and the majority of identified special education students in
the same fifth grade classroom. During her fall interview, Jane described her class:

My classroom is very interesting. It’s very diverse academically. We have very

high achievers, way above fifth grade level, and we have some that are way

below. And that is one of the biggest challenges right now, tailoring all that.

(Jane’s fall interview, p. 2)

Jane was required to deal effectively with a range of adults who shared responsibility for
the education of these students (including the gifted teacher, the resource personnel, and a
paraprofessional who was in the classroom all day). I will show that the school’s new
student grouping practice was a critical incident (Newman, 1990) that had an extensive
impact on Jane’s experiences, requiring her to rethink her teaching practices to
accommodate these Ieaming needs. The grouping practice forced her to identify what she

knew and could do to meet these needs while also recognizing that she had areas in which

she needed to grow. Jane was a strong intern who rose to the challenge of this task and

144

 

 

faced head on the complexities of the school’s new policies in developing her teaching
practices. Jane also had a strong relationship with Rebecca as co-learners because
Rebecca was in her first year of teaching fifth grade (she moved up after quite a few
years in third grade). As such, both were exploring new territory and were able to
support each other in the new experiences they were having together.

Two primary components of a social constructivist stance towards field
instruction practice served to support Jane’s Ieaming needs in this context. Fostering
conversations that supported active reflection on her teaching experiences pushed her
continued growth as a teacher. Additionally, sharing professional and personal
knowledge and resources about my own teaching experiences in a firlly inclusive school
system supported her attempts to try new instructional approaches. Like David’s case,
my work with Jane centered on her experiences of learning to work with children in her
class. However, unlike David’s case where we focused primarily on one student, this
chapter explores our work together around a number of the children in her classroom
because of the focus on issues of academic ability and the range of students present in her
classroom.

My role in her experiences of learning to teach was more subtle than those present
in David’s case. In Glickman et al.’s (1995) terminology, this is a strong case of
nondirective supervision where my primary role was to help Jane make sense of her own
understanding of what was happening in her teaching and her classroom and then to help
her consider her options for action. For Jane, social constructivist approaches to field

instruction supported her Ieaming and growth in effective ways.

145

 

 

As in David’s case, analysis of my work with Jane explored how we framed the
problem (Schon, 1987) that she faced of managing this range of ability levels in the
classroom. Rebecca had framed the problem in similar ways and was supportive of the
structures that Jane was using to manage this problem. Her relative newness to fifth

grade (if not to other aspects of teaching and the school) provided a context for them to

own—Imu—

learn together about how to work with the children. My expertise in full inclusion

‘51
I

classrooms allowed me to play an expert role in helping Jane navigate this challenge.

 

Jane’s case demonstrates an instance of working successfully together as intern, field -
instructor and collaborating teacher to frame and manage a problem in ways that were i
comfortable and productive for all involved. This raises the question of whether or not

issues in the classroom were overlooked because of our common emphasis and tackling

of this problem. The lack of tension and dissonance in our naming and framing will be

explored at the end of the chapter to problematize our approach to our work together.

 

This case explores: (l) the influence of the school context and student placement
policies on Ieaming experiences of a novice teacher candidate; (2) the types of support
necessary from a field instructor for Jane to learn to teach in this context; and (3) the
implications that this type of classroom setting has on the work of the field instructor.

The School Context and Placement Policy

As described earlier, Lancaster Elementary serves a primarily upper middle class
family population of students. A significant number of parents are professionals with
higher education degrees, including a range of doctors, lawyers and professors. Many of

these families can afford for one parent to stay home and focus on child-rearing. The

146

level of parent involvement in the school is quite high and the parents have considerably
high expectations for their children as well as for the teachers and staff of Lancaster.
There is particular concern in this school building about challenging the children and
meeting higher level academic learning needs, particularly for those children who are
identified gifted by the time they enter the upper grades. At the same time, as is true in
any school, there are students with a range of special education Ieaming needs that
require attention and support.

Lancaster Elementary implemented an approach to grouping children during the
year of this study (2003-2004) that essentially reorganized their traditional approaches to
student placement. During that year, Lancaster cluster grouped all of the children who
received gifted education services in the same classroom at each grade level. Jane’s
classroom was where these students were placed in the fifth grade. Jane and Rebecca
also had the majority of students who qualified for special education services and all of
those special education students identified with more “severe” needs (fall interview with
Rebecca, p. 2). Effectively, Rebecca and Jane’s classroom contained all but a few fifth
grade students who received additional support from outside personnel. Their classroom
of 24 students included twelve students who received special services. One was an
autistic student (who had fulltime support from a paraprofessional in the classroom), one
student with Downs Syndrome participated in specialties and select classroom
experiences (such as field trips), four students with Ieaming disabilities, one student had
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and one student had Attention Deficit
Disorder (ADD). Four students received services from the gifted resource teacher,

particularly in the area of mathematics instruction.

147

 

Nationally, efforts have been made in recent years to support classrooms that are
inclusive of all students with a reduced number of special placements for special or gifted
education. Inclusive classrooms strive to include all children in the regular education
environment and to then provide any necessary academic, social or emotional
accommodations in that context, thus increasing the inherent diversity of student needs in
the typical classroom (Bullough, 1995). While Lancaster Elementary did not try to
implement a truly inclusive system, this step of concentrated grouping children across all
academic populations into one classroom did move them towards aspects of this model.
Children who received special services at Lancaster Elementary did still leave the regular
classroom for those periods of time (e. g. to go to speech therapy, reading resource help,
gifted education services). However, there were significant chunks of time where all
children were present in the regular classroom requiring curricular accommodations and
social support.

For a novice teacher, and even for a significant number of experienced teachers,
this range of student learning needs presents a noticeable instructional challenge in the
classroom. For Jane, the range present in her classroom intensified aspects of the process
of learning to teach. Adapting and differentiating the curriculum and instruction of the
classroom is not a simple task to undertake. The restructured approach to grouping
children was a more challenging context than most interns would face during an
internship. The unintended social consequences of the grouping practice and how Jane
worked to manage these social tensions in the classroom Ieaming community while
simultaneously meeting learning needs was her primary focus. This is the critical

incident in her experience of Ieaming to teaching because it became the focus of her work

148

regardless of whatever other ideas she had as she entered the classroom. This experience
overwhelmed the classroom and mandated her attention. As described below, Jane and I
framed this problem (Schon, 1987) in similar ways and worked collaboratively to support
her attempts to manage this problem in effective ways. This case explores the ways that I
used my field instruction practices to support Jane’s efforts to meet her students’ learning
needs.
The Complexity of Social versus Academic Learning Needs

Jane recognized the challenge of intertwined social and academic Ieaming needs
and realized that both were necessary goals for her teaching practice. Based on this
understanding, she created her internship portfolio around the theme of community and
collaboration in Ieaming. At the end of the year, Jane wrote in her portfolio:

Within this community structure, it is equally important to provide individually

differentiated instruction. Each child enters a classroom with interests, a

personality and a Ieaming style that is unique. It is my job to not only provide a

supportive community for students to learn in, but also ensure that the individual

needs of each student are being met. (Jane’s portfolio)
This statement acknowledged her dual, and sometimes conflicting, goals to meet the
social and academic needs of her students by simultaneously creating a classroom
community of learners and meeting individual needs. Jane and Rebecca worked with
their students at the beginning of the year to develop a classroom constitution where all
students participated in the design of classroom rules, beliefs and practices such as
classroom jobs and responsibilities. Jane used a variety of instructional approaches and
management strategies to balance the learning needs of the individual students with the

social pressures that arise when this range of ability is present in a group of fifth graders.

By the time students enter the fifth grade, most are becoming increasingly aware of their

149

own academic needs as well as those of their classroom peers. For example, during one
classroom observation, I observed attempts by one child to point out the struggles that the

autistic child was having with an activity in the classroom. While working in groups to

 

learn about mixtures and solutions in science, the child pointed out something that the
autistic student did wrong, calling to his peers, “Look at him! Look at him! He did
something wrong” (March 2 debriefing conference, p. 1). In this community, relatively
few children move in or out across the elementary years and so most of these children
had years of knowledge about each other, both in and out of school. Jane utilized three
approaches to meeting both of these needs: (1) differentiated instructional strategies, (2)
instructional methods that allowed students to participate in less public ways, and (3)
varied grouping approaches to meet both social and academic needs.

As Jane’s field instructor, I helped her to explore strategies and reflect on their
effectiveness in meeting her students’ needs as well as providing her with resources to
implement some of these practices in her classroom. We framed this problem (Schon,
1987) in common terms and both were on board with how she might manage this
problem throughout her spring lead teaching period. The approaches that she used to
address this concern were ones that I felt comfortable with and knowledgeable about in
order to support her efforts for her students. This section will explore how we worked
together on her practice in these ways after first exploring Jane’s understanding of the
cluster grouping policy as well as the influence of the gifted population on her classroom

practices and experiences.

150

Jane ’s Early Understandings of the Influence of the Cluster Grouping Policy

As a field instructor, I try to use the weekly seminars that I hold with all the
interns in my cohort group as a place to discuss the school context (particularly early in
the year) and as a place to provide instruction on topics that are of use as interns learn to
teach. In this context, I worked on teaching students more about the principles and
practices of differentiated instruction. During a seminar in September, we were
discussing the new cluster grouping policy and the impact that this was having on the

interns’ classrooms. We discussed issues of social stigma for students that came with

 

additional adult help through special education (Hutchinson & Martin, 1999). Students
often feel exposed when they require additional, regular adult assistance to complete the
normal academic tasks of the classroom. Interns were especially concerned about the
effects of this in the regular classroom on students’ relationships with other children. I
shared an experience that I had with several students in my fourth grade classroom who
resisted the necessary support of the paraprofessional and how we tackled this challenge
in an inclusive classroom by having the paraprofessional work with all students in basic
ways (i.e. classroom management) so as to remove the extreme association of the
paraprofessional as someone who worked only with certain children in the classroom.
Jane was the first to latch onto this idea and acknowledged it as an existing concern in her
classroom, and asked about how to handle this (field instruction field notes, p. 4).

For me, this early conversation was an opportunity to engage Jane in discussion
about the impact of the grouping policy on how the social relationships between students
were or were not functioning productively in her classroom. This conversation served as

an initial attempt to work with Jane to begin to frame collaboratively the problem that she

151

felt she faced in her classroom. By exploring her thinking on the issue, I was able to
develop an understanding of her early thinking on the topic as she experienced it in the
context of her classroom. Jane described how one of the special education students in her
classroom was resistant to the help that was publicly provided by the classroom aide.
This child would turn from the aide, Alice, as she attempted to help him with his work
(field instruction field notes, p. 4). Jane questioned me during seminar about how she
was supposed to respect the child’s desire to protect his public relationship with others at
the same time that she ensured he was receiving the help he needed to learn. This early
interaction in September began a year’s focus on the needs of her learners and the issues
of providing ability versus social support in the classroom. While we interacted around
this topic throughout the year, Jane’s attention to and interest in ways to support the
individual Ieaming needs in the classroom only grew. We used this interest and concern
as a common frame to the problem and were able to consider how to best work with this
tension in the classroom.

The driving force: the gifted boys. The social versus academic issue was of
particular concern to Jane because of the cluster group of gifted students in her
classroom. There were four identified gifted boys who were a dominant presence in the
class. They were confident and assertive in ways that influenced the social dynamic for
all students. Mike, Tim, Josh and Jake were all students who received gifted education
services in math and their abilities were also far beyond the typical fifth grade student in
other areas of the cun'iculum, particularly in reading and science. There were several
instances early in the year that challenged Jane and Rebecca to work hard to create a

classroom community. Three of these four boys were described as students who would

152

 

“complain about everything,” interrupt and blurt when others were trying to talk during
discussion, and put down the ideas of others (student interview, p. 4-5). Jane felt that
these boys really needed to develop some social skills even while they had the chance to
work at academically gifted levels (field instruction field notes, p. 12). This was a stance
that I strongly supported through my work with her as she grappled with ways to
maintain a focus on this concern and manage the complexity of this problem in daily
instruction.

Jane and Rebecca were particularly worried about these behaviors because of the
impact they were having on their peers. Rebecca commented that the drawback to this
policy was that the teachers in the grade below and the principal who were responsible
for designing the class groups “knew who they were academically but they hadn’t
thought about the strong personalities and putting them together” (spring interview, p.
12). At the end of the year, Rebecca described the challenge that she and Jane felt that
they faced with this group of boys at the beginning of the year:

Rebecca: Yeah, that [social influence and attitude] was an issue and I think we

kind of worked through a lot of that in the beginning. Having them understand

that because they were wizards at math and science that there might be other kids
with strengths in other areas and maybe this is something you need to work on.

They still try to convince you that they know everything they need to know in the

fifth grade and for sixth grade, through seventh grade at least (laughs), that’s what

I’ve been told.

Alisa: So attitudinal more so in that context than actual ability?

Rebecca: Right. [. . .] And like you said, they catch on quickly. But then, putting

it in writing, for all except one of them, is more difficult. Writing is their area

they need to work on. (Rebecca’s spring interview, p. 4)

As an experienced teacher, Rebecca recognized that these students had much to offer but

also lacked knowledge and development of writing skills that could be a focus for much

of their work during the year.

153

The gifted students had a clear impact on their peers as in one instance when
several students told me that they did not need to check their work or participate in the
discussion because they were working with the smart boys as their partners for the
activity and could rely on the boys to do the work and be correct (field instruction field
notes, p. 12). The presence of these students had a direct relationship to the instructional
decisions that Jane made and the focus we took on our work together, which are
described below.

Differentiated Instruction Practices

During several seminars in October, we were working with a set of materials
(readings, handouts, specific strategy models, etc.) about differentiated instruction (field
instruction field notes, p. 7-8). Differentiated instruction is one current educational
movement designed to support this challenge to balance equity and equality in the regular
classroom. Tomlinson et al. (1997) define differentiated instruction as an attempt to
provide a range of academic activities within one lesson or activity to meet the learning
needs of a range of students. They advocate an approach that has teachers differentiate
the lesson in one (or more) of three ways: through the content, the process or the product
of the learning. Learning in these ways changes the appearance of student work to
increasing variability in what or how children might be learning. Inclusive classrooms
raise issues of managing equity versus equality because all children do not need the same
educational supports or experiences (Hutchinson & Martin, 1999). Hutchinson and
Martin described equity as treating students fairly, which is not necessarily engaging in
the same approaches or strategies for everyone as they Ieam. Jane felt that this

distinction was one that had the potential to cause social issues for her students because

154

of her early experiences with the presence of four gifted, dominant boys in her classroom
and their impact on their classmates (field instruction field notes, p. 8). In several
instances early in the year, these four boys consistently demonstrated their own
knowledge at the same time that they put down the contributions of many of their peers.
Adaptations to meet the needs of individual learners would serve as a place where
equity could become an issue in the eyes of students and parents. This provides a ‘
challenge to the intern teacher who is struggling simply to develop one lesson plan, let

alone the necessary adaptations to meet a range of student Ieaming needs. However, this

‘fl'
1
l

is one important lesson that intern teachers need to learn in order to effectively meet the
needs of all students in the classroom — meeting individual needs is a support for Ieaming
for all students rather than a detriment to the group. Jane was aware of this need early in
the year as a result of the school’s placement practices. The challenge for Jane was to
help her students see and understand this distinction as a necessary support for their
learning while simultaneously learning to teach in this way. The challenge for me as
Jane’s field instructor was to support her efforts in Ieaming to teach this way, a complex
task for a beginning teacher to undertake while also successfully completing the other
requirements of the internship.

Jane utilized differentiated instruction as a means to an end to help her ensure that
all of her students were given the opportunity to learn in ways and at levels that were
appropriate for their individual needs. She recognized that differentiation was something
that made it possible to meet students’ needs “without some people feeling like they’re
ahead or they’re the smart kids” (Jane fall interview, p. 4). Tomlinson et a1. (1997) found

that preservice teachers were receptive to and interested in utilizing differentiated

155

 

instructional practices to meet the needs of a wide range of learners when attending a
workshop on differentiated instruction. However, once in the classroom attempting to
implement their new beliefs and ideas, they struggled to practice what they believed.
Tomlinson et al. recommended that teacher candidates have the opportunity to see more
examples of differentiated instruction in the classroom as well as opportunities to discuss
their own beliefs and attempted practices in order to improve their ability. to provide
differentiated instructional practices for their students. My role as Jane’s field instructor
was to provide as much of these discussions and support as possible.

For Jane, the necessary classroom-based support was in place because Rebecca
was also interested in implementing these strategies as a way of dealing with the range of
needs in the classroom. Because Jane was in a teaming situation in fifth grade, she also
had the mentoring support of the other two fifth grade teachers. In particular, the math
teacher was actively engaged in supporting Jane’s efforts at differentiated instruction.10
All of us were framing the problem that Jane faced in complementary ways, bringing our
own experiences and perspectives to the situation in order to enhance Jane’s knowledge
and strategies. Differentiated instruction was something that I had extensive experience
with as a former fourth grade teacher in a fully inclusive school system that required the
use of differentiated instruction to meet students’ needs. As a field instructor, I was able
to use these experiences to support Jane’s efforts in the classroom. I also shared with
Jane a series of resources that I had which could support her work with a wide population
of students in the math classroom (for example, a set of real world problem solving

activities that build off computational knowledge) (field instruction field notes, p. 7).

 

’0 Jane’s CT, Rebecca, taught social studies to all three fifth grade classes while the other two teachers each
taught the math and science to all three classes. Each teacher was responsible for teaching language arts
(reading and writing) to her own homeroom classroom.

156

 

Both of these facets of my practice supported Jane’s efforts to manage the problem
successfully in her classroom. Because we had a common frame in place with agreement
on the appropriate strategies that Jane might use, our work together to manage this
problem was particularly successful.

Differentiated instruction on fractions. As an example of Jane’s work with
differentiated instruction, 1 will explore the impact of a math menu approach to a unit on
fractions that Jane taught during her spring lead teaching. Jane initially pursued a
differentiated approach to her math instruction to meet the range of needs in the
classroom, including the gifted boys. She commented repeatedly that the “range of the
children’s knowledge was influencing her thinking” about what she needed to address in
her instruction and how she was going to go about doing so (student-specific field notes,
p. 12). After Jane had started work on her planning, decisions beyond Jane’s scope or
involvement were made about the program for the gifted boys. The parents of the gifted
boys arranged for them to work several times a week with the gifted resource teacher for
the elementary schools in the district. On the days that they were not working with the
resource teacher, they had computation packets of activities provided by the resource
teacher that they were to work on in the hallway on their own. '1 Jane, however, felt that
the use of a differentiated math menu was still an appropriate approach to deal with the
needs of everyone else still participating in the classroom curriculum (field instruction

field notes, p. 23).

 

” The parents requested that the packets be focused on computation and not on higher level or critical
thinking skills in the area of math. It was the opinion of all the teachers involved that this played to their
strengths but ignored areas of mathematical thinking and concepts that the children needed to work on. For
a variety of reasons, the parents’ wishes on this topic prevailed.

I57

 

 

 

As she was preparing to teach this curriculum unit during spring lead teaching, we
talked at length about how she might go through this process of differentiated Ieaming
with her students. When I was teaching fourth grade, I utilized an individualized,
contract-based differentiated instructional approach in math. Jane was already interested
in using a similar approach with her students so it was possible to use this common
interest/experience as one mechanism for helping Jane manage her problem. I was able
to share these experiences with Jane and help her think about the pros and cons of her
approach as well as how she might group different kids (both socially and academically)
to support each other when working together (student-specific field notes, p. 1). During a
debriefing conference about an unrelated lesson, we began to talk about her plans for this
unit. Jane commented:

...we did the pre-assessment yesterday and I looked at them last night. Some

know how to convert fractions to percents and you know, the other way around,

and some knew how to write in lowest terms and add and subtract, and some
didn’t even know how to look at a problem that said, “Two out of five students

were wearing glasses, what fraction is that?” So it’s like ahhh! (March 2

debriefing conference, p. 3)

Jane and I went on to discuss her plans for this unit and the variety of ideas she had for
how best to work with her students’ Ieaming needs in this context and with this particular
content. By sharing with her my own various experiences as a classroom teacher
working with fractions in math and differentiated instruction, I was able to provide her
with examples of things that did and did not work in my personal experiences as a
teacher. Using these ideas, I was able to support Jane’s work on differentiated instruction

in specific, example-rich ways that allowed us to talk through concrete issues and move

from our more theoretical discussions about differentiation to the immediate needs of her

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fair-11.14 ‘
w...n ‘

fifth grade classroom. This is one example of our joint, focused management of the
challenge of varied learners.

Conversing with Jane and providing feedback on her ideas as well as helping her
to play out her options in a given situation seemed to be enough to get her to take action
on her practice. Unlike David, Jane did not need specific directives about what I wanted
to see her do to make effective decisions about her practice. She was able to learn from
examples shared from my classroom and then imagine what differentiated instruction
would look like and implement it in her own classroom. Perhaps this is because we had
framed the problem in similar ways and the solutions seemed more logical and useful to
Jane in order to support her efforts to manage the problem. Jane and I discussed her
plans for the fraction unit. We talked about several of her ideas for how best to support
student learning about complex content for fifth graders such as fractions and percentages
and how to convert one to the other. Jane had a variety of ideas that we played with
involving a series of jigsaw activities where students would work in groups to
demonstrate fractional versions of percentages from 0%-100%, based on their prior
knowledge of the concept.

Jane: ...so we’ll have one person from each group in a group talking about what

they’re doing, showing products, you know and then all their stuff is going to be

together on a bulletin board. . .0-100% across the top and different ways their
group is coming up with to represent the different percents.

Alisa: So they’re all creating products around that idea?

Jane: Right, so they’re seeing that they’re all working on the same thing, just

some are more challenging than others. (March 2 debriefing conference, p.

4)

Jane was active and engaged in our conversation, sharing her ideas and taking the lead on

exploring what might work best in her classroom and for this particular unit of

instruction.

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I also alerted her to the need to ensure that she addressed the social issues of
working on diverse tasks in the classroom and encouraged her to consider whether or not
she “needed to have a group discussion about how you’re respectful of your peers’
Ieaming so that somebody does not say ‘mine’s harder’ or ‘that’s so easy, I can’t believe

99,

that you have to spend a week working on that (March 2 debriefing conference, p. 5).
Jane commented later in the conversation that she felt that the students would be
relatively unaware of the distinctions in difficulty between the tasks because she wanted
to ensure that they would be of equal interest (i.e. the tasks were not distinguishable in
traditional ways where the high ability students would be doing something engaging
while the rest of the class worked on worksheets).

With suggestions and guidance from the math teacher and me, Jane worked hard
to develop a series of activities that were interesting and stimulating regardless of
conceptual difficulty. However, it’s also important to point out that she had access to
modeling and support as she worked on this fractions unit with the fifth grade math
teacher. In David’s case, he had relatively little involvement in the process of learning to
teach Lucia from his collaborating teacher (although she did not obstruct his efforts to
work with her). And yet, Jane’s more noticeable tendency towards reflection was evident
in the comments made by Rebecca (who was her CT but not the teacher she worked with
on the math unit) about conversations they had where Jane discussed differentiation in
math:

I think she’s really liked the math and the way that they organized and I think she

kind of helped to spearhead that, breaking up into ability based kind of groups for

math. And I think she has shared with me, that she finds it easier to be able tot
each that way, to be able to break them up like that. She says that math is a way it

can easily be done. And I don’t know if she expected that because I don’t know if
math was her area. (Rebecca’s spring interview, p. 7)

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As she reflected on the early success in this unit, Jane and I talked about how well
the students were responding to the activities and the materials. Jane was delighted with
their “involvement, focus, and enthusiasm” during math each day and how well she felt it
was going for everyone (student-specific field notes, p. 11-12). Additionally, we
discussed the experiences of several specific students, one of whom particularly worried ‘
her at the beginning of the unit based on his performance on the pre-assessment. Jane I
described Paul as a student who struggled with math content and often lost his focus and

direction during activities. He also did not have any confidence in his own math abilities.

 

In the context of this unit, we discussed what was working for him about the
differentiated approach. Jane thought that he was successful because he had the
opportunity to access the content at a level that was appropriate for him. She also noted
the value of the structure of working in small groups or on independent activities that
removed much of the social pressure of working with the entire class and also allowed
him to focus on his own work. Jane was able to reflect on how this supported him and
consider ways to move this type of structure into other aspects of her instruction in order
to better serve his Ieaming needs. By using our field instruction time and relationship, I
was able to engage her in reflective conversation about this experience. Jane was pushed
to explore the rationales behind her successes, further informing her understanding of the
processes and outcomes of differentiated instruction.

After I had observed her teaching a lesson in this differentiated unit, Jane
reflected on her experiences with differentiated instruction, particularly in math. She

believed that she had been able to use effective strategies to meet her students’ Ieaming

l6l

needs and was encouraged by the way it had played out in the classroom, convincing her
that she would willingly try it again:

Alisa: I think this math stuff is cool.

Jane: Me too, and it gave me a big thing to talk about at this interview [mock
interviews held on campus], the differentiation. I could say we’re doing this thing
right now and I have pictures to show what we’re doing and it’s a really good way
to say, I think, working with different levels.

Alisa: Well, and I think...

Jane: I think it’s helping. I like that they each have tasks on their levels. When
you do a whole class, especially with this unit some are way up here and some are
way down here. I don’t like to see people sitting there bored because they’re like
we’re doing this again but then I’m looking at others and they’re sitting there
blank. (March 24 debriefing conference, p. 4)
Later in our discussion, I asked Jane to consider whether this was a practice she would
carry over into her own classroom:
Alisa: Would you do this on your own?
Jane: Yeah, and I think I don’t know that the first time it would be hard, but since
we’re doing it now and working together to see how it can be set up, I think I
would be comfortable setting it up now that I have an idea how to do it. Do you
know what I mean? I think it would be hard to initially do but since we’re doing
it now and I have an idea, it’d be easier to and I think yeah, I would. (March 24
debriefing conference, p. 6)
This comment demonstrates the importance of the support that Jane received in Ieaming
how to develop and implement a new instructional model in her classroom. I was able to
help her through reflection opportunities to talk about her experiences both before and
after teaching as well as sharing appropriate resources for the unit. In addition, Jane was
able to succeed because she was able to try this in a supportive environment where her
teachers were focused on the same goals.
At the end of the unit, Jane commented that she was very pleased with students’

performance on the final assessment that focused on the common concepts taught across

the unit. Given the wide range of knowledge that students demonstrated on the pre-

I62

 

assessment, Jane had been concerned about the final outcome and felt strongly that her
use of differentiated instruction helped all children learn something from the unit (field
instruction field notes, p. 41). In reflecting on this unit at the end of the year interview,
Jane talked about the success of this strategy in helping her to meet the diverse learning
needs of the students in her classroom, “There’s no question in my mind that each of
them were given the challenges and support that they needed there” (Jane’s spring
interview, p. 4). Jane was able to assess her learners in a variety of ways that
documented the knowledge they developed during this unit. All children did well on the
final unit “test” that Jane was asked to design and implement. Only two children did not
get a B or better on the test and both of those children improved noticeably in comparison
to their pre-assessment performance (and were also special education students).

As a learner, Jane herself was able to see how and what her students gained from
this type of instruction and could see the usefulness more generally as a strategy for
instruction. She recognized her own grth as a teacher who was able to work more
effectively to meet this range of academic Ieaming needs. Early in the year, she felt that
she “didn’t really know how to meet them [their Ieaming needs] and didn’t really have
any ideas” but that by the end of the year she was “more confident and able to take a risk
and try it” (Jane’s spring interview. p. 5). By late March, she was also able to start
thinking outside the immediacy of her internship classroom to her own future as a
responsible teacher. Yet, she did comment on the support and mentoring from her two
teachers and me that was part of her ability to think through and experience something
that was new and challenging for her as a beginning teacher. Jane recognized the value

of having her colleagues and teaching partners on the same page in helping her to

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film-PI)! -

implement her instructional and social goals for students. As a field instructor, I played a
role in this process, helping her to negotiate her way through the problem, naming the
issue and developing effective methods for implementing approaches for managing the
problem. While Jane was able to work with differentiated instruction as an approach to
her classroom needs, she also recognized that other things needed to be done to support
her students as learners in a complex social environment.
Methods for Student Participation

Jane worked hard to ensure that all students in the classroom felt valued and safe.
For some children, the academic range of their peers intimidated them or influenced their
ability and/or desire to contribute in ways that were socially accepted and respected. Jane
worked hard with Rebecca at the beginning of the year to develop a classroom learning
community where all students were respected and were taught to honor each other’s
contributions. Yet, she also realized the need to do more than this to help some of her
struggling or more reserved learners to step forward and participate in the conversations
and activities of the classroom. At the end of the first semester, Jane commented:

I think that I think about it a lot. One of my strengths is that I continually think

about it and change things and I’m not just stuck in one pattern. If it’s not

working, we’ll do something else. I guess being open to that and being willing to

think about those things. I think that I’m very available for them whenever they

need help. If they have comments or they just need to share, I think that I’m

open for that. (Jane’s fall interview, p. 4)

In February, Jane reflected with me during a debriefing conference after an
observation of a Book Club lesson that she needed to do more to get all students involved
in the whole class discussions like those that they had during this lesson (field instruction

field notes, p. 28). I expressed my concern during this time that she had very few

students participating in the whole class discussion (only about five students regularly

164

 

participated during this time). Jane’s immediate response was to say that she was glad I
had brought that up because she’d been thinking about it over the last week and was
struggling to decide on the best ways to call on students who were not volunteering to
participate. Again, this serves as evidence that we were framing Jane’s classroom
problem in similar ways and focusing in on similar material as we both worked to support
her efforts for students. We discussed the situation and the relevant options at length as
well as the impact of this on the social dynamics of the classroom (student-specific field
notes, p. 6-7). While Jane realized the importance of engaging children in whole class
discussions, she also realized that there were other areas of instruction in which she could
encourage students to participate besides those focused on whole class activities and
discussion.

Jane worked to ensure that students had a variety of methods available to them for
participation in the classroom that complemented different strengths and skills. Rebecca
talked early in the year about the steps they had taken to help develop this context:

We’ve talked about how everybody in the class has strengths that are no less

than mine and all the different things people can be good at and raise your hand if

you do good at everything. Of course there are some who raise their hand and

then the kids say, “No, you’re not” and told them to put their hands down.

(Rebecca, fall interview, p. 4)

This attempt by the other students in the class to convince their gifted peers that they
weren’t great at everything demonstrates the social tension at play in the classroom. Jane
strove to create Ieaming opportunities that gave students access to the content of the

curriculum with no limits on how far they could go with the materials. Below I describe

some examples in social studies and literacy.

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Revolutionary War centers. The Revolutionary War centers associated with
Jane’s social studies unit allowed students to explore materials and concepts from the
time period in a structure that promoted personal reflection and response. Students were
asked to make observations and hypotheses about the materials in each center and to
explore the materials in ways that engaged all their senses. The centers included
activities like tasting cookies from the time period, examining photographs of uniforms
from the British and American militaries, listening to music from the time period, etc.
Jane’s content goal for these centers was to enrich the students’ understanding of the time
period in which the war took place and to provide more access to the day to day life of
colonial citizens. While I provided resources on teaching this unit (because I had also
taught the American Revolution in social studies), my role was to help her think about
how she was going to structure the experience to include everyone. The instructional
format of centers shifted the students’ focus from what others in the classroom were
doing to the materials provided and minimized the sizes of the groups in which students
were working. Paul, the student described in the math fractions unit as one who
struggled with content and had difficulty participating, was an active participant in these
centers because the pace and group size both allowed him to get more involved in the
activities of his group (March 2 debriefing conference, p. 1-2).

At the end of the rotation through each center, Jane called the entire class together
and had them discuss their observations. This discussion was supported by the fact that
the centers elicited open-ended responses, not a yes/no or worksheet type of approach
that would have limited conversational ideas and opportunities. Jane said:

Jane: I did it that way for kind of two reasons because one, I wanted the
discussion piece to be there and if I used open-ended things then they’re not going

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to be. . .I don’t want there to be a right or wrong answer, to be observing and
analyzing.

Alisa: Right, and that opens it up for all your kids...everyone can
contribute.

Jane: More people were participating, too. (March 2 debriefing conference, p. 1-
2)

Of particular note was Paul’s participation in the whole class discussion after the centers.
As Jane commented, “When he does participate, I try to make sure that I call on him so I
don’t pass over those opportunities” (March 2 debriefing conference, p. 1-2) This blend
of methods provided a variety of ways for students to participate and created a safe place
to explore ideas in a small, supportive group before talking and working together as a
whole class. I was able to help Jane debrief how these activities supported specific
students like Paul as well as offering her another approach for considering how to meet
both social and academic learning needs in the classroom. We were in agreement about
the value this variety provided for students in terms of being able to participate in the
curriculum in ways that were more comfortable for them, and scaffolding their efforts to
work in the social environment of the larger class community.

Narrative writing. Jane also provided students with activities that allowed for
individual strengths and personal preferences to play out in their work. Each student was
asked to create a narrative children’s book that they would read to their first grade buddy
in their partnership classroom at school. In the context of this activity, Jane described
how she supported individuals by giving them free reign with the topic and design of
their book and helped them to explore their personal interests. She also tailored her
expectations of the students to meet their individual Ieaming needs (i.e. in terms of

minimum length and complexity of the elements included in the story). Jane reflected

167

back on the experience during her spring interview, describing different components of
the activity and the outcomes:

Jane: We did tell them, your area of challenge, push yourself, and not all did and
I don’t expect all of them to. but a lot of them did and I saw, you know I can think
of a few like Ryan who would be a one who would, when he started writing, even
at the beginning of this semester, not into it. He wrote a chapter book because it
was about computers, something he was interested in and just took off with it. So,
I think by providing that choice of topic, it kind of let them, internally it got them
interested.

Alisa: Did you vary the requirements at all in terms of, you talk about how
you must have these certain elements and these pieces, did that vary at all
based on ability?

Jane: Not the pieces, but maybe the extent to which they were created. For
someone to write one or two sentences on the page at one level and that might be
okay and that’s a big success; where for someone else it might be that you’re
really not owning up to what I know that you can do.

Alisa: So the pieces were there for everybody but how they were
implemented or how accountable they were held to...

Jane: Kind of depended on where they were at. (Jane’s spring interview, p. 4)

In my observations of their work on these stories, each student was actively engaged in
the construction of their story and illustrations and seemed very proud of the story they
had each chosen to tell. Many students went out of their way to tell me about the story
they had written and quite a few volunteered how they came up with their topic,
connecting it to their personal interests or to their perceptions of the interests of their first
grade buddy. By talking with the students, I was able to gain insight into the events and
activities of Jane’s classroom as well as her learners’ understanding about what was
occurring in their writing. This knowledge helped me to support Jane’s efforts to meet
her students’ Ieaming needs by understanding more clearly the necessary steps to manage
the problem as we had framed it. Understanding the learners who are the focus of our
work together is an important aspect of working together to frame and manage problems.

While this information did not ultimately solve the challenges we faced in David’s case,

168

in neither case would it have been possible to have this level or quality of conversation
without knowledge of the learners in the intem’s classroom.

Jane’s reflection about both of these experiences showed that she understood the
purpose and the value of these activities in ways that supported the goals she had for the
students. Her understanding of her learners was evident as she was able to express how
she felt that these activities supported the specific students she had worried about (such as
Paul) who were not participating in class activities. I was able to use this reflective
approach to her practice to support her attempts to work with her students’ needs in
socially constructed ways, sharing my thoughts and ideas about what she might do to
meet their needs but ultimately leaving the choices and decision-making up to her. Our
common framing and managing of the problem (Schon, 1987) allowed us to work
together in this way. Because of this, my social constructivist approach to field
instruction practice supported Jane’s efforts in this instance.

Additional approaches. Jane also planned a range of activities that highlighted
different student strengths so that as many children as possible had a chance to shine in
the classroom and in front of their peers. Although she did this in less formal ways such
as directing public praise towards children who normally might not be seen as those who
excel, she also provided activities that played on different learning strengths. Jane
planned dramatic activities in her social studies unit on the Revolutionary War, including
a four act play/skit done as reader’s theater to cover the content of the Boston Tea Party.
I observed this activity and it went reasonably well; Jane was satisfied with her students’
effort and particularly commented on two children who rarely speak up in class and the

contributions they made to the play. These two girls were able to take artistic

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—— -._-v ...; I l' r

 

responsibility for the minimal sets used and series of props and all students recognized
the contributions they made to the success of the class efforts (field instruction field
notes, p. 26). Jane recognized that this experience highlighted different learning skills
and reflected on the value that this activity had for playing up different strengths.
Finally, Jane recognized the value of knowing her learners and being able to
respond to the individual in individual settings. For example, Alexander, a student who
had attention issues (but was not formally diagnosed as ADHD) needed opportunities to
work independently. Jane commented:
You know, I just notice how Alexander does so much better when he has an
individual task than a group task. If you give him, “You need to do this [on your
own],” it’s light years better and when he’s not being disruptive it seems to help
everyone else too. (March 24 debriefing conference, p. 7)
Alexander was a student who was discussed in our spring three way conference as
someone with whom Jane had to work very hard to learn to be patient and to work with
effectively.’2 Jane valued the support she received from the teachers and myself in
working through her ideas and strategies for working with Alexander in effective ways
that did not compromise the Ieaming of other students. She simultaneously valued the
contributions, sometimes unusual, that Alexander made to lessons. Over time, Jane felt
that her options and approaches improved as she learned more about Alexander’s specific
needs and also felt more freedom to take control of his learning and accommodate
instruction as needed (for example, pulling him from a group activity to work alone when

it seemed to best suit him). Encouraging her to veer from her plan for Alexander when it

was appropriate for his Ieaming was something that I did over time to help her step into

 

'2 Formal three way conferences were held several times during the year for each intern, collaborating
teacher and field instructor. The spring meeting served as a time for the mid-semester assessment of the
intern candidate’s progress in the classroom.

I70

 

 

.1.“

her responsibility and role as the teacher of the individual children in this classroom.
This kind of reinforcement for her attempts to take ownership of her students and their
needs was something that Jane could use as she struggled with the complexity of the
classroom environment.

In a number of other instances, Jane reflected on how her knowledge of the
learners supported her in making instructional decisions about how best to structure
student participation to meet academic and/or social learning needs. For example, in
talking with her about a science lesson, Jane and I discussed her rationale for when she
chose to turn questions back on students and encouraged them to answer them for
themselves as opposed to doing all the work on her own. Jane reflected that her
knowledge of learners was what made it possible for her to decide when to do this and
when to choose to ask the entire class in order to protect the social persona of each
student:

Kids like Josh I know I can do that and he won’t feel embarrassed or he’ll go with

what he thinks. There are some people that I would probably tend to ask the

whole class, “What do you guys think?” because I know they would feel on the

spot and uncomfortable with that. (March 24 debriefing conference, p. 11)
Jane understood that students had different experiences and different social responses to
the challenge of education in a public setting. She was conscious of these needs and
considerate of students’ feelings and perspectives as she engaged them in learning
opportunities. Her reflection on this experience allowed her to talk intelligently about
why she chose to do what she did and it was thoughtful and purposeful. Her variety of
student participation methods reflected an understanding of her learners as both

individuals and members of the larger classroom community with both academic and

social needs. By supporting her efforts at reflection, sharing pedagogical and practical

171

 

ideas with her and using these approaches to help her manage the problem in her

classroom (Schon, 1987), I was able to play a role in Jane’s development of socially and

 

academically appropriate teaching practices.
Varied Grouping Practices

In addition to meeting the individual Ieaming needs of students by finding ways
for them to participate without intimidation, Jane also utilized varied grouping strategies
to help her manage this social element during instruction. Jane recognized that students
had different abilities to offer, “I really see how they all have different strengths and so [I
am] kind of thinking about how can we use all those different strengths in the
classroom?” (Jane’s fall interview, p. 3). Children in elementary school are commonly
placed in ability groups for reading and math that reinforce racial and social class
differences with the emphasis in differences between groups changing even more
dramatically over the years (Grant and Sleeter, 2003; Ladson-Billings, 1999). Grant and
Sleeter write further, “Special education often constitutes a track below the lower track
for students whom the regular program is unable to accommodate, whereas gifted
programs offer the socially advantaged children the best instruction” (p. 4).

One approach to counteract this tendency to place students in ability groups that
are rigid and based on standardized testing performance has been the movement towards
differentiated instruction. There are multiple ways that students can be grouped for
activities and instruction and the goal is to keep this fluid with changes in groups as
needed to support the goals of the instruction (Grant and Sleeter, 2003). Jane was able to

understand the importance of grouping in ways that were flexible and varied across time

172

and activity. Rebecca reflected at the end of the year on the influence that the gifted boys
had on the grouping practices in the classroom:

Rebecca: One of the issues we had early in the year, when we grouped by ability,

and those four, three of them had a terrible time and so that’s one of the reasons

we had to balance, break them up, because they just came into the class, not only

did they want to have this opinion of themselves, but when they got into the

group together, they all wanted control. So that became a real issue.

Alisa: Jane said that often the first thing was to put those boys into four

groups and then she goes from there and keeps figuring that out because she

said they’re just so controversial with each other and they won’t work
together; but when you put them into different groups, they’re very kind and
helpful.

Rebecca: Yeah, and that’s real progress since the beginning of the year, because

at the beginning, even working in any group, they wanted control. That’s where

we had discussions about different strengths and recognizing, you know, because
none of them are artists either, so and you need an artist in your group.

(Rebecca’s spring interview, p. 6-7).

Jane was also a strong advocate of making sure that she provided varied grouping
experiences across the year; sometimes she used homogeneous groups and sometimes
heterogeneous (student-specific field notes, p. 1). Each time she structured groups, she
thought carefully about the role of the work required by each member of the group and
the social dynamic of the group she was creating.

Differentiated instruction is one way to accomplish variation in when and how
students are grouped because the flexibility in group membership across time is a key
feature of its instructional design (Tomlinson et al., 1997). However, Jane was also able
to see beyond this approach and utilize grouping practices across her entire curriculum
even when she was not focusing on uses of differentiated instruction. For example, she

was able to used varied structures to group students in science, a subject area where she

did not attempt the challenge of differentiation. Her commitment to this aspect of her

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instruction greatly enhanced her ability to succeed with both the social and academic
Ieaming needs of her students. Jane wrote in her portfolio:

Providing opportunities for students to work and learn alongside peers is

extremely important. Through discussing, problem solving, experimenting and

questioning together, students grow not only academically, but socially as well.

(Jane’s portfolio)

She recognized the social and academic value of grouping her students in ways that
provided opportunities to learn together. Below are several examples for how Jane
worked with this approach in her classroom.

WebQuest. The students participated in a group-based WebQuest (Dodge, 2001)
on both British and American spies of the American Revolution during their social
studies and computer lab time during the spring lead teaching period.13 This is one of the
most powerful examples of Jane’s efforts to vary her grouping practices to support both
the academic and social growth of her students’ learning needs. In this case, because I
taught the Revolutionary War as a part of my elementary social studies curriculum and
was also using WebQuest materials with the university social studies methods course I
was teaching, I was able to provide significant support and resources for Jane in
determining the logistics of the project as well as support quality reflection on her
experiences with this activity.

For the WebQuest activity, students worked in groups of three where each student
had a role to play in his/her group (map maker, writer of the coded spy letter, and

strategizer for the logistics of the battleground information). Jane and I had a series of

conversations about how to structure the groups for this activity once it became apparent

 

’3 A WebQuest (Dodge, 2001) is a tool that allows students to access the World Wide Web through a
structured task where students commonly work In groups to learn about a topic through pre- -selected
websites and scaffolded use of technology.

174

that they would need different strengths in each group. Did she play to the strengths that
students had to offer? Did she challenge any of the students by placing them in a role
that might be something that they would find more complex but that she felt they could
do? We went through the series of options that she had and brainstormed the pros and
cons of the different approaches, but ultimately, I felt that as the field instructor, the
decision was hers to make (Glickman et al., 1995). Jane was able to use the support of
our work together to select among her options for how best to manage this problem in her
classroom. She was able to successfully make the transition from our brainstorming
experiences to the implementation of solutions that we both deemed appropriate (this is
something that David was unable to do). During our debriefing conference on March 5,
Jane went through the logistics of the group membership with me, describing the final
decisions she had made about how to best group the students:

Alisa: How did you decide who got what job?

Jane: I tried to look at what I know about them and what they seemed to enjoy.
Like I know Alex enjoys puzzles and he makes up his own language so I knew
he’d love making a code because that’s totally his thing.

Alisa: Uh-huh.

Jane: I know Sasha and Samantha love to draw and so I thought they’d be really
good at making a map.

Alisa: Yeah, Sasha’s map is really quite detailed.

Jane: Yeah, I’m trying to think of others. . .like if it didn’t strike me that they’d
really like a puzzle type thing or a map then I tried to make them a strategist type
person. Like Tim, I know he’s really good thinking at through things so I thought
he’d be really good for that. Obviously not everyone can fit something but I got
most of them somewhere I think they’d be...

Alisa: So the goal this time was to support instead of extend?

Jane: Yeah, because it was something new. My goal was more to, we’re trying
this so it’s probably easiest to try it the first time if you’re in a role you’re
comfortable with.

[...]

Alisa: No one seemed too stressed, no one was freaking out over it or
anything.

Jane: No, and I think three is a good number to do in a group.

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Alisa: Uh-huh. And if you can keep it from being two that get along really
well and one who, if you can keep it from being a weird triad.

Jane: And so after I picked, first I picked here are going to be my map people and
my code people and then I kind of paired them based on who I know works well
together...

Alisa: So role first and then by group instead of grouping them and then
trying to assign the roles, oh that makes sense.

Jane: Uh-huh. And then also I wanted people of varying abilities because I
wanted them to be able to work together because. . .and then sometimes, well,
when I know when you put the higher end people together some of those boys get
angry at each other because they all have their own way and they’re very
uncompromising when they're together but when they’re with other people they
do well. The same with the lower end, I’m afraid if I put them all together then...
Alisa: It’s too difficult?

Jane: It wouldn’t get done or it would be too hard, yeah. (March 5 debriefing
conference, p. 2-3)

Jane clearly had a complex mental map of the decisions she made about how best to
group students to complete the WebQuest activity. She took into consideration a wide
range of factors and structured her groups to best support her instructional goals as well
as their academic and social needs. In reflecting on how the lessons were going, Jane
described her classroom as functioning well and highly engaged in the activity:
Jane: Yeah, this is the most engaged I’ve seen them, the most percent of kids
engaged on one thing.
Alisa: ...every single person I asked was like, “Oh yeah, this was awesome.”
Jane: But they all are, every time I look around, every single person is doing their
job. [. . .] all the questions I would hear are “Maybe I should do this” or “Let’s see
this together.” You know, asking each other and “No, no this is what it is.” You
know? (March 5 debriefing conference)
Jane’s appreciation for their enthusiasm is backed up by her efforts in advance of the
instruction to develop successfully functioning groups and she was able to play that out in
the classroom. The time we spent together prior to the implementation supported these
efforts and encouraged her confidence in her approach. Her multifaceted approach to

determining group membership was worth the time, thought and effort as demonstrated

by their language as she described it used in their groups.

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Book Club. During Book Club, Jane also faced the challenge of figuring out how
to design supportive groups of mixed abilities since all children were reading the same
novel on the Revolutionary War, The Fighting Ground (Avi, 1987). She was concerned
that it would be obviously easier for some and more difficult for others. Jane prioritized
group membership for this instructional period “based on who can and can’t work
together” (March 2 debriefing conference, p. 6). She acknowledged that it seemed to be
more by default that she ended up with groups of mixed ability, primarily because she
often strove to separate the four gifted boys when she could to reduce the amount of time
they spent working only with each other. Jane expressed concern that the students were
unable to work in these groups independently, despite their experiences with Book Club
in fourth grade (field instruction field notes, p. 24-25) and that she was unsure how best
to implement this model. I believe that our common framing of the problem Jane faced,
and our other work together to successfully manage this problem, made Jane feel more
comfortable in exploring her uncertainties about Book Club with me.

I played a significant role in helping her to identify the concerns that she felt were
present in the structure and to consider how what she was trying to do (or not do)
conflicted with the model of Book Club, as well as encouraging her to seek assistance
from Laura Pardo, her literacy instructor (and an original participant in the development
of the Book Club instructional model). This was a case where I was able to support Jane
in working through something that she was dissatisfied with in her classroom. In this
case, I provided support as she navigated a new instructional model, worked with

students who already struggled to cooperate in groups, and also provided the kind of

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guidance during reflection that reaffirmed her attempts to move beyond her own comfort
level in trying something complex with her students.

Jane was frustrated with their misbehavior in the several groups that she was
trying to oversee. Rebecca had taken one group out of the room and a parent had pulled
another group into the hallway to work with them; Jane was trying to oversee the
remaining groups in the room on her own. Jane and I spoke repeatedly about her options
for simultaneously supporting their group work and the components of the instructional
model of Book Club. I suggested to her that she think about how she was facilitating the
groups and what her role as an adult might be in the group. She was doing a lot of
directing the conversation and I suggested to her that perhaps they needed more help in
learning to talk and listen with less attention to the actual content of the talk. I
encouraged her to believe that they could be taught to do this part on their own with less
emphasis from her (field instruction field notes, p. 24-25). Ultimately, with support from
Laura and myself, Jane was able to guide the groups to learn to talk effectively together
and work across ability levels (student-specific field notes, p. 9). Her satisfaction with
this instructional model and activity increased noticeably. At the end of the process, Jane
was able to see this value in this kind of discussion:

I think that by having the open structure of discussion and not as much having a

right or wrong, but observing and then talking about it and then pulling those, not

correct but more accurate things out of it, it kind of lets everybody participate,

not critical. (Jane’s spring interview, p. 4-5)

While not an entirely positive example of effective grouping (there was at least
one student who had to be moved to the group monitored by Rebecca so as to receive

constant supervision), this description documents Jane’s commitment to help students

work effectively in groups and her desire to do whatever she needed to do to make it

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work. This included her willingness to acknowledge publicly when she was struggling to
implement an approach in the classroom and uncertain about her own knowledge and
ability to do so. This experience demonstrated an openness in our relationship and
willingness to work with me to manage the solution that was most appropriate for this
aspect of her problem. Jane was committed to supporting her students in group activities
and to varying her grouping practices in order to meet both academic and social needs in
the classroom. As her field instructor, I was committed to letting her try things out and
then reflect on how they went, while providing necessary guidance and encouragement to
take these risks in her Ieaming.
Final Outcomes of these Efforts

By the end of the year, Jane was pleased with the students’ growth and reflected
on how each of the four gifted boys had learned something about themselves as learners
and also developed a deeper respect (or at least patience) for their classmates’ ideas and
involvement in Ieaming. All four of these boys learned to contain themselves in ways
that supported the efforts of their classmates in the book club discussion among many
other settings for working together. At the end of the year, Jane commented:

Jane: When I think of the gifted boys, when I think of Mike and how much he’s

grown, he’s just not a problem. When I think of Tim, I mentioned to you earlier,

he’s come a long way, he’s really not a behavior problem, doesn’t intimidate

people anymore. Josh keeps to himself but is still convinced he knows

everything. Jake is a big mouth.

Alisa: Jake has always been more verbal about it.

Jane: Yeah, he always has been but it’s significantly less than it was at the

beginning of the year. (Jane’s spring interview, p. 9-10)
Rebecca reflected on their mutual satisfaction with the progress she and Jane made:

She and I had a talk just the beginning of this week about how far we’ve gone

especially with that top group and their attitudes and everything and how they’ve
really, really changed and I don’t know if it was an aha but just a real pride in

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what we’ve done together with this particular group that at the beginning of the

year we thought, we’re never gonna like these guys. So it was just kind of a

sparkle in her eye; you could tell she felt really good about how far we’d come

with them. I don’t know if you’d call that an aha but just. . .kind of the whole idea

of working with these guys and I think they’re happy, I mean a couple of the

parents complained at conferences; a couple of the others said that they loved

coming to school which is great. We didn’t know if we’d ever get there with

them. (spring interview, p. 9)
While managing the Ieaming and social demands of the wide range of needs in the
classroom was a challenge for Jane, so too was managing the social dimensions of the
classroom. It is evident that all three of these broad strategies (differentiated instruction,
methods for student participation, and varied grouping procedures) that Jane engaged in
with her instruction overlap and influence each other. This case creates a reasonably
positive picture overall of Jane’s success in managing the social and academic challenges
of this classroom. Many of her endeavors exceeded the expectations we have of novice
teachers in the early days of their teaching experiences. Jane was able to engage in the
complexities of designing and organizing differentiated instruction and successfully
working to balance her own needs as a learner in the teaching process with the issues of
social and academic growth for her students. In the long run, both Jane and Rebecca
were happy with the outcomes and progress they had made during the school year. As
her field instructor, I was also pleased with the progress that Jane made in balancing this
complex tension in her classroom.

Field Instruction Support for Working with Academic Ability Issues

Jane reflected more on her learners and their needs, both academic and social,

than she did on her own Ieaming needs as a teacher candidate. Instead of a focus on how

she explored her own development, she considered her teaching practices and instruction

in direct relationship to her students’ specific Ieaming needs. Jane reflected continually

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on her learners and regularly shared how their needs influenced her practice. Compared
to David, Jane had a much more developed sense of the need to know the learner in order
to engage in responsive instructional practices. At the end of the year, Jane reflected that:
What I found helpful this year was knowing where their strengths are and where
their needs are because by knowing those things you can more individually plan
or on the fly decide who’s gonna need what. If you don’t, then it’s kind of like
guesswork so. . .that’s what I’d most like to know. I don’t know that you can
immediately know it. It’ll take some time but. (student interview, p. 7)
However, as a learner herself, Jane did strive to take advantage of the resources around
her including people and materials. During the fall interview, Rebecca was asked about
Jane as. a learner and she discussed how Jane was someone who would go ahead and seek
the resources that were available to her in order to be active in her knowledge as well as
“com[ing] back with ideas from Alisa. I just see her eager to learn” (Rebecca’s fall
interview, p. 2). Rebecca also commented that as a field instructor, I served as a resource
for Jane on issues of classroom diversity. When it comes to the role and activities of the
field instructor, both Jane and Rebecca valued the curricular and instructional ideas that I
was able to provide as Jane worked with this challenge of an academically diverse
classroom. I believe that these resources served a purpose beyond providing Jane with
specific materials and strategies to use in her instruction. The sharing of resources led to
theoretically and conceptually rich conversations about Jane’s experiences in her
planning, teaching, and working with her learners. Being a field instructor is not simply
about providing ‘stuff’ to interns but rather to use that material as an entry into a
conversation about rationales, purposes and goals for learners. I believe that I served as a

catalyst for Jane’s critical thinking and constant reflection on her practice. One way that

I started those conversations was by sharing my personal resources and experiences as a

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lens for talking about the broader issues of teaching practice. Because Jane and I framed
the situation in her classroom in similar ways, our work together flowed naturally out of
that understanding.

From early in the year, Jane seemed to be able to take information from our
seminar lessons on differentiation and issues of ability in the classroom and transfer these
experiences to her particular classroom. Our work together on the framed problem
supported her efforts to move from theory to practice in the classroom. Jane recognized
the intentional planning of seminar topics to meet the needs of the interns and the salient
issues in the context of Lancaster Elementary, “Looking at the needs of the whole, like
for seminars and being able to pick that out and decide what those are going to be about
based on what issues seem to be [critical] or problems” (Jane’s spring interview, p. 11).
She did this in a way that speaks to the potential of seminar as a place for theoretical
conversation about issues of practice. This is also in direct contrast to the experiences
that Tomlinson et al. (1997) found in their research on student teachers’ use of
differentiated instruction in their classrooms after participating in professional
development where student teacher struggled to implement their new ideas. I
hypothesize that this is due to the continued support she had in implementing these ideas
in the classroom from her collaborating teacher and grade level colleagues (as they
switched classes for teaming purposes) as well as from me.

I also believe that this may be due to the additional support that I was able to
provide her because of my personal experiences and professional knowledge base in
differentiated instruction. I was able to sit with her and help her to reflect on what did or

did not work, building off our common knowledge shared during seminar as well as the

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additional knowledge of differentiated instruction developed through personal experience
that I brought to the situation. Rebecca reflected on this during the fall interview,

describing the support I had provided to Jane:

 

I think they [Alisa and Jane] talked about working with our challenging group and

things they could do. Alisa shared some math activities and she comes in and

questions what she did and Jane thinks about it. She gives her things to think

about. (Rebecca’s fall interview, p. 4)
Because all of the issues between academic and social needs were intimately connected
(i.e. how she chose to instruct her students had an impact on their social relationships and
how they related had an impact on how she designed instruction), we were able to use our
time'together to reflect on how she might better structure these Ieaming opportunities to
meet both sets of needs. I do not believe that these shared experiences were necessary to
support Jane’s efforts (I was able to do similar things with her in science when she was
teaching a topic I was unfamiliar with), but I do believe that it enhanced the exchange of
ideas in ways that pushed her farther faster because I was able to bring my own prior
knowledge to the situation. Perhaps at times, this also compromised the learning because
I made assumptions about the commonality of our knowledge and interest instead of
feeling a need to stop and probe more deeply as I might have in areas where I was less
certain of the terrain. Since Jane and I were both interested in these issues, those such as
the language learning needs of certain children (who were not recent immigrants but
spoke another language at home) were not prominent in our work together.

Jane most valued my classroom observations of her teaching as a critical
component of field instruction practice that helped her to deal with the complexity of the

academic and social needs present in her classroom. She felt that these observations and

subsequent debriefing conferences where we had the opportunity to discuss her

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classroom experiences were “most helpful in my own reflecting of where I should go
next” (Jane’s spring interview, p. 11). As a field instructor, these observational
opportunities provided me with the chance to understand how best to support Jane’s
needs by coming to better understand her students for myself. Part of my role was to
point out to her the social workings that were going on while she was teaching. All
teachers fail to notice some of the activity of students during instruction; beginners tend
to be particularly susceptible to this trend because of their intense focus on the sequence
and flow of their instruction. As Jane’s field instructor, I was able to observe and
document patterns that she might be unaware of but interested in knowing about so as to
improve relationships and Ieaming. For example, recall the situation described earlier in
this chapter of the student who was attempting to draw other students’ attention to the
mistakes of the autistic student. My knowledge of her students fostered our work
together and backed up the value of the suggestions I was making because I was able to
show her who might benefit from a specific move or help her play out what might happen
for a certain student as the result of a particular course of action.

Observation allowed me to provide the degree of support needed for Jane to
reflect on her practice and make sense of her Ieaming about what was working and what
was not during instruction. Jane described this process as “open-ended” (particularly
when helping her think through her planning of activities) and “guiding” when helping
her to consider how something might or did play out in the classroom (Jane’s spring
interview, p. 12). I see this as well connected to my own sense of my practice as social
constructivist, where we worked together to help her develop her Ieaming about teaching

with respect for her novice ideas, but also opportunities to use my more expert

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knowledge about teaching to support her development of new knowledge about practice.
I believe that it takes a great deal of skill as a field instructor to find the place where the
appropriate balance of guidance and support is located for an individual intern. Just like
children, each intern learner is unique and for Jane we were successful in finding a
balance that both she and l were comfortable with as supportive for her learning.

Jane was also able to use our experiences and conversation together to help her
see how a discussion of one idea might influence her practice in another way. Jane
understood the relationship between the ideas we discussed and how I considered what
she was doing in the classroom with the reflection that we both engaged in on her
practice. Jane described this process to the research assistant who conducted the fall
interview:

Jane: When I’m planning, I’ll share, well I’m thinking about this, or this is what

I’m doing and l have some ideas and she’ll [Alisa] go, “Oh I know this really

good idea, too.” and she’ll help me. It won’t be, I don’t ever feel like I have to

use it, but I could take it and develop it or change it. She has lots of resources
and ideas for planning, too.

Interviewer: So she’s not only accessible, but she’s approachable and she

seems to give you a lot of options that you can make your own.

Jane: And what feedback when she observes is very constructive. She might say,

“Well, did you think about this, or how could you do this instead of ‘you should

have done this.” It’s very positive. I don’t ever feel like I did a bad job. Just

here’s something you might think to make it better. (Jane’s fall interview, p. 5)
This type of comment is typical of other comments made by Jane about the kinds of
support that she found helpful and the role that I played as a field instructor in her process
of learning to teach. These kinds of activities lend themselves well to a social
constructivist stance towards field instruction practice. Jane indicates that she felt in

control of the decisions to be made and that she felt respected in our interactions because

at no time was she pushed to do something a certain way or directed to do something

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differently. From Glickman et al.’s continuum (1995), this is clearly a series of
nondirective behaviors on my part — providing Jane with reflection, listening, and
supporting her decision making. Suggestions about her choices and options for designing
curriculum and instructional practices are something that I also offered. Like David’s
case, this is not considered nondirective behaviors on the supervisory belief continuum;
however, for novice teachers, I believe this to be a necessary step in helping teacher F
candidates to understand and comprehend their options for action so that they can make
useful and informed decisions.
Implications for Field Instruction Practices

Jane’s case provides an opportunity to consider implications of practice for field
instructors working with interns in inclusive or mixed-ability classrooms. In particular,
the relative newness of this structure for the collaborating teacher allowed me as a field
instructor to find access to opportunities to support Jane’s growth in concert with
Rebecca. In this school setting, Jane and Rebecca also had a great deal of freedom to
have flexible goals for a range of students. This is very different than the working
conditions in schools under intensive scrutiny and pressure of No Child Left Behind and
grant programs such as Reading First. Lancaster Elementary was a place where teachers
are afforded the freedom to make the instructional and curricular decisions that they
deem most appropriate for meeting a range of Ieaming needs.

Jane’s case describes the importance of the field instructor knowing individual
students in the classroom. While this case does not focus as closely on one student like
David’s case or Elizabeth’s (to be described in the next chapter), there were several

clusters of students in Jane’s class that were necessary to understand in order to support

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Jane’s efforts to learn to teach. With a focus on the social and academic learning needs

of students, it was helpful as Jane’s field instructor to be able to talk intelligently about

 

individual children and how an idea we were exploring might play out for them. Without
the individual knowledge of the students, it would be much more difficult to tailor the
support to meet the specifics of Jane’s context and to ensure that she was paying careful
attention to the needs of each of her students. Typically, this level of knowledge about
students is not something that the field instructor develops since visits to classrooms are

infrequent and sporadic; however, this has the potential to strengthen the role and l

 

contributions of the field instructor to an intem’s Ieaming process. This is an area for Er
continued research and findings from this case demonstrate the value of knowledge about
a wide range of students in the classroom.

Seminar conversations provided Jane with access to the theoretical knowledge she
needed about differentiated instruction to make the move to her classroom instruction.
For Jane, there was explicit carryover between the seminar and the activities of her
classroom that she was able to make sense of and utilize in meaningful ways. This was
also material that I was able to build off of in order to support her learning about
differentiation and academic diversity. This demonstrates the potential of seminars for
the dissemination of knowledge about any variety of topics related to diversity if there is
the space and need to follow up on it in the regular day to day life of the classroom.

Additionally, Jane’s story is primarily one of success due to the support and
involvement of her collaborating teacher and grade level colleagues as well as her own
drive and motivation to learn as much as possible about effective teaching. This case

documents what is possible when the field instructor and the classroom teacher(s) are on

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the same page in terms of the priority and focus of the intem’s learning in the classroom.
This also demonstrates what is possible in a less constrained class and school
environment. While this focus on issues of academic diversity was certainly not my only
goal for Jane, because I was able to support both Jane and Rebecca in this endeavor our
progress was more significant than in cases where the CT and field instructor are on
different pages as to the priorities of the teacher candidate’s time in the internship
classroom.

Working with Jane highlights the importance of conversation and guidance in
reflection. It also highlights the value of sharing personal teaching experiences to support
an intem’s ability to make sense of the opportunities and challenges present in the
classroom. Using my personal, practical knowledge as well as theoretical understanding
of the complexities of inclusion and differentiation helped me to communicate with Jane
about a range of classroom issues and practices. Because I had deep, conceptual
knowledge of the subject, I was able to question, probe, challenge etc.

Part of this accomplishment is likely due to the fact that Jane and I had a common
frame for the problem she faced in her classroom. The bulk of this case documents how
we were able to work together to successfully manage this problem in the context of her
classroom. Jane and I were both satisfied with the direction of her work at the time and
experienced little to no dissonance or tension in our work together around this issue.
Rebecca’s investment and involvement in this frame further supported our work together
even when we were not in her presence. Jane recognized that Rebecca was on the same
page with her and was comfortable with the ideas we were discussing and Jane was

sharing with her. Rebecca supported Jane’s implementation of the ideas we discussed

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and Jane’s decisions about how to best work through this in the classroom. This positive

decision may, on reflection, hide a number of issues that we overlooked in our work

 

together.

My comfort level with this classroom caused me to jump wholeheartedly on the
issue as something I could tackle to support Jane’s growth as a teacher. Someone with
less knowledge on this particular topic might not have been able to support her in the F
same way, but may have been more observant of things that I overlooked when Jane and

I were able to work together to frame and manage the problem successfully of social and

 

academic issues. Other issues worthy of my attention as a field instructor may have been L
places where I could have also served to push Jane’s thinking about her classroom
practices. However, because we felt a common interest and approach for some issues
that were particularly salient in the context this year, perhaps I focused too narrowly on
the work that we were doing on meeting this need. While I believe that this was time
well spent in that it benefited Jane’s thinking about her teaching and her students, it did
take time away from other issues that could have been explored and obscure areas where
I could have the role of challenging her beliefs and practices. I could have forced her to
confront her beliefs about additional types of diversity in the classroom beyond academic
differences. Our teacher preparation program advocates that our interns develop a
broader conception of diversity than any one feature. As field instructors, we must come
to understand our own biases and preferences and explore how these may hide tensions
that are present in the classroom. Because I was able to work so closely with Jane and

Rebecca on something that I valued as a former classroom teacher, I played off my own

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strengths to the possible disservice of Jane’s Ieaming needs in other areas of the process
of learning to teach.

Early in the year, Jane described the diversity in her classroom as “mostly
academic diversity. I don’t see a lot of racial/ethnic, that kind of diversity, but very
diverse academically and what their academic needs are” (Jane’s fall interview, p. 3).
She did not focus on other aspects of diversity in her classroom as critical features of the
student Ieaming needs present in that context. In Jane’s classroom, all students from
culturally diverse backgrounds were also identified as special education students (though
there were also White children identified with special education needs). This cultural
diversity, and attention to their learning needs beyond ability, was subsumed by attention
to other aspects of them as learners. Jane did not seem to see the connection between a
student’s cultural background and learning needs or experiences. She seemed to think of
multicultural work as an add-on to the curriculum as it already existed (Banks, 1991,
1994). At the end of the year, Jane commented in her spring interview that she
considered cultural diversity to be much easier to handle than ability Ieaming needs:

Jane: It [cultural diversity] doesn’t frighten me at all, but I don’t think that. . .I

guess when I think of diversity, academic diversity seems a bigger concern to me

than what background children come from. I know there’s differences in
backgrounds but I also feel like I can learn about those things and that’s more
adapting a style than, okay, you don’t get this, what am I going to do? You
know?

Alisa: So regardless of the other aspects the academic issues would be the

ones that would still concern you next year?

Jane: Yeah, I think so.

Alisa: No matter where you get a job?

Jane: Yeah, I think it’s easier, I mean, personal opinion, but I think it’s easier to

pull different cultural pieces into your curriculum and you know, talk to parents

and talk to other people about what’s going in your life, just like you would to
someone here except maybe you would be gaining knowledge about their

background instead of finding out more about someone very similar to yourself.
So I don’t really feel like there’s anything you could do to prepare. And I really

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feel like the teacher preparation program hits diversity hard in many ways up to
this point so it’s not really a concern. We talked about it in multiple classes, and
especially, like I took CEP 240 and that’s the whole focus of the class.

[. . .]

Alisa: What do you think you still need to learn about in order to be effective
with all your students?

I feel like I’m never going to stop learning so that’s a hard question. I think
mostly it comes from knowing the individual students. I know my students well
enough now to know this person is going to need this help and they’re going to
need me, [name of student] to sit down and read the directions with him and take
that five minutes afterwards, or this person needs to listen to a book on tape
because reading it they don’t comprehend it, [student]’s that way, needs to hear it.
She understands it, and gets it and knows it, you know what I mean?

Alisa: Right.

Jane: So I think the biggest thing is just Ieaming about individual students. I
don’t know there’s anything at this point that education could...I feel like I’ve
been educated so much I kind of just need to go out there and try it and adapt and
change and then as I go on, I’ll probably pull in other things to read. (Jane’s
spring interview, p. 15)

While Jane appears comfortable and confident in her ability to handle other aspects of
diversity and the challenges that they might present, her attention to academic learning
needs at the cost of all other aspects of diversity this year underscores a series of
assumptions that were not explored in the internship context about what may be possible
in other contexts. As well, this is an example of the oversight that I described above
where our frames as field instructor and intern were so in tune with each other that we
lacked dissonance in our relationship that might have caused me to look beyond what was
working well and probe areas of growth and development for Jane. Although Jane
expressed comfort with issues such as cultural diversity, it seems as though she
underestimated the complexity of connecting Ieaming needs with culturally responsive
teaching practices. Instead of probing this and working with Jane to challenge these
assumptions, I focused on the common frame we had for working with academic/social

issues in the classroom. While this was a valuable use of time and energy, it assumed

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that there were not other issues to be explored. Obviously, hindsight gives me greater

insight into this gap in our work together. Because the challenge of working with

 

academic/social issues was a predominate focus of both Jane and Rebecca, it seemed to
take center stage naturally. When asked to reflect on what else could have been done to
help her with issues of classroom diversity, Jane felt that there was little that a field
instructor could do but did attempt to brainstorm some ideas.

Among several other strategies already in place within the teacher preparation

program’s field placement structure (for example, ensuring variety in context across the

 

junior and senior year field placement settings) Jane did suggest the value of some sort of
“mini-professional development” between interns in different field settings to help them
learn more about the variety of diversity present in the public schools. However, this
does not address the oversight of the diversity that was actually present in her classroom
at Lancaster Elementary. Rebecca described the diversity of Lancaster Elementary:
The ability, the range of ability, and we do have different culture, there’s Paul,
they speak a different language at home. I know people do say that, that we’re
not diverse. We are, we’re just diverse in a different way. So I guess they need to
be able to communicate what differences there are. Just because we’re not a lot of
different colors, that there are differences that we have to work with. (Rebecca’s
spring interview, p. 16)
Rebecca goes on to suggest that one thing a field instructor could do to help interns see
the diversity would be to specifically “come right out and label” it (Rebecca’s spring
interview, p. 16). While Jane did not feel that there was much the field instructor could
do in this context to support deeper understanding of the facets of diversity (Jane’s spring
interview, p. 15), this does not excuse the responsibility to pursue this agenda in ways

that move students beyond this kind of mindset at the end of the year. Although I made

attempts to do so in other contexts (such as seminar), in retrospect, it is clear that there

192

was not enough done to help Jane make sense of this in her classroom. Because our
frames for the challenge she felt she faced became the primary focus of our work
together, other aspects of practice around classroom diversity did not receive due
attention.

The next chapter, and final case, explores the experiences that Elizabeth and I had
around her work with Sam, a first grader from a lower socioeconomic background who

struggled in all aspects of daily classroom life at Lancaster Elementary.

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Chapter 6
HELPING ELIZABETH TO SET APPROPRIATE GOALS FOR STUDENTS
AND HERSELF RELATED TO SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND TEACHER
LEARNING

Elizabeth was an intern with a strong sense of herself as a teacher and a vision for
who she felt she would become across the course of the internship year. As a child
development major who had prior student teaching experience as a part of that program, 1
Elizabeth arrived in Amanda’s first grade classroom at Lancaster Elementary with a
significant desire to learn as much about first grade as fast as she could. Elizabeth felt
that her prior experience prepared her well for the challenges of the internship year and
the complexities of planning and implementing instruction. Amanda and Elizabeth’s
class was filled with 25 active and often challenging first graders who pushed the
learning curve for both teachers. Both Amanda and I were impressed with Elizabeth’s
quickly developed understanding of her students’ Ieaming needs and her wide range of
ideas for how she might address these in the context of the classroom. At the end of the
year, Amanda described her sense of Elizabeth’s strengths:

I think one of her biggest strengths is her questioning, her continual questioning

of her own practice. Questioning what’s put before her, not in a negative way, in

a positive way. Well, how can I make this appropriate for the kids? What’s the

best way to do this? I think that’s definitely one of her strengths. (Amanda’s

spring interview, p. 1)
Elizabeth consistently questioned all aspects of her teaching experience. She was able to
use this approach to Ieaming and her own natural curiosity about teaching as means of
developing strong relationships with Amanda as well as myself as her field instructor.

Although a strong teacher candidate who excelled from early on in the internship,

Elizabeth had a tendency to set goals for herself as a learner and future teacher that were

194

 

beyond the scope of reason for what could be accomplished during the year. In
December, Elizabeth commented about Amanda, “I just want to be at the same level that
she’s at. And if I leave in April being at the same level that she’s at, then I’ll feel like
I’m prepared to teach because she has so much experience behind her” (Elizabeth’s fall
interview, p. 3). Elizabeth did not seem to recognize that this was simply not doable.
Elizabeth failed to recognize the complexity of mastering competency in a field of
teaching and underestimated the challenge she faced in trying to become an expert in her
practice (Berliner, 1992). At the time of the internship, Amanda was in her 16th year of
teaching either first or second grade and was working part time on her Master’s degree in
literacy (an area in which Elizabeth particularly wanted to be as competent as Amanda).
These high expectations for herself would serve as a significant challenge for Elizabeth
during the internship year.

In the context of this approach to her own developing practice, Elizabeth came
face to face with a student, Sam, who would challenge many of her preconceived notions
about the teaching philosophies advocated in her child development program. Sam also
challenged her in management and behavior and forced her to confront her own
assumptions about what first graders at Lancaster Elementary are “supposed” to be like
and how to support a range of students in the classroom. The critical incident (Newman,
1990) in Elizabeth’s process of learning to teach centered on Sam, a student new to
Lancaster Elementary who was of a lower socioeconomic background and the only child
in the classroom in this economic situation throughout the majority of the school year.'4

Sam had little parental support and many academic and behavioral issues that appeared

 

'4 While Sam’s enrollment at Lancaster Elementary was not a direct result of the redistricting, the complex
economic story of Sam’s arrival at Lancaster will be described later in this chapter. One other child from a
lower socioeconomic background came to the class for a portion of the spring semester.

195

 

out of the norm compared to the classroom in which he found himself. Elizabeth’s
experiences with Sam provided a context for us to explore broad conceptions of diversity
and the influences of socioeconomic status on students in the classroom. The events took
place within a district that continues to struggle with redistricting issues and teachers
continue to learn to address the consequences of such policies.

This case explores my work with Elizabeth as she learned to address Sam’s needs.
Elizabeth confronted the challenge of how to support a student from a lower
socioeconomic background in a context that assumes the presence of a certain amount or
type of parental involvement, resources and motivation for both students and families.
Data analysis revealed that our interactions were noticeably centered on Elizabeth’s
experiences in working with Sam in her internship classroom. Sam appeared in 2/3 of all
conversations, debriefing conferences and classroom observation field notes. Early on, I
provided support and guidance for how Elizabeth might meet Sam’s needs in the
classroom. As the internship year continued, I shifted gears in response to Elizabeth’s
unusually high expectations for herself and worked to help her set more reasonable goals
for her own Ieaming as well as for her satisfaction with the accomplishments Sam made
over time. As David’s case revealed, I pushed him to work on his practice because of my
concerns about instruction for Lucia’s English Language Learning needs. In Elizabeth’s
case, my pushing as a field instructor centered more on helping her to set reasonable,
achievable goals rather than on her instruction for Sam (which was well-conceived and
demonstrated worthwhile attempts to support his needs). In fact, my work with Elizabeth
focused more on redirecting her growth by helping her to have a more realistic view of

what’s possible to accomplish during the internship year.

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Both social constructivist practices and Glickman et al.’s continuum will be
considered as a part of the field instruction issues present in this case. I will show how
social constructivist approaches to field instruction practice supported Elizabeth to a
certain extent because of her curiosity and interest in learning to become the best teacher
she could be. However, a modified version of a more directive approach (Glickman et
al., 1995) had to be taken to help her to see her own progress and recognize her own
accomplishments as a novice teacher. I will also take a careful look at how constructs of
framing (Schon, 1987) fit into this case. In comparison to the two previous cases, my

experiences with Elizabeth provide a lens into a situation that demonstrateshow we
framed the pedagogical problem of Elizabeth’s work with Sam in similar ways. Yet, later-
in the year, my focus for my field instruction began to shift more towards how

Elizabeth’s management of this problem for herself complicated her own understanding
of her progress in Ieaming to teach.

This chapter explores (1) issues of redistricting and the influence this has on
students and teachers; (2) Elizabeth’s experiences with Sam and issues of SES in the
classroom and school context as well as her high expectations for herself; (3) the field
instruction support that was necessary to help Elizabeth learn to teach all students; and
(4) the implications of this case for field instruction practices with highly motivated
teacher candidates.

Redistricting and the Influences on School and Community

Before delving into the specifics of how Elizabeth responded to Sam’s situation, it

is necessary to consider the larger changes that were beginning to take place at Lancaster

Elementary as the district began to experience the outcomes of redistricting. This case

197

 

 

first explores the issues of redistricting and the impact that this had on Lancaster
Elementary and the teachers. I then explain how Sam came to attend Lancaster
Elementary for the first time as a first grader.
A School with Changing Demographics

The greater suburban community in which Lancaster Elementary is located is
primarily middle class. However, there are small pockets of lower socioeconomic
housing in the form of trailer parks and government subsidized apartments. Prior to the
year of this study, Lancaster Elementary served a population of middle to upper-middle
class professionals with significant homes and property. There was one set of apartments
as a part of the school’s community but all other housing consisted of single-family
homes and a few condominiums. The redistricting of the school system after closing an
elementary school at the end of the 2002-2003 school year resulted in some demographic
shifts at Lancaster Elementary. No children left Lancaster Elementary or any other
existing schools during the redistricting process — the children (and teachers) from the
closed school were simply parceled out to several elementary schools in the district. The
school boundaries now included some of the lower socioeconomic housing that is in the
district. For the teachers, this change resulted in conversation, confusion, and uncertainty
as particular assumptions about the student population no longer held. For example, a
number of the teachers expressed concern over whether children would be able to
complete at home projects or homework assignments at the level of quality typically
expected at this school.

Historically, the district level of school governance has varied in power and

responsibility (Tyack, 2002). In the days of small, local school districts minority and

198

 

lower economic populations did not benefit from the same types of relationship and
support as white, economically strong populations (Tyack, 2002). The voices of lower
socioeconomic populations were not heard or supported and efforts were not'made to
develop inclusive governance systems at the district level to ensure the equality of all
populations. Arguably, Sam’s family and their larger community could be seen as
representative of these voices. Today, there is great variety in the structure and size of l.

school districts with varying resources, student populations, and expertise (Tyack, 2002).

 

.ELiZ. K

The redistricting of school attendance zones was commonplace during the 1950’s

and 1960’s as a result of the baby boom (Hyland, 1989). Hyland explained, however,
that during times of lean enrollment, redistricting continues to occur as pockets of growth
develop, neighborhoods ‘grow up’ and no longer possess large numbers of school-age
children, and school districts lose students resulting in closed buildings. This is precisely
what occurred in this school district in the summer prior to the year of this study.
Additionally, this trend in the district is continuing as this dissertation is being written.
The district is now considering initiatives for 2005-2006 to either close schools, shift
school populations to develop fewer buildings through reorganizational efforts such as
creating K-2 and 3-5 buildings, or to maintain the status quo in number of schools but
redistrict again to shift student numbers in an effort to equalize class size. This process
has challenged many of the teachers in the district who feel that they will retire early
rather than make another school move and has introduced uncertainty into the future of
all teachers and students.

Consider, for example, that during the redistricting process in Springfield, Ohio,

Rieger, as chair of the redistricting committee, (1994) found that “the redistricting

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options had uncovered deep-seated resentments, negative perceptions, and class divisions
within the district” (p. 37). Informal anecdotal evidence at Lancaster Elementary has not
uncovered “deep-seated resentments” towards the new students; however, there has been
close scrutiny by teachers and parents of currently enrolled students of the children, their
families, and concerns over their abilities to provide the ‘necessary resources’ for success
at this school.

Both Amanda and Elizabeth were aware of these trends and conscious of Sam’s
needs when he appeared in their classroom during the second week of school (for
whatever reason, Sam did not come to school during the first week of classes).15 (March
24 debriefing conference, p. 5-6). Redistricting, even in its most minor form, has the
power to alter the ways that teachers think about teaching, Ieaming and their students.
Wilmore (1995) argues that the attitudes of the teachers are the most critical aspect in a
successful redistricting experience and that positive attitudes and the belief that the
teachers expect every student to succeed and take the responsibility to help them learn is
the appropriate response to changes in student population. In the context of Lancaster
Elementary, issues of income and socioeconomic status are the focus of the influx of this
new student population (see also Rieger, 1995). Sam represented the beginning of this
trend of a new student population that is becoming more prevalent in the district schools
and at Lancaster Elementary in particular.

Sam’s History and Coming to Lancaster Elementary
Increasingly, our society is becoming more economically diversified with greater

populations of children in poverty or in the upper-middle to upper class while the size of

 

'5 No one seems to know where Sam was during the first week of school (which was three days long) and
this was indicative of the lack of communication that the parents had with the school and teachers.

200

the working class and the middle class is shrinking (Ramsey, 1998). Socioeconomic or
class status is a variable of diversity in student population that is often ignored or
imbedded in larger issues of inequality in schooling. Race is often conflated with
socioeconomic status, ignoring the significant and important populations of rural, low
income white children whose characteristics differ from their teachers just like
differences in racial and ethnic minority children. Sam represented this population of
poor white children (although Sam did not come from a rural district when he enrolled in
Lancaster Elementary). Like race, socioeconomic status is often salient only to those
who differ from the norm with less attention paid to affluence by those who need not
worry about it (Ramsey, 1998). Attention needs to be specifically paid to how teachers
address and accommodate socioeconomic diversity in the classroom.

Lancaster Elementary, as Amanda described it, is:

Very easy in some regards and very difficult in others. Very supportive parental

group. Very supportive. But at the same time then, also very picky. And very

demanding so it kind of keeps you on your toes and of course, you have probably

middle to upper class economic status here” (Amanda’s fall interview, p. 3).
Recognizing this, Sam did not fit the standard family or student description of the
population at Lancaster Elementary. Sam’s parents were not involved in his education in
the traditional sense; Amanda and Elizabeth had difficulty across the entire year in
getting them to come to conferences, return paperwork or phone calls, and attend special
meetings to talk about Sam’s Ieaming needs. Initially, the only knowledge of Sam’s
outside life was that he had previously attended and repeated Kindergarten in a
neighboring urban school district and was already seven at the beginning of first grade

(field instruction field notes, p. 2). It was understood that Sam and his family had moved

into his grandmother’s home in the lower income area that had been redistricted to attend

201

Lancaster Elementary. Later in the year, it was determined that Sam’s family was
actually living out of district, had not followed the procedures for requesting School of
Choice enrollment at Lancaster, and was using his grandmother’s mailing address in
order to attend this school while his parents drove him into school each day. The parents
were often very late picking him up, which was what prompted the careful look at where
he was living and what his family life was like outside of school (student-specific field
notes, p. 24-26). Elizabeth and Amanda were frustrated by this lack of honesty from the
family and felt that they were struggling to educate Sam without outside support or
consideration for their efforts to help him learn. No one was ever given an explanation
for the family’s desire to have him attend Lancaster Elementary instead of attending
school in his home district. Although perhaps it is one indication that they did care about
his education. I

The next section explores how Elizabeth and I worked together to support her
efforts to educate Sam in this first grade classroom and how she made sense of his
particular Ieaming needs and familial situation. In this context, I explore my work in
helping her to develop reasonable goals for her own practice and for Sam.

Helping Elizabeth Learn to Work with Sam

Elizabeth faced a number of challenges in Ieaming to support Sam’s Ieaming
needs in the classroom. As a beginner, Elizabeth was well prepared for the rigors of the
internship and was an intern who could be relied on to push and challenge herself to
design the best possible instruction for her students. The students in Elizabeth’s class
were not the easiest to work with. As a result of some staffing changes in first grade for

that school year, there seemed to be an attempt on the part of the administration to load

202

up Amanda’s class with the students that the Kindergarten teachers and principal were
most concerned about academically (either high or low) or felt needed a consistent
presence for behavioral reasons.I6 Amanda described her class make-up during her fall
interview:

Well, it is a very active class. Behaviors are challenging. This is the biggest class

I’ve ever had. [. . .] And three more children [compared to last year] added to the

pot makes a really big difference. [. . .] There were a lot of needy children

emotionally, needy children, which has been different from the three years prior
to that in this school district where there was a more laid back, even keel class.

[. . .] Kids coming in that could barely read, and then children that are coming in

that are fluent readers and the same with math and with writing. Behavior is the

biggest issue, I think. (Amanda’s fall interview, p. 4)

Adding Sam to this situation seemed to tip the balance in some ways. His presence in
this classroom after the first week caused both Amanda and Elizabeth to question how
much more they could handle and effectively address. During the second week of school,
Amanda commented to me on his arrival and hypothesized that this was going to be a
difficult year (field instruction field notes, p. 2).

After several weeks with Sam, Elizabeth and Amanda came to the realization that
they faced quite a challenge in figuring out how to support Sam in this classroom, both
academically and socially. Sam’s performance (in both behavior and academics) was not
up to the level of the majority of his peers. No other children in the class needed both
academic and behavioral support to fit the norms of the classroom to the extent that Sam

demonstrated. For example, two other children who presented a behavioral challenge

were Ieaming at a typical first grade level. Another child with special education needs

 

’6 Lancaster had only two first grades during this school year and the second classroom was staffed by two
teachers who were job sharing and both new to the school, causing concern that there might not be the kind
of behavioral or academic support necessary in the second classroom. As a result, Amanda’s class was
heavily loaded with all children who were behavioral or academic issues (both gifted and special
education). Sam was assigned to this classroom without any real awareness of the way that these issues
would play out over the course of the year and placed here to address class size concerns.

203

was one of the most compliant and agreeable children in the classroom. The initial
thought expressed by a number of specialty teachers (art, music, and physical education)
and others in and out of the classroom setting was that Sam must have special education
needs. While I was aware of the challenge Sam was presenting through my own
observations in the classroom (both formally and casually), Elizabeth’s and Amanda’s
response to Sam caught my attention.

Elizabeth reported to me on a conversation that she and Amanda had about Sam
and his performance in the classroom where they both took a step back from the situation
to question what was going on. Their initial response was to assume that Sam might have
special education needs but then considered whether Sam had ever had the opportunity to
learn some of the things that other students in the classroom had already mastered (field
instruction field notes, p. 2). For example, all but one other student in the classroom had
already demonstrated proficiency with numbers up to thirty. They discussed whether
he’d had the outside support and guidance to have many of the experiences that other
students had already had by first grade. For instance, children in this school have
typically traveled out of state and sometimes out of the country by first grade, are taken
many places for educational fun (such as museums), learn to interact socially with peers
through numerous extracurricular activities, and have extensive experiences with reading
and school-type Ieaming activities in the home. Elizabeth and Amanda assumed that
Sam did not have these experiences.

Based on this experience and conversations with Amanda and myself, Elizabeth
concluded that one simply could not assume to know what was going in the classroom

based on past school location or home location and that she (as an intern teacher) could

204

not also assume that Lancaster Elementary’s population and student make-up was typical.
Elizabeth also recognized that Sam was having issues adjusting to the classroom and was
not socially accepted by his peers or succeeding in making his way into the classroom
Ieaming community. By the end of her conversation with me, Elizabeth explained that
she did not think it was fair for her to make assumptions about what Sam should be able
to do based on his membership in this classroom, nor could she or should she make
assumptions about his outside life or experiences based on her knowledge of his family or
his prior school district. Given that, Elizabeth resolved to think carefirlly and
thoughtfully about how she could support Sam in the classroom.

Lareau (1987, 2000) researched the ways that parents’ social class contributed to
students’ successes in school. Parents from the working class do not have access to the
same social resources as parents in the middle class who support their students in school
in fundamentally different ways. Culturally, these families have a different approach to
education than the middle class population from which most teachers come and on which
many schools function. Lareau’s work indicates that social class is a variable that affects
school experiences for students and must be considered by teachers as they work to meet
students’ Ieaming needs. As a field instructor, I was delighted to see that Elizabeth was
beginning to question the assumptions she made about students and that she also needed
to stop, slow down, and question what Sam might need based on her knowledge of him as
a learner in this context. Social class and ability grouping are often conflated with lower
income children placed in lower tracked classes or groups (N ieto, 1999). Elizabeth’s
efforts to step back and reassess demonstrated that she hesitated to simply step into this

trap. This conversation served to cement an ongoing dialogue Elizabeth and I had about

205

Sam and her academic and behavioral work with him across the entire internship year.
This conversation also served as an opportunity for us to work collaboratively to name
and frame (Schon, 1987) the challenges that Elizabeth faced in working with Sam. From
a subsequent set of conversations, Elizabeth and I were able to develop a foundational
understanding of what she thought about the situation with Sam and work to manage this
problem across the year.

The following sections explore how I supported Elizabeth’s efforts to manage the
problem as she strove to build Sam’s relationships with his peers and her attempts to
reconcile her child development beliefs to the reality of this particular first grade
classroom and Sam. Throughout these sections, I will also pay attention to how Elizabeth
and I worked together in order to learn to set more reasonable goals for herself as well as
for Sam.

Supporting Sam Socially and Academically

Sam had difficulty making friends and working successfully on group projects
with the other students in the class, particularly the other boys. Elizabeth felt there was a
connection between Sam’s difficulty in social situations and his experiences outside of
school. At the end of the year, Elizabeth reflected on Sam’s social needs:

Socially he still struggles, he’s. . .I mean friendship wise, touching his classmates,

he still has issues. . .but part of that comes from. . .I feel like he has a lack of

emotional support at home because his is one that needs that hug, that
encouragement more than anyone else in this room. Socially he still has so many

issues with other kids. (Elizabeth’s student interview, p. 1)

Elizabeth strove to make something work for Sam, recognizing that he had few

connections with the other students outside of school and had difficulty playing with

them in appropriate ways on the playground. She also recognized that he needed support

206

in working with peers on group projects and concerned herself with determining who
Sam would work with and how to provide support to Sam as well as the other children to
make this a successful experience. This section will explore how Elizabeth and I
interacted around activities in the classroom where the intersection of Sam’s behavioral
and academic needs influenced Elizabeth’s experience in Ieaming to teach, and instances
of parental involvement and community issues that complicated attempts to Support
Sam’s social growth with his classmates.
Intersecting Behavioral and Academic Needs

When Sam lacked opportunities to interact with his peers and his teachers were
busy with other things, Sam would often choose to ‘entertain’ himself in ways that were
socially inappropriate and behaviorally unacceptable. For example, one day Sam decided
to walk on top of the tables where students sat as a means of getting around the room
(student-specific field notes, p. 24-26).'7 This became a distraction to all children in the
class, a number of whom quickly announced Sam’s behavior to each other and to the
teachers, effectively redirecting all activity in the classroom. While the children were
displeased with this behavior, they also engaged in a number of conversations about Sam
and his constant misbehavior for attention. On another occasion, I observed a child at
Sam’s table engaging his tablemates in a discussion of Sam’s constant misbehavior by
noting that Sam had fewer stickers for positive behavior on his self-control chart than any

other child at the table (March 8 classroom observation field notes, p. l).

 

’7 Half of the tables for students’ work areas in this classroom had no legs and sat only a foot off the floor.
Children sitting at these tables did not sit in chairs but instead on the carpeted floor. Their low height was
tempting to Sam as a surface on which to sit and walk. On this particular occasion, he gave in to that

temptation.

207

 

One of Sam’s most common attempts to get others’ attention was to mess with
their materials and supplies for Ieaming (student-specific field notes, p. 9-10) I
witnessed this repeatedly throughout the year as Sam struggled to find ways to engage his
peers in interactions with him. As a member of the classroom community, I was able to
use my personal experiences of seeing Sam and his peers in action to support Elizabeth’s
attempts to manage this problem. This section includes several examples of howl
supported Elizabeth as she worked with Sam to support his academic and social needs in
the environment of his first grade class. First I will provide examples related to Sam’s
academic needs in an environment that he found socially challenging. The second
section focuses on how Sam interacted with his peers during learning times.

Supporting Sam's academic needs in a social context. Elizabeth worked hard to
support Sam’s academic needs in the structure of the classroom. Elizabeth and Amanda
used reader’s and writer’s workshop approaches for literacy instruction (Calkins, 1994;
Miller, 2002).18 Sam had difficulty with the open nature of these times and the structure
challenged Elizabeth to manage both academic and social needs at the same time. I will
describe several experiences that Elizabeth had with Sam during these times as well as
explain how I used my field instruction practices to help Elizabeth think through these
challenges.

During an observation of writer’s workshop, Sam had to be redirected a number
of times because he was following another child around the room threatening to write on

him with markers. Both Elizabeth and the classroom aide spoke to him about this

 

'8 Reader’s and writer’s workshop approaches are based on the premise that all children need opportunities
to read and write at their own functional level. Each instructional model begins with a mini-lesson on a
relevant skill or strategy followed by time for children to read or write. ending with opportunities to share
their experiences.

 

behavior. Elizabeth later came to work one on one with him and he continued to try to
get another classmate’s attention by trying to write on him with the marker as well.
Elizabeth was ultimately frustrated with his consistent focus on his classmates instead of
on his own work during writer’s workshop (March 23 classroom observation field notes,
p. 1). When talking about this at the during the debriefing conference, Elizabeth
commented,

...if he doesn’t even feel like he can do it, it’s like an outburst, he’s just all over

the room and into everybody’s. ...you know what I mean? Messing with people

and I’ve not quite figured it out because even when I feel like it might be a little
bit below what he can do, I just think he doesn’t want to sit down and focus and

so right away thinks he can’t. (March 23 debriefing conference, p. 1)

Elizabeth was particularly frustrated with this lesson because she had structured writer’s
workshop in a way that allowed Sam to participate even though his writing skills were
significantly below grade level. She allowed Sam to draw his stories first and then work
with her to dictate the text and help sound out the words that he wanted to use. I worked
repeatedly with Elizabeth on recognizing that this was a complex structure for Sam to
undertake and that she needed to understand that this type of work was very difficult for
him. Her expectations for what he should be able to do during this time were out of line
with his academic readiness.

Elizabeth was upset numerous times during writer’s workshop and reader’s
workshop, commenting that she felt she wasn’t sure she would “ever get [Sam] sorted out
and help him learn to focus and finish a task” (student-specific field notes, p. 9). As we
talked together, I was concerned that Elizabeth was overestimating what was possible

from Sam, particularly during the fall semester when he struggled to write anything more

than his name. I was also concerned that she was taking Sam’s struggles as a sign of her

209

own inability as a teacher, rather than as something that she needed to consider and
address as a part of learning to implement a new model. We spoke at length about how
she needed to set reasonable goals for what Sam could accomplish during this time given
that he was not yet writing or reading independently and reconsider what she could do to
support him in an open-ended instructional model. For Sam, the more informal nature of
these structures offered him the chance to get up and work his way around the room, F
chatting with classmates and finding ways to keep from sitting down to write or read his ‘ 3

books (student-specific field notes, p. 4).

 

By helping Elizabeth to reflect on what it was about the instructional model that
freed Sam to be off task, Elizabeth was able to reconsider how she structured this work to
support his particular needs. Instead of sitting at a table with his classmates, during
reading and writing times, Elizabeth chose to assign Sam a space away from his peers in
the hopes that this would encourage him to focus on the task at hand instead of the
presence of his classmates. During reader’s workshop, Elizabeth also made sure to try to
work with Sam each day on his reading, both to support his needs as a reader but also to
ensure that others were able to read for a time without his behavior as a distraction
(student-specific field notes, p. 4). These were attempts on Elizabeth’s part that I
supported in order to help her focus on more realistic expectations for what was
reasonable to expect from Sam during reading and writing instruction.

In order to support Sam’s learning as well as help, Elizabeth with her management
of the instructional model, I worked with Sam one-on-one during several writer’s
workshop drafting sessions and other writing activities. For instance, during one activity

where students had to write letters to President Bush, I helped Sam to write his letter

210

 

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(field instruction field notes, p. 28). Taking on an instructional role made it possible for
me to talk intelligently with Elizabeth about the experiences she had in supporting Sam’s
efforts to write when he struggled with the content and was quick to quit and return to
trying to socialize with his classmates. This also gave me insight into what it was
feasible to expect of him. With that kind of one on one attention, Sam was more willing
to focus and bask in the one on one support that he received from an adult who reminded
him to let his classmates work. Yet, it also provided me with the opportunity to learn in
more detail about the struggles that Sam faced in getting work completed in a highly
active first grade classroom. While this may not be typical field instruction practice for
others, I found this type of work particularly valuable in building my knowledge base in
order to help Elizabeth work with Sam.

Elizabeth was increasingly frustrated by Sam’s behavior as time passed, feeling
like it was becoming more and more out of control. Elizabeth recognized that in the
transitions from Amanda taking primary responsibility for teaching to Elizabeth’s
increased teaching role, “We let those behaviors continue, and they had just increased
and increased and increased” (Elizabeth’s spring interview, p. 12-13). There were small
moments of success where Sam and Elizabeth found ways for him to participate in the
social interaction of the classroom community and follow the norms of the group. My
role in this context was to help Elizabeth learn to appreciate these successful moments as
a part of the outcomes of setting more reasonable goals for Sam. I was concerned that it
was so difficult for her to recognize when Sam had had a good day or accomplished

something that for him was a significant challenge.

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During writer’s workshop each day, Elizabeth’s class had sharing time at the end
of the session. Students had the opportunity to share their works in progress as well as
published writing pieces. Most often, this was done in front of the class as a whole group
activity. Sam never chose to share during this time; instead he removed himself from the
group. However, in late March, Sam approached Elizabeth and asked for permission to
share his story that day. While he had difficulty with the actual sharing (he couldn’t read
his own writing or what Elizabeth had transcribed for him), he did gamely repeat what
Elizabeth whispered to him as she read over his shoulder. As importantly, his classmates
were attentive and responsive to his efforts. For Sam and his classmates as well as
Elizabeth, this was a significant moment in their year of work together (March 24
debriefing conference, p. 3). During the debriefing conference, I made a specific move to
raise this incident as a part of our conversation. I wanted to make sure that Elizabeth
recognized this as a sign of Sam’s progress as well as ensure that she remembered this
more positive experience with Sam in the chaos of a busy day in first grade. I felt that
drawing attention to something like this event would help Elizabeth recognize that Sam
was making progress and that she played a role in helping him get to that point. I also
wanted her to understand this as a sign of her efforts to set and accept progress on more
reasonable goals.

Elizabeth recognized that the classroom Ieaming experiences had begun to move
significantly past what Sam was able to do independently. His reading and writing skills
were not developing at the pace of even the other struggling learners in the classroom.

Just as things were coming to a head with issues of Sam’s behavior as it escalated to a

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higher level, Elizabeth identified a connection between these two aspects of classroom
life commenting:
We have now surpassed, I feel like the behaviors are getting worse because we
have surpassed what he is able to do in great leaps and bounds. He can’t, it
frustrates him. Right from this morning the bellwork I gave, it was the addition of
2+1, I mean it was not too hard for him and he claims, “I can’t do this.” And it’s
like he’s defeated before he even tries. (March 5 debriefing conference, p. 1-2)
Realizing the complex interrelationship between behavior and academics was an
important step for Elizabeth in coming to grips with how she might best support Sam.
She said, “I did take a step back and think about how he must feel every day coming into
a classroom where he can’t function” (March 5 debriefing conference, p. 1-2). She was
able to redesign activities but also her expectations for behavior in ways that were more
supportive of Sam’s particular situation in the classroom. At the end of the year,
Elizabeth recognized that this was something that benefited them both:
When he does good, like he did today, I mean the work he did today for Sam
was. . .showed tons of growth. The fact that he sat down and actually followed the
directions that I gave. . .compared to the beginning of the year. And that’s what I
have to keep telling myself throughout the year, that’s been the biggest challenge.
It’s seeing that progress because sometimes it feels like he’s not making any.
(Elizabeth’s student interview, p. 1-2)
Coming to this conclusion was a significant sign of the progress that Elizabeth and I
made together. Recognizing the importance of setting reasonable goals for learning and
then taking pride in the accomplishments that both she and Sam made was critical
progress for Elizabeth in Ieaming to teach diverse learners. She was able to accept the
progress that he made and I considered this a sign of her progress in coming to
understand the complexity of educating Sam. By exploring with her the outcomes of

each of these situations as described above, I was able to help Elizabeth reflect on her

experiences in working with Sam and in this instance, his interactions with his peers.

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While we never got Sam to the point of ideal relationships with his classmates, Elizabeth
was able to learn about her options in helping a student to become socially more
appropriate in his relationships with classmates.

At the end of lead teaching in March, Elizabeth and I proudly reflected on a
session of writer’s workshop where Sam was able to sit independently and work carefully
for the first twenty minutes without bothering anyone in the classroom. I was able to
help her recognize this by bringing it to her attention during our debriefing conference so
that she could see that she and Sam really were making progress on their work together.
Again, this was a place where I wanted to call specific attention to what Sam could do
during instruction as evidence that Elizabeth was learning to work with his needs in
effective ways. For all involved, this was a significant accomplishment because Sam’s
ability to work independently without bothering his classmates allowed Elizabeth to
focus her work on the needs of all learners and not just on managing Sam (March 23
debriefing conference, p. 2). This was another sign of our progress that she needed to
recognize in order to take pride in the accomplishments both she and Sam had in working
together.

Supporting Sam’s interactions with his peers. My role as a knowledgeable
observer in the classroom allowed me to support Elizabeth’s efforts to integrate Sam into
the classroom. Sam struggled to work with his peers in socially appropriate ways. This
was particularly difficult when they were expected to work together to complete a
Ieaming activity. By observing Elizabeth’s attempts to support Sam and the variety of
solutions she used to engage him but to also meet the needs of her other learners, I was

able to help her process the approaches that worked and learn to set reasonable goals for

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what she could expect of herself as well as of Sam. This section looks at several
examples of how Elizabeth learned from her experiences of having Sam work with
classmates and the role I played in that Ieaming.

As someone who was less involved in implementing instruction, I could sit back
and watch how Sam interacted with his peers during group activities. I was able then to
use this information during debriefing conferences to help Elizabeth consider her options
for action. This information was particularly helpful in challenging Elizabeth’s high
expectations for Sam by being able to present her with the reality of the situation she was
addressing. During one lesson, I noticed an interaction between Sam and another student
in the classroom and shared this information with her during our debriefing conference.
Elizabeth began immediately to explore her options for how she might handle Sam’s
location in ways that did not distract his peers:

Alisa: I don’t know but Sara’s about had it with Sam.

Elizabeth: Oh is that why [they were fighting]?

Alisa: He did something and you moved him over to his other table and her
comment when he left was something along the lines of, “I’m so tired of him,
he’s just so annoying.”

Elizabeth: I’m thinking about constantly having him over the writing center.
Alisa: That could become his personal table there. That’s what they did
with the emotionally impaired student in David’s class — he has his own table.
He couldn’t handle sitting with his peers so they gave him his own table.
Elizabeth: I think that the problem with [mentally impaired student] is that even
though [classroom aide] is over there, Sam was even more distracting to [mentally
impaired student] than I think any other child in this room.

Alisa: That worked out okay I thought with [classroom aide], she was close
enough that she could get his attention by calling his name from where she
was sitting by [mentally impaired student] versus if he’s across the room and
no one can get there.

Elizabeth: There’s not enough comers in this room. [The principal] has said that
we need to get a Velcro square or a carpet for him and we haven’t yet but I’m
curious as to how that will work.

Alisa: A kindergarten student has one. She [the intern] seems pleased with
it because she was referring to it, he knows where he’s supposed to be and
it’s easy to redirect him or if you need to, you move the square and then he

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goes to wherever the square is, so if you wanted to focus on having someone
else up front and center, then you could move the square as opposed to tape
on the carpet when you really are kind of containing an issue there. (March 4
debriefing conference, p. 3)
Thinking through the options that existed allowed us to play out some ways to help Sam
focus as well as reduce the impact that his behavior had on his classmates. My role in
this conversation was to help Elizabeth think about how best to manage the problem in
the classroom, supporting Sam both academically and socially. I was concerned that
Elizabeth’s work with Sam supported his social needs at the same time that she
recognized a responsibility to all other students. Our conversation allowed Elizabeth to
consider what other interns had done to support children who needed some guidance in
behavior but were also struggling socially. By sharing these examples with her, I was
able to help Elizabeth see beyond the immediacy of her own classroom situation and
explore options other than those that she had used or witnessed in her own classroom. I
was also able to help her see how those other options demonstrated that another adult had
similar challenges with children, that as a beginner Elizabeth was having experiences
similar to those of her peers. While this conversation does not highlight Elizabeth’s high
expectations for herself, I felt that this understanding was particularly important because
she expected herself to be competent with experiences she had not yet had. Her desire to
become her CT by the end of the year also pushed me to help her see that she was not
going to achieve that goal simply through completing the internship year. Recognizing
that these were unrealistic goals in many ways made me focus my work on ensuring that

she developed a more realistic understanding for how she might make progress in her

teaching and Ieaming.

216

Elizabeth often used group work situations in the content areas to help her
students learn to work together while supporting each other as emergent readers and
writers. In science, Elizabeth particularly enjoyed having students work together as
partners to explore materials related to the unit of study. During a science unit on solids
and liquids, Elizabeth put the students into pairs to sort a series of solid objects into those
that were magnetic and those that were not. Elizabeth used the name sticks'9 in order to
put the students into pairs at the end of a mini-lesson and set of directions for the activity
they would do. Reflecting on this process during the debriefing conference, Elizabeth
and I discussed how she inadvertently ended up with a pairing that was not a good idea
and what she did to try and solve it in action:

Elizabeth: Joe and Sam, a partnership? Yeah, I ended and did not, yeah that was
not one that I thought out.

Alisa: You mean they were at the end?

Elizabeth: They were at the end, they were my leftovers. Well, because I kept
saving — those are two that I save in the sense that I know that they need support
and so when I was pairing them up, it was like, okay, I’m trying to pair this one
with this one and I don’t know what happened. ..[laughs] that was not a plan.
And it was something, and then at the end I was like, oh, I can’t move, I didn’t
want to say you go with them.

Alisa: To break up working partners?

Elizabeth: Yeah, so I figured that I would support them.

Alisa: And was one the strategies to stick them up here by themselves at the
listening center?

Elizabeth: They were, they were sitting at the listening center. The only problem
with the two of them is that both of them wanted the materials all the time and so
they were the ones that were taking the trays, or other people’s things from their
trays so that they could have two nuts, you know, and they could have two paper
clips and they could have two things that were magnetic in that the sense that they
weren’t so much concerned with the fact that it was magnetic, they were
concerned with what they could construct out of the magnet. (March 25
debriefing conference, p. l)

 

'9 Name sticks are a set of tongue depressors in a can with each student’s name on one stick. Elizabeth and
Amanda used these sticks to select students to call on at random or to quickly pair/group students.

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Elizabeth recognized that she had ended up in a situation for which she did not plan and
that she did not find particularly successful because of the boys’ inability to share the
materials that they were to work with together as partners. She realized that her solution
to the problem (placing them together but away from their peers) was not that helpful in

managing the behavior but it did keep them from distracting their peers while they argued

 

over the supplies. I knew, going into the debriefing conference, she was frustrated with '3:
how this had played out and the fact that these two had ended up together because she I
had said as much as she walked past me during the lesson (classroom observation field

notes, March 25). As we continued to talk about this lesson, and especially this pairing, I Ii—

pushed Elizabeth to consider what her options would be if she were to go back and do
something like this again, realizing that it did not work to place these two students
together because neither was able to take the lead on the academic piece of the activity.
I wanted her to think carefully about why this did not work out as planned and consider
what it would take to meet these needs without simply assuming she did it wrong.
Across the course of our conversation, I was able to help Elizabeth recognize both the
academic and social issues that she faced with Sam.

Alisa: If you were to go back and do it again, and you ended up with a
Joe/Sam partnership, would you give them two trays of stuff?

Elizabeth: Yeah, that probably would have been. Sam. . . probably if I were to
go back, I would let Sam work on his own because I think with a different
partner, Joe probably could have worked out the problem of working
cooperatively whereas Sam probably just needed to be in his own group, by
himself, at the listening center where he could explore the materials and not

be. . .but I even think that he would have been searching out for someone to say
look how cool, you know...

Alisa: Right, he needed the social interaction that came with the exploring
and then I wonder, too, he doesn’t have anyone modeling for him what to do
Elizabeth: Uh-huh

Alisa: And in that instance, maybe Joe wasn’t the right choice as someone
who was prepared to model the appropriate use of this stuff

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Elizabeth: And to be on task, and yeah how to...

Alisa: But if he goes and sits by himself then it’s just exploration, it’s not

following through on trying to figure out which solids are magnetic.

Elizabeth: But even with the just exploration, I think for him, with additional

support, it would have been a better structure.

Alisa: With additional support?

Elizabeth: Meaning me, yeah, meaning like me going over there making sure,

checking on him, you know, having him sort them into two different piles.

Giving him maybe even extra time to explore materials and properties. If those

trays are in here, he can not keep his hands out them. (March 25 debriefing

conference, p. 2)
Figuring out how to support Sam when the situation was best served by working with
classmates, while recognizing the difficulty of this, left Elizabeth searching for options
for how to manage Sam’s needs at the same time she supported everyone else. I was able
to guide Elizabeth through the process of thinking about how to meet his additional needs
and to explore what she considered to be her best options. Ultimately, she thought it
would be best to provide adult support rather than relying on another student to be that
primary support for Sam. I wanted her to recognize that she was facing a complex issue
here and that this was something that could challenge any intern. I continued to remain
concerned that she held herself to standards that did not allow her room to learn as a
novice and so spent time working through this entire issue in order to support her
understanding of other possibilities. This continued to be a constant tension for Elizabeth
and Sam — how to pull him into the classroom community while respecting others’ needs
at the same time.

In another instance, Sam demonstrated the constant struggle he had with one
student, Roger, who particularly craved his own space and consistent routines with

predictable behavior from his classmates. During one classroom visit, Elizabeth asked

for my guidance on what she might do with Sam (someone who has many

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accommodations listed for him on Elizabeth’s typical lesson planzo). She recognized that
she needed to make accommodations for him but was struggling with strategies that
would support his social growth in a classroom where other children also had significant
needs (student-specific field notes, p. 5-6). During the lesson I had just observed, Roger
was getting upset that Sam had touched him (it appeared unintentional) and continued to
be upset that Sam was staring at him after Elizabeth had asked Roger to scoot over and
make room for Sam. Roger had a tendency to be easily upset by his peers and I talked
with Elizabeth about the appropriateness of holding Sam singularly accountable for
upsetting Roger with minor actions because it seemed like you could never tell what
might set Roger off. Sam did not possess the social skill and ability to read the situation
and the maturity to then work to avoid upsetting Roger. I wanted to make sure that
Elizabeth understood this was asking a great deal of Sam and that she needed to consider
carefully the degree to which she viewed this as a part of her larger situation with Sam.
We discussed a range of ideas for supporting Sam in learning to work with Roger.
One solution that I recommended was that Elizabeth ensure that the two children were
spaced out on the carpet and in whole group activities. During social group times, I
encouraged her to work with both of them to learn to work together and tolerate each
other (student-specific field notes, p. 5-6). Elizabeth immediately introduced some of
these ideas into her next lesson, focusing carefully on where each child was during the
mini-lesson. This tendency to reflect on experiences, select ideas for how to improve

instructional activities and social relationships and then find ways to implement them into

 

2" On the lesson plan form that interns use, there is a section for academic, social and linguistic
accommodations for the lesson as well as the assessment of it. Elizabeth’s plans continually included
accommodations for Sam that included social and academic support. Elizabeth sought ways to provide him
with support for working with his peers and in whole group settings as well as helping him with the
academic tasks of a lesson (such as how to accommodate his reading needs in an activity).

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her instruction was typical of Elizabeth’s work with me. Although I maintained concerns
about Elizabeth’s expectations for herself and for Sam, she was always responsive to
suggestions that were made to help her deal with classroom events. By supporting her
with immediate feedback in the classroom as well as an opportunity to reflect, I was able
to help Elizabeth address immediate concerns in her classroom and she was able to make
immediate changes in her practice. This became one of the most effective approaches I F
had for helping her to manage her problem successfully with Sam. It also allowed me to
remain true to my social constructivist stance towards field instruction practice by

helping Elizabeth to learn and make sense of her own experiences rather than telling her

 

what to do next. However, I did encourage her to work with both Roger and Sam, not
simply to drop the issue without exploring the more complex solutions to the situation. I
was able to help her see what I had observed and she was able to then “see with fresh
eyes” her own reality and reconstruct her practice.

Elizabeth recognized during another conversation that Sam was a child who really
wanted to be a part of the classroom community and that she needed to consider how her
efforts to support him either included him in that community or further marginalized him
from the group. One of the strategies commonly used for children who were struggling
to behave when seated on the carpet for a whole class activity was to send them to sit in a
chair at the back of the room (still facing the group). Sam often sat in a chair in the back
of the room before a lesson was completed because he could not keep himself from
physically touching or bothering his classmates. Elizabeth recognized that he wanted to
be a part of the class and questioned this mechanism for redirecting his behavior because

it removed from him from the intimacy of the group. She recognized that her own

frustration with his constant misbehavior made it easier to remove him from the group. I
wanted her to understand that simply removing Sam from the group did not solve the
greater issue at hand and that her challenge was to manage to balance this tension for
Sam. I recognized that this was a difficult situation to work through each day and I
wanted Elizabeth to understand the complexity of this in ways that helped her be realistic
about what she might accomplish.

She commented to me that he wanted to “be a part of the group so much that even
when he’s been asked to go sit in a chair, he scoots it up so close that ultimately he’s in
trouble again” (student-specific field notes, p. 9-10). We tried to explore other options
for how she could balance this tension in ways that supported Sam’s growth in multiple
areas. Elizabeth asked whether it would be “wrong” to tell Sam that he has to stand at the
group instead of removing him. When we discussed this and her rationale for it, she felt
that it removed many of the things and people that he might fidget and play with but
ultimately allowed him to continue to be physically a part of the group. Elizabeth did
later try the standing approach to management and found mixed success for how it
worked with Sam. While not an ideal solution, this is an example of how Elizabeth
would continue to test ideas to find something that would work for both Sam and his
peers. I was satisfied that she paid attention to his academic need to be involved in the
instruction as well as his social needs and did not simply sacrifice one to benefit the
other.

The struggle to include Sam in positive interactions was an ongoing one, one that
ebbed and flowed each time Elizabeth tried to work harder to balance the complexity of

the system in her classroom. Over time, and with support, she came to recognize that the

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pieces were interrelated and would move back and forth between which she chose to
prioritize, depending on Sam’s behavior at the time, the activity she was attempting, and
the experiences she was having with other children at that point. Working with her to
help her think through the influence of her decisions, we managed her problem together
(Schon, 1987) in ways that helped her slowly but surely move towards an idea of what
might work for her in future teaching situations with Sam and with future students who
have similar needs. She was able to use our work together to hypothesize about future
action for the immediate future as well as for later years. By helping her to redirect her
focus to more reasonable goals for Sam and for herself, she was able to see what was
possible in the situation and not just where she was failing to meet her own expectations.
Influence of Parents and the Practices of the Upper-middle Class Community

One of the challenges present for interns at Lancaster Elementary is the
supportive but vocal parent population. While the majority of parents at Lancaster know
how to and will do anything necessary to support their students, this can sometimes
overwhelm and challenge an intern who is still in the process of learning to teach, and
wary of mistakes that might be made in public ways. For Sam, the parents of these other
students were also a presence, even if he was not aware of the larger implications they
had on his ability to socialize with his peers. Additionally, the cultural norms of the
upper-middle class community conflicted with Sam’s experiences. This mismatch had
the potential to marginalize Sam as the one who did not fit the situation. Two examples
of this mismatch in resources and material support forced Elizabeth to consider how she

understood and supported or complicated Sam’s social experiences in the classroom.

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One particular example of this impacted how Elizabeth was thinking about the
community and parents’ response to a child who did not come from a background similar
to their own. Sam and another child got into trouble on the playground during lunch
recess one day when Sam responded to the other child’s verbal attacks by punching him.
When a child gets in trouble at recess, he or she receives a “wall notice” which
documents the infraction and must be returned to school the next day signed by a parent.
If a child does not return the wall notice signed, he stands along the wall during every
recess until he returns the note. Elizabeth reported on a conversation that she had with
the parent of the other child involved in this particular altercation with Sam. The parent
came to Elizabeth (Amanda was out of the classroom for professional development that
day) and asked whether Sam’s wall notice was returned because “through the grapevine
she’s heard that his wall notices never come back.” She wanted to know how it was
handled when he failed to return his notice. Elizabeth attempted to downplay the issue by
assuring the mother saying, “Well, honestly, there were a lot of consequences for a
couple days after that.” As she explained it to me later, “If his parents don’t send back
the wall notice, I’m not going to keep him in from recess for two weeks because his
parents didn’t send back the notice.” She continued to explain this to the parent without
getting into the specifics of another child’s situation or consequences while the parent
tried to pass her comments off as concern about “whether those parents are involved”
(March 5 debriefing conference, p. 2).

Elizabeth did not like that this parent questioned the actions of another parent or
family and was thrown by this encounter. I spoke with her not long after it happened that

morning and expressed my concern that she let Amanda know as soon as possible.

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Elizabeth and I talked at length about how this affected Sam and his relationships with

his peers. In this instance, Elizabeth responded in ways that demonstrated care and
concern for Sam’s social welfare in the classroom. While the other child involved was
often in trouble, his mother repeatedly explained to him (and to the teachers) that much of
his misbehavior was not his problem or his fault. Elizabeth felt that the conversation she
had with the mother was indicative of the way that the mother spoke to her son about

Sam. While the mother’s interest in the situation could be construed as genuine concern

 

for Sam’s well-being, Elizabeth felt that the tone of the conversation was intended to

implicate Sam’s parents as irresponsible and uninvolved rather than an attempt to look

 

out for Sam or take responsibility for her own son’s behavior. Elizabeth was also
bothered by the mother’s comment that she heard these things “through the grapevine,”
implying that Sam was a subject of conversation and speculation (which Elizabeth
assumed was negative) throughout the community (student-specific field notes, p. 26-27).
She commented that “everyone in the school knows about Sam” and she was “amazed at
how quickly information gets around this school” (student-specific field notes, p. 26-27).
My role here was to help Elizabeth consider her options for action (talking with
Amanda and the principal) as well as helping her to debrief her feelings about the
situation and her understanding of the larger school community. While I do not condone
the situation or the action of the parent, I wanted Elizabeth to realize that this was not an
entirely unusual situation and that she needed to be prepared to handle these in her future
years. Elizabeth’s surprise at this, particularly that the word had gotten around among the
parents, demonstrated that she had na'r've conceptions for how the school community

worked and the influence that this could have on students. Her assumptions for the way

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the school experience would play out for each student demonstrated her initial
oversimplification of the situation. How the parents spoke about Sam and his family said
something about his ability to integrate himself into the social community of his peers.
Elizabeth felt that this would complicate her efforts to support Sam in making friends if

his peers were receiving other messages about him from home.

it

We spoke at length of the challenge that Elizabeth faced in this situation. Over
the course of our conversation, Elizabeth recognized that the diversity of the classroom
could be influenced by something like socioeconomic status and that this could have .

powerful, lasting effects on children who are marginalized as a result. We had previously

 

discussed how Sam’s family background was something that had to be taken into
consideration in her planning and his Ieaming. Elizabeth identified a mismatch between
his experiences and those that were the norm in the school setting, realizing that he would
need to learn some alternatives in order to succeed in the classroom and school
community as traditionally structured (field instruction field notes, p. 15). I appreciated
that Elizabeth was able to come to realize this complexity and began to understand that
despite her surprise. there was a lot going on here that was not immediately obvious in
the classroom.

The nuances of this conversation as well as of the experience she had with this
parent reinforced that Elizabeth and I had framed the problem she was attempting to
manage in similar ways. We were in agreement that the work she was trying to do with
Sam should focus on helping him access the social community of the classroom as well
as begin to make academic progress. At several points in the year, we had the

Opportunity to touch base through our conversations and reaffirm that we were on the

226

same page in terms of beliefs and approaches about the framing and naming of this
problem. Each conversation or interaction served to reinforce our earlier negotiation of
the problem as one that focused on Sam’s complex needs as a socioeconomic minority in
this classroom context. Each conversation further demonstrated that with time and
attention, Elizabeth was coming to understand that this entire process of Ieaming to teach
a student with Sam’s needs was more complex than she initially expected. F

Another example from the school year documented Elizabeth’s growing

 

awareness that Sam did not fit the typical norms of the classroom. One tradition that it
existed in their class was to celebrate students’ birthdays with a treat provided from 1'
home. Each child brought in his or her preferred snack for his or her birthday and the
class then engaged in a routine that celebrated the child. As the snack was passed out by
the birthday child, the class waited patiently at their seats practicing their manners as they
said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ as well as ‘happy birthday.’ After that, the birthday child
stood at the front of the class with Amanda and Elizabeth where the entire class sang
“Happy Birthday” with their own special ending to the song. The birthday child then got
to take the first bite of the treat while the classmates waited patiently for him or her to
begin.
On Sam’s birthday, he was absent from school. When he returned the next day,
he asked Elizabeth after lunch if she had a birthday snack for him to share with the class,
which she did not. I was in the room during this conversation and she turned to me and
commented on how sorry she was that he was the first child in the class to have nothing
to share with his peers. At this point, it occurred to Elizabeth that their entire ritual for

celebrating birthdays was centered around the treat that the child provided. She realized,

227

“We never even sang happy birthday to him!” This oversight caused her to focus on the
assumptions that existed in the structure of the classroom that parents had the financial
ability and awareness to provide a snack for 26 people (student-specific field notes, p. 9-
10).

In the context of this conversation, I was able to share my personal approach to
birthday snacks in a school where more than one child in the class would be unable to
afford to bring in a snack. In my classroom, we celebrated all birthdays in each month
(and a party for the summer months) at the end of the month with a low-key snack that I
provided for the entire class. This eliminated competition about the quality of the treat as
well as ensured that all children in the classroom were included in the celebration for
their month without any attention to the fact that some children could not afford such a
luxury. Elizabeth was curious about the specifics of this approach and this conversation
afforded me with an opportunity to show her how she might prepare in advance to
eliminate such situations, while respecting all children’s right to belong.

I took advantage of this as teachable moment with Elizabeth to help her explore
other options and to reflect on the reality of this situation as yet one more way Sam stood
out from his peers in ways that directly related to the difference in their socioeconomic
status. It bothered me that the possibility Sam would be unable to provide a snack for the
class was not considered prior his birthday. While I don’t hold Elizabeth personally
accountable for that oversight, it did concern me that she was not aware of this given that
so much of our work together focused on the specifics of his personal life and particular
needs. In this instance, Amanda later offered to bring in a snack for him to share with his

peers on another day because it was too late to change the structure of the birthday treat

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program for the year. However, Elizabeth expressed a desire to take a more inclusive
approach in her own classroom in the future.

Intimately connected with the challenges of supporting Sam’s social development
were the beliefs that Elizabeth held about how best to support young children and their

Ieaming experiences. As a result of the experiences that she had in working with Sam,

Elizabeth reviewed several aspects of her child development beliefs. How we worked ‘3-

together to help her reconcile her experiences with her previous beliefs about teaching

and learning is the subject of the next section. ii
The Demise of Child Development Beliefs li.

 

Elizabeth entered the internship year in possession of a solid base of knowledge
about child development beliefs and practices. As a result of her child development
student teaching experience in the Michigan State University child development lab,
Elizabeth had solidified her theoretical knowledge through practice in a very controlled
lab setting where student teachers are held to high standards and expectations for the
kinds of language teacher candidates used with students, and were carefully monitored
for how they spoke to students. Elizabeth’s experiences in the lab school setting
informed her beliefs about developmentally appropriate practices, behavior management
and ways of speaking with young children. Elizabeth’s beliefs were a common part of
our conversations as well as those she had with Amanda, particularly early in the year as
she asserted herself in the classroom and worked to become a partner in teaching with
Amanda. Over time, Sam challenged many of these beliefs and forced Elizabeth to
reconsider what she felt was possible in the quickly paced, sometimes chaotic first grade

classroom in which she interned. This section explores how I played a role in supporting

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Elizabeth as she worked to reconsider her beliefs about management in light of her
experiences with Sam and his particular Ieaming needs. Specifically, I will look at how
Elizabeth dealt with the challenge he presented for how she addressed children who were
misbehaving in terms of the language and actions she used.

Saying No to Children and Removing Sam from Class

Elizabeth advocated a management approach that allowed her to explain and
redirect children with minimal use of negative terms (such as ‘no’). In her child
development classes, Elizabeth learned approaches to management and behavior that
required her to use ‘1' messages. These messages redirected children by expressing her
concern for the behavior in which they were engaged and naming a behavior that she
would rather seem them demonstrate. For example, instead of saying ‘no’ to a child
running down the hall, Elizabeth would say something like, “I am afraid that if you run
down the hall, you might get hurt. Please walk.”

Her vision of herself as a teacher was valid and built on a wide base of knowledge
about child development. It stemmed from a desire to respect and support positive self-
esteem in each of her students and yet was complicated to implement for a child with
Sam’s particular needs. Sam was not accustomed to behavioral boundaries and was also
unaccustomed to having many opportunities to discuss his feelings and thoughts about
each moment of misbehavior in the classroom. With Sam, Elizabeth discovered that this
approach to management did not result in the changes in behavior that she hoped to see.
This is an instance where Elizabeth’s beliefs were not consistent with Sam’s cultural
experiences. This mismatch caused some frustration on her part as Sam was unable to

meet her expectations from this perspective. I played a role in helping Elizabeth think

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about whether or not this management technique was reasonable and thus, whether her
expectations for Sam were also reasonable.

She determinedly continued to pursue this strategy for redirecting children
throughout the fall semester. We spoke a number of times about how she needed to
consider whether this was the most effective approach to managing a child’s behavior,
like Sam’s, when he was physically active and potentially in danger of actually hurting r‘
one of his classmates in the process. For example, one day Sam was running up and
down the hallway while the children were supposed to be putting on snow clothes for l

lunch recess. Elizabeth spoke to him about this behavior using her child development

 

IPA...

language, saying she was worried he would get hurt or hurt someone else if he continued
to run. This had no effect. Elizabeth then told him to “Stop running!” This caught
Sam’s attention and caused him to focus on her (student-specific field notes, p. 24). Sam
expected to be told when to stop doing something (this seemed to be the only time he
responded to a request for him to change his behavior) and often seemed confused by the
explanations he received for why he could not do something. Elizabeth was very
frustrated that this did not seem to work in this situation because she had prior
experiences that demonstrated to her that it could work. For example, Sam was asked to
stop playing with the science manipulatives (March 25 observation notes). Elizabeth
explained to him that they needed certain materials in certain places and Sam continued
to play until he was simply told to stop. The explanation he received for why it was
inappropriate for him to play with the materials meant very little to him. Rarely did these
explanations result in Sam understanding what the problem was well enough to keep

from repeating the offense.

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Ultimately, there came a point in the year when both Amanda and Elizabeth had
to physically restrain Sam during several activities in order to get him to stop what he
was doing and comply with their requests for behavioral control. Elizabeth struggled
with this experience and was very stressed by the need to send or take Sam to the office
for a cooling down period. She was particularly aware of the social consequences this
action was having on his relationships with his classmates. On one particular instance
when I was in the classroom with her, Sam was refusing to stop building a tower out of
the die they were using as manipulatives in math. After quite a few minutes of
attempting to negotiate with Sam, then requiring that he stop, and taking away the
manipulatives (which only resulted in him going across the room and taking them back
out), Elizabeth removed Sam to the office for a cool down.2| At this time, Elizabeth had
parent volunteers in the classroom working with the students in small math groups and as
she and Sam left the room, Joe commented, “There goes Sam to the office again!” This
comment bothered Elizabeth greatly and as she returned to the classroom without Sam,
she said to me that she wondered whether she should have just dropped it and let him
play with the materials as a way of avoiding drawing attention to Sam’s situation in front
of parents in the classroom (student-specific field notes, p. 17-18).

Elizabeth was both internally conflicted about the use of such a management
strategy and conscious of the impact that such a decision might have on Sam’s social
reputation by doing this in a public way. While she expressed frustration over his

behavior, Elizabeth also understood that Sam needed help in figuring out what he could

 

2' This was the plan that had been designed collaboratively by Amanda, Elizabeth and the principal in order
to address some of their concerns about this behavior in the classroom. They recognized that Sam needed
an opportunity to remove himself from the situation and regain control because his behavior was often
dominating classroom time in ways that negatively impacted all learners.

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do and what he could not do. I reaffirmed to her that her decision was reasonable for
Sam given that he had been pushing it all day and this was the final straw. Being able to
respond immediately to her concerns by being in the classroom while this situation
played out was particularly valuable for supporting Elizabeth as she worked through the
tension she felt in dealing with Sam’s needs.

Elizabeth’s child development beliefs were in direct contradiction to this approach F“
of dealing with Sam’s misbehavior. It took a long time before Elizabeth would step into

the role of being the teacher who would ask Sam to leave the room or escort him to the

 

office. Her personal conflict over the approach as well as her belief that such a response
shouldn’t be necessary if she was doing everything right made it difficult for her to do
this. Elizabeth put the responsibility for getting to this point in management on her own
shoulders, believing that she should single-handedly be able to deal with Sam without
resorting to such measures. Only during lead teaching when it became clear that she
needed to take on all roles of the primary teacher in the classroom did she step up and
engage in this aspect of the program. The fact that Sam seemed to be more out of control
at this time period pushed Elizabeth to begin to make this change in her management.
Elizabeth and I had an informal conversation one day where Elizabeth burst into
tears, confessing that she felt she was “doing so badly with Sam” and how she didn’t like
the person she had become because the children weren’t meeting her expectations (field
instruction field notes, p. 32). This behavior was in line with my concerns that she was
overcome with her own expectations of what she should be able to accomplish as a
beginner with a very difficult set of children. Talking with me as well as with Amanda

(who joined the conversation part way through), Elizabeth was able to recognize a

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connection between her beliefs about management and the challenges she was facing
with Sam. She was afraid removing the explanation of why children needed to change
their behavior was to leave it so that “they walk out of the room at the end of the day
having all these negative [thoughts about school]” (March 4 debriefing conference, p. 6).
Elizabeth had difficulty giving up on this aspect of her beliefs even when she had notable
evidence that it was not working for her in her work with Sam. Amanda reflected at the
end of the year on the difficulty that Elizabeth had in accepting that this approach to
management wasn’t going to work in every situation:

Amanda: I ’11 just never forget the beginning of the year, maybe even before
school started, she was asking questions about my philosophy and things like that
and you know, coming from that child development background, and how you
deal with that behavior. Well, if the rule is don’t run down the hall then you stop
and say, “Oh Joey I see that you are running down and the hall and blah, blah,
blah...” And if nothing else, I think one of her big ahas, okay, here’s a big aha,
sometimes there’s not time to do that whole big long spiel. Sometimes, you just
have to look at a kid and say “STOP.” It’s okay to give that directive because
sometimes one word is what you need for the situation. Yes, sometimes, you can
sit down and reason with a child or talk with them. But you can’t always do that,
sometimes that’s just “Stop”. And I think that hurt her too, that hurt her feelings.
You remember that day when she was upset because she said, “I’m too mean, I’m
being the type of person I didn’t think I was.”

Alisa: Yeah, she was really upset.

Amanda: She was very upset but she wasn’t bad. It was just one of those
situations where she really had to step in and say, stop, that’s it, no more.
(Amanda’s spring interview, p. 9-10)

This quote demonstrates how hard it was for Elizabeth to let go of her previous approach
to management. While Amanda acknowledged that both approaches had their place, she
also pointed out how difficult it was for Elizabeth to reconcile this change with her sense
of self as a teacher. I was concerned that even in the face of negative outcomes,
Elizabeth was not able to see how this might need to be adjusted for Sam, even if she

continued to work with this approach in other areas. While I recognized that it is never

234

 

pleasant to physically remove a child from any school or classroom activity, I do not
believe that Elizabeth was easily willing to see how this would work for Sam in some
ways. However, I do appreciate that she was interested in understanding the complexity
of the situation.

In particular, Elizabeth was worried about the impact of this approach on Sam’s
social relationships. Occasionally other children in the classroom might be removed in
order to get their behavior under control. However, it seemed, as Joe pointed out, that
Sam was the one most commonly leaving the classroom. Elizabeth was conscious of the
influence that her decisions to remove him might have on this aspect of his classroom
life. However, she ultimately reconciled herself to the reality of this situation and
accepted that, for the time being, this was the plan that was in place and that she would
need to enforce the expectations for him that had been laid out by Amanda and the
principal. Elizabeth commented, “I just need to follow through on what is in place to
make it possible to get through the day” (field instruction field notes, p. 32). My role was
to help her come to this conclusion and recognize that she needed to play a role in
enforcing the goals and expectations that others with more authority held for Sam
(student-specific field notes, p. 24-26).

Across the internship year. Elizabeth had the opportunity to confront a number of
her child development beliefs head on and consider whether or not to hold onto them,
adapt them, or drop them in favor of something new she learned at Lancaster. For the
majority of situations, her child development beliefs were reasonably in line with what
she experienced in Amanda’s classroom (i.e. Reader’s Workshop). In other instances,

Elizabeth was able to push Amanda’s thinking forward, enhancing the use of centers in

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ways that reflected a more child-centered philosophy. Working with Sam forced her to
recognize that all children did not respond in similar ways to the same approaches. She
began to understand that the school system was based on white, middle class expectations
for student and teachers and that not all children fit the mold in the same way.
Elizabeth’s approaches were more in line with the middle class school structure than
Sam’s experiences as a student. Early in the internship year, Elizabeth’s attempts to hold
onto these beliefs in the face of situations where it was evident it did not work concerned
me. I worried that she was oversimplifying the situation with Sam and holding both of
them to expectations that they could not meet in practice. However, this behavior
changed over time with support and reflection from Amanda and me. Coming out of this ,
situation, Elizabeth realized a need to differentiate her approaches to behavior based on
her students’ diverse needs just as much as she needed to consider these diverse needs in
the design and development of instruction.
Conclusion

In reflection at the end of the semester, Elizabeth commented on her own
understanding of how she came to the point where she finally let go of her desire to
become the perfect teacher, recognizing that she had much to learn and that she was
putting too much pressure both on herself and on Sam. During the spring interview,
Elizabeth commented:

Elizabeth: That’s one of my weaknesses, either I think too much about it and I

need to do more or I put too much pressure on myself and I just need to accept it.

Alisa: Set more reasonable goals?
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. (Elizabeth’s spring interview, p. 3)

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Later in the interview I asked Elizabeth to describe that ‘aha moment’ when she
understood that this was too much to handle without reassessing her goals and setting
more reasonable ones:

Elizabeth: My aha moment probably came. . .and. . .I didn’t, it wasn’t in a good
way though.

Alisa: Okay.

Elizabeth: When, with Sam, right in the middle of February when it was me in
the middle of my lead teaching and I was having to remove him from the
classroom. My aha moment came, “What am I doing wrong?” What am I...kind
of like what we had talked about. . .what can I do to support this child as an
individual because I wasn’t feeling like I was effective. So in that sense, my aha
moment came because I had to reflect on myself and say he needs more than what
I can give him. Part of me had to set those reasonable goals and expectations but
part of me was also thinking, okay, in my classroom how would I manage this,
what support network would I have? And management wise, okay, I started
pulling him and he had his own separate desk/table all the time. [. . .] I think what
had happened is that I had let, not being in the lead, we had let those behaviors
continued, and they had just increased and increased and increased.

Alisa: I do remember there feeling like a time when it seemed like his
behaviors had just launched into the stratosphere.

Elizabeth: Yeah, and I guess the aha moment was thinking, “This child needs
structure and we’ve given him no structure. We haven’t been consistent within
this classroom for a child who needs consistency.” And so...

Alisa: And now we’re throwing in a transition to a different teacher?
Elizabeth: And so my aha movement came thinking about, okay, in my own. . .not
that, I pretty much felt ineffective with him and incapable of meeting his needs
and that was something that I had to deal with too. But it also made me think
about looking ahead to next fall when I go to my own classroom, what will the
structure be for those kids who need structure? (Elizabeth’s spring interview, p.
12-13)

In this discussion, Elizabeth reflected on the need to set reasonable goals for her learning
and for Sam’s. She recognized that she couldn’t be everything he needed and that she
was putting too much pressure on herself to do so when she commented that “I had to
reflect on myself and say he needs more than what I can give him” (Elizabeth’s spring

interview, p. 12—13). She understood that there were a wide range of needs that he had

237

and that while she was obligated to work hard to meet them, she also needed to realize
that she was unable to do everything for him.

One of the issues that I feel is particularly important in this conversation is that
Elizabeth was able to see past the struggles of this year, understanding that she would and
did learn from them and that she could take these messages forward into her future
teaching experiences. She reflected on the questions she was asking herself as she
brought the internship year to a close, the kinds of things she needed to consider as she
implemented classroom rules. routines and support systems for her future groups of
students.

Banks, Cookson and Gay (2001) write that social class “is one of the most
important variables that mediate and influence behavior” (p. 197). It is also one of those
factors that seem to make people of reasonable means uncomfortable to discuss because
of the implication that merit is not actually the means to advancement (N ieto, 1999). All
of this cannot serve as an excuse for ignoring the students’ backgrounds and needs or
making assumptions based on perceptions. Elizabeth struggled admirably to meet Sam’s
needs in the larger context of this first grade classroom full of peers who were not in line
with his outside experiences or lifestyle. She recognized early on that his outside
experiences might influence his classroom success and that she could not simply make
judgments or assumptions about him and his experiences based on those of his peers.
She also understood that she needed to set reasonable goals for her own learning and for
Sam’s so that she could celebrate the achievements of their progress both individually

and together.

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Field Instruction Support for Elizabeth

Field instruction support for Elizabeth focused on how to best support her in her
efforts with Sam who consistently challenged her knowledge and practices in multiple
ways. Working with her in this context, it was critical to develop a structure and support
that allowed her to meet his needs but to also recognize that she needed to think about her
own experiences as someone Ieaming to teach and learning how to set reasonable and
achievable goals in order to do so. With Elizabeth, opportunities for in-depth and
thoughtful reflection were the most powerful ways to help her think about and refine her
practice. These occurred through conversations about her experiences with Sam as well
as more formal debriefing conferences which occurred after classroom observations. As
an intern, Elizabeth did not hesitate to seek out conversation with me as her field
instructor, and often moved quite quickly to conversations about deeper issues of
teaching practice. I was able to use this natural entry into conversations and her
willingness to engage in them regularly to force her to question whether or not her goals
for herself and for Sam were appropriate in a given situation. At the end of the year,
Elizabeth commented that the “emotional, being in the building, supportive piece” of
field instruction practice was something that she valued immensely (Elizabeth’s spring
interview, p. 17). Elizabeth and Amanda also valued that I knew the children in their
class very well and was able to use that information about students to give an immediacy
and specificity to our work together. By spending time in the classroom on a more
informal basis, talking with the students, participating in class activities, I was able to

learn more about the children and use this information to support Elizabeth’s needs.

239

 

At the end of the year, Amanda commented on the role I played in helping
Elizabeth come to know herself as a teacher. Amanda felt that our conversations together
as field instructor and intern played an important role in helping Elizabeth figure out who
she is and what she believes as a teacher:

[Elizabeth] coming back and saying, “Well, Alisa and I talked about this...” and

listening to some of the conversations, those are incredibly deep conversation that

you have had with her and so. . .I think you really helped her to guide her thinking,
not that you‘ve told her what to think but you really helped her along her path of
self-realization of who she is and what she believes as a teacher. (Amanda’s

spring interview, p. 11)

Amanda felt that these conversations were places where constructivist approaches to field
instruction practice came through in action:

Amanda: You are definitely more the expert and she’s more the novice but you

really allowed her to take the lead in the conversations and this is my thinking,

and you would just through your questioning and observations, I think have her
come to her own realizations. Which to me I think is the true constructivist theory
to teaching. Yeah, there’s a goal in mind there, but helping them arrive there
themselves with your support.

Alisa: We’re going to get there together?

Amanda: We’re going to get there together, I’m your support but I’m not going

to tell you exactly how it has to look, like this. Does that make sense?

Alisa: Yeah.

Amanda: It’s been awesome. (Amanda’s spring interview, p. 12)

These conversations served as the primary place where I was able to use Elizabeth’s
classroom teaching experiences to help her understand areas where she was succeeding
even if she was not giving herself credit for those accomplishments. Elizabeth
recognized the value of the questioning that I used to help her make sense of her Ieaming
through these conversations. She valued that the “specific comments” and “observations
about why did I do that” made her reflect on her practice. She commented that over time

it made her “ask myself those same questions that you ask of me” (Elizabeth’s spring

interview, p. 17). She was able to see how she had gradually internalized the process I

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engaged her in during our conversations until she was able to use that as a tool to help her
reflect on her own practice without my prompting. I consider this a sign of Elizabeth’s
progress in coming to set more reasonable goals for herself. By helping her to see that
she had some control over how she responded to Sam’s Ieaming needs, I was able to help
Elizabeth think about the appropriateness of her expectations. This is something that she
could take with her into future years when she does not have mentoring that is as closely
focused on her practice as someone who is learning to teach.

As Amanda commented, “I know that she valued the conversations that she had
with you greatly” (Amanda’s spring interview, p. 2) reflecting the power of these
conversations from both perspectives. Elizabeth commented, “I feel like talking with
you, I have a really good understanding of my growth over the course of the year”
(Elizabeth’s spring interview, p. 19). Both felt that the conversations we had together
were places where we were able to work collaboratively with Elizabeth to come to an
understanding of her experiences in the process of Ieaming to teach. Elizabeth
particularly appreciated the opportunities to talk in more informal ways:

You being in my classroom, I think that I was fortunate in the fact that you were

in my classroom a lot and so I got to talk to you in more than just the observation.

I think those were what helped me because it was more informal and I felt that I

was more able to talk to you about the general of what was going on, and you had

a sense of my classroom and the kids in my classroom and so I was more able to

talk to you about even what happened yesterday or the day before than what was

happening right there and now. (Elizabeth’s spring interview, p. 18-19)

These conversations allowed us to work together on the broader sense that Elizabeth was
making of Ieaming to teach as well as the bigger picture of her experiences with Sam.

This helped us to move beyond those moments of complete frustration with Sam and with

herself and think about the entirety of her experiences with Sam. This type of

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conversation helped her as a learner who understood that she was focused on more than
the internship year as well as my goals as a field instructor to help her see the
appropriateness of her goals.

Elizabeth overestimated her ability to develop expertise during the internship
year. As Berliner (1992) writes, “Expertise, it should be remembered, is a characteristics
that is ordinarily developed only after lengthy experience” (p. 227). Elizabeth valued
Amanda’s expertise. She had the experience that Elizabeth wanted to have, desperately
craving the knowledge that Amanda has amassed over sixteen years of teaching practice.
Berliner acknowledges that teachers do not typically “hit their peak until they have at
least five years of on-the-job experience” (p. 229). As Elizabeth’s field instructor, it was
my responsibility to help her restructure her expectations for herself to be more in line
with what was realistically possible for a novice in the teaching profession. However,
Berliner (1992) also writes of the quality of experts’ behavior where they demonstrate a
particularly noteworthy attention to knowing more about their students. Elizabeth was
well on her way to developing this trend in behavior, thought and action for a novice.
While she did recognize that she had strengths, she also needed to work on accepting her
own natural limitations as one with relatively little experience in the profession. This
kind of situation — where an intern is placing unrealistic pressure on him or herself — is
something that may be more unusual in field instruction practice but noticeably important
to recognize and address. An appropriate goal for field instruction is to help an intern
learn to be proud of attempts to become “accomplished novices” (Bransford, Brown, &
Coching, 1999, p. 36). They defined an accomplished novice as one who is “skilled in

many areas and proud of their accomplishments, but they realize that what they know is

242

minuscule compared to all that is potentially knowable” (p. 36). Helping Elizabeth come
to accept a goal focused this kind of role for herself as a person learning to teach was a
particularly important element of our work together.

However, it was also important to know about what was going on in the
classroom and to encourage Elizabeth’s reflection on the specific experiences she was
having at the lesson and unit level of instruction. I was able to use classroom
observations and debriefing conferences to help Elizabeth reflect on how Ieaming with
Sam played out in the classroom. Even early in the year, Elizabeth had a sense for how
she might think about our work together in ways that supported her as a learner and
pushed her to think about what it is that she wants to accomplish:

I think that I’ve been fortunate enough that my F I has been immensely supporting

me. One strategy is that she uses as far as our observations go is that they’re

always positive comments and I can bring up a negative comment, or she’ll say
what about this, and I don’t know sometimes not even that it’s negative or she’s
trying to invoke me to think about some kind of different way or what could you
have done here, but it’s never a “well you did this and I think you should have
done this” and so I think that’s really helpful to me because it makes me first of
all process it, second of it all, it’s constructive criticism because it’s not well you

did this an I think you should have done it this way. I also think that she’s given

me the option to really go deeper and there’s a lot of things I want to accomplish

and I feel like I can sit down and talk with her and she always makes that time
available for me [. . .] and I can sit with my F I and say what about this.

(Elizabeth’s fall interview, p. 6)

Elizabeth appreciated the way that I conducted observations, focusing on what it was that
went well and providing her options for how to handle similar situations in the future.
She also felt that it was supportive to have the constructive criticism because it provided
her with a perspective on her teaching practice. Elizabeth also felt that it was the kind of

support she needed to probe further into her own practice by talking one on one and

pursuing different ideas for practice. For our work together with Sam, this was a

243

particularly important strategy because it required us to reconsider and reevaluate
regularly the new ideas she was implementing as well as her own expectations for what
might work. By having this type of focused, regular conversation based on practice, we
were able to work together to manage Elizabeth’s work with Sam in ways that respected
him as a member of the classroom learning community.

Of particular importance to me in supporting Elizabeth was a desire to understand
her students so that I was able to provide the kind of guidance that actually might be
useful for her in working with Sam. As a field instructor, I can provide any intern with a
range of possible answers and options for working with his or her students. However,
realizing that interns are more likely to use a recommendation or set of ideas if they see a
direct connection between their specific situation and the shared ideas, it seems
increasingly important in a diverse classroom setting to be able to tailor and direct the
advice in ways that seem most feasible for implementation in a particular case. Given
that, Elizabeth appreciated my specific efforts to support her work with Sam by focusing
much of our field instruction work together. Sam came up in over two thirds of all field
notes (both student specific and field instruction field notes focused on work with
Elizabeth) and classroom observations. I asked Elizabeth to consider whether there was
anything else that a field instructor might be able to do in helping an intern learn to teach
all children effectively. In response to this question, Elizabeth spoke of our work
together with Sam:

Elizabeth: I think just knowing the kids within each classroom that an intern is in.

I truly think that’s the most important thing because your knowledge of who my

kids were helped me the most, seeing your insight to Sam in addition to mine,

helped me the most in dealing with him. So in that sense...

Alisa: So it’s being able to talk to you about the kids one on one?
Elizabeth: Yeah, and knowing them

244

Alisa: And having enough information that it feels like a valuable
conversation to you

Elizabeth: That you know them too. And it’s not just that you saw them on a
specific day act out and you think, well, what behavior. . .why did they do this?
Alisa: Over time?

Elizabeth: Yeah, it’s over time and you see that progression right along with me
of you know, where he came in and even though it’s been a struggle throughout
the year he’s had his highs and lows — where he is now. So now our
conversations are totally different about him than about how they were in the fall.
Alisa: Oh yeah!

Elizabeth: You know what I mean? But in that sense, you’ve seen that change F
too. (Elizabeth’s spring interview, p. 20)

Elizabeth saw that our work together was something that “helped her the most in dealing

with him.” I am particularly pleased that there was this sort of support available to her to

 

1%” M

work with him and I believe that this support was instrumental in helping her reframe her
expectations for Sam as well as for herself.
Implications for Field Instruction Practice

Elizabeth’s case demonstrates an interesting range of practices for field
instruction in support of the Ieaming of the more advanced teacher candidate. We can
naively assume that those who are more capable, more organized and effective in
instruction, and more reflective on his/her practice need less of our support in the process
of learning to teach. Elizabeth’s case demonstrates that field instruction is not just a
necessary support for those interns who are struggling. In fact, working with Elizabeth,
while rewarding on many levels, was often as challenging for me as work with other
interns who were struggling more in the process of developing and implementing
effective instruction. As a field instructor, Elizabeth pushed me to question my
assumptions about how far an excelling intern can/should go during the internship and
what kinds of support are necessary for someone who is thoughtful and reflective and yet

incredibly hard on herself as a learner.

245

As far as issues of broader field instruction practice, I find that several
overarching ideas are particularly salient from Elizabeth’s case study. This case
reiterates the importance of knowing and understanding the challenges that an intern
faces in working with specific students who challenge the norm by knowing something
about the students themselves. Sam provided Elizabeth with a range of challenges.
Without understanding the complexity of Sam’s outside life as well as his experiences in
the classroom as the field instructor, I would have been unable to help Elizabeth
understand the appropriateness of her goals for herself and for Sam. I would likely have
assumed that they were reasonable, pushed her forward and expected her to succeed,
wondering when she did not. Instead, I played a role where I was responsible for helping
to rein Elizabeth in, forcing her to refocus and question her expectations.

This is not something that I had previously experienced with any other intern in
the last few years of field instruction practice. While I have worked with interns who
were exceeding the expectations of the program in the past, none had held themselves to
such high standards of academic success for their students or felt such responsibility for
the failures of individual children in the classroom. As a result, this was a new
experience for me as well as for Amanda whose prior intern was not at the same level as
Elizabeth. I worked with Elizabeth to help her take responsibility for her actions that
supported Sam’s successes and not simply for those that were unsuccessful. As field
instructors, we must be careful to identify those interns who put undue pressure on
themselves and help them to see the larger picture so that they do not repeat this process
in the first few years of their own teaching career at the danger of leaving the profession

or undermining their own efforts to achieve in the classroom. Districts and states are

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placing enough pressure on teachers and schools to succeed; it is a disservice not to help
teacher candidates see the complexity of this issue and help them learn to recognize those
areas in which they are succeeding at making progress for individual learners.

As a social constructivist approach to field instruction practice, this case
demonstrates that there are limits even when working with an excellent intern.
Elizabeth’s assumptions early in the year that she would be able to learn all that Amanda
knew as a sixteen year veteran by the end of the year were unrealistic and alerted me to a
possible trend that we would have to address across the year. I had to step in as a more
experienced teacher to help her understand that she was overchallenging herself and use
my role as more experienced other to help her to see that there were limits to what she
would accomplish this year, even as I encouraged her to become the best teacher that she
could be. For field instruction practice, this case suggests the careful and judicious use of
reining in as one of our core field instruction practices. While not many interns may need
to be encouraged to step back and slow down, in order to preserve the sanity and sense of
self of some of our strongest teacher candidates, there may be places where this type of
action on the part of the field instructor is ideal to support an intern. Helping her slow
down, redefine her goals, reflect on her successes, and use that understanding to make her
next instructional and professional decisions was something that increased Elizabeth’s
success across time. Although Amanda played this role for Elizabeth as well, her
primary concern was focused on her first graders. As her field instructor with primary
concern for Elizabeth, I was able to focus in more carefully on Elizabeth’s tendency to

push herself beyond reason and capability and step in to support her as I encouraged her

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to stop and reflect on all that she had already successfully accomplished as Sam’s
teacher.

In locating my practice on Glickman et al.’s (1995) continuum, I focused
primarily on the nondirective behaviors for our work together. We conversed, reflected
and supported her decisions about effective practices for Sam. The one place where I
veered from the nondirective approach was in forcing Elizabeth to recognize her attitudes
and responses towards Sam’s progress or lack thereof. Her increasing frustration with
herself as she failed to help him make extensive progress was something that I focused on
helping her address. This does not line up exactly with the purposes of the continuum
because it focused more on Elizabeth as a learner and her sense of self as a teacher rather
than on the specifics of classroom pedagogy. Although we did address regularly what
her expectations for Sam were, I served more as one who allowed her to let herself step
back and pushed her to recognize the progress that they were making rather than focusing
only on the progress that still needed to be made. As a result, our work together, while
socially constructed, contained a very specific goal on my part over time. Elizabeth
oversimplified the challenge of becoming an expert in a cognitively complex field by
minimizing the amount of time and knowledge that it takes to become an expert in a
complex field (Spiro, Coulson, F eltovich, & Anderson, 1988). I worked to help her
understand the complexity of the challenge she faced as a teacher who would continue to
learn for a number of years (Berliner, 1992).

By framing and naming (Schon, 1987) this problem of Elizabeth’s work with Sam
in similar ways, I was able to support her efforts to engage him in appropriate pedagogy.

She was able to do this and was responsive to his Ieaming needs. However, she put a

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great deal of pressure on herself each time he struggled with something in the classroom.
Amanda herself did not hold all the answers for how to best meet Sam’s needs and was
Ieaming to work with him alongside Elizabeth. Amanda was able to more effectively
manage this tension for herself than Elizabeth was, understanding the complexity of the
issues involved in greater detail and scope. She was able to accept this and work with her
own uncertainties without stressing herself beyond belief as Elizabeth did who assumed
that she must be everything for every child in the class. Because Elizabeth and I had
named and framed the problem in common ways and I supported her approaches for how
to best manage this problem, we were able to utilize a common focus on our work
together around Sam. However, I was also able to see that how she had determined she
must manage this problem was beyond the scope of her ability or the context of the
classroom setting in which she found herself. Understanding this as her field instructor
allowed me to tailor my work with her in ways that were simultaneously supportive of
her efforts to educate Sam and my own to help her grow and reflect as a future teacher.
As a field instructor, I was able to bring in my experiences of working with
students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in the same classroom as a means
of helping her to think about the challenges that Sam faced both in and out of school
because of the disparity between his family’s income and that of the school and
classroom community. Elizabeth valued these shared stories, commenting that she would
“thrive off of” opportunities to hear about “other people’s individual experiences and
that’s what I want to hear because that helps me more to construct my own idea and
understanding than what a book or a text could” (Elizabeth’s spring interview, p. 17).

Working together to help Elizabeth make sense of her interactions with Sam through

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conversation, reflection on practice and sharing of personal experiences, I was able to
help Elizabeth better refine her approaches so that she could take pride in the
accomplishments that both made across the year.

The final two chapters include a cross-case analysis of the three cases. The next
chapter considers what we can learn about interns and their work towards culturally

responsive teaching practices (Villegas & Lucas, 2002) with diverse student populations.

-' AJ‘. I-Ih "

The final chapter considers the implications of the three cases together for the work with
social constructivism, Glickman et al.’s (1995) continuum, and Schon’s concept of

framing (1987). As well, the final chapter will provide a look at the broader field

 

instruction implications of this study in addition to future research possibilities.

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Chapter 7

WHAT DID WE LEARN ABOUT HOW NOVICE TEACHERS ADDRESS
ISSUES OF STUDENT DIVERSITY?

About halfway through the fall semester of the 2004-2005 school year, and the
analysis period of this dissertation, Rebecca commented to me in a mixture of surprise
and frustration, “This sure isn’t the school you started at [as a field instructor] four years
ago!” Increasing classroom diversity and its attendant issues continue to slowly but
steadily change the face of this suburban elementary school. As demonstrated through
the case studies described in this research, the impact of diversity on teacher Ieaming is
significant. As such the field instructor must be a part of this learning process. This
research was designed to explore the question, “During critical incidents where interns
are working to address learning needs of diverse students, how does the field instructor
support three interns who are learning to work responsively to meet these needs?” This
chapter focuses on the cross-case considerations for helping interns learn to teach all
students as a result of this work with David, Elizabeth and Jane.

Villegas and Lucas (2002) provide six criteria for culturally responsive teachers
that are based on a goal of working toward social justice. These criteria act as a
framework for teacher educators to utilize in a preparation program founded on principles
of advocating for diversity, teachers as agents of school change and the construction of
knowledge. I have used this framework in the cross-case analysis to explore how to
structure intern Ieaming experiences so that interns have the opportunity to work on
issues of student diversity with support from more experienced others such as field
instructors and collaborating teachers. Villegas and Lucas’ criteria are centered on the

notions that culturally responsive teachers are those who (I) “have sociocultural

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consciousness; (2) have affirming views of students from diverse backgrounds; (3) have a
sense that they are both responsible for and capable of bringing about educational
change; (4) embrace constructivist views of teaching and learning; (5) are familiar with
their students’ prior knowledge and beliefs, derived from both personal and cultural
experiences; (6) design instruction that builds on what students already know while

stretching them beyond the familiar” (p. xiv). The first three criteria focus on attitudes

_h.l’. 'n '_ i I,

and dispositions that culturally responsive teachers possess and the last three criteria are

focused on the actual teaching and Ieaming practices of culturally responsive teachers.

 

The following section looks at each of these criteria in light of the case studies of w
David, Jane and Elizabeth and considers the question of whether interns were able to use
our work together to develop the kinds of stances and knowledge that reflect Villegas and
Lucas’ description of culturally responsive teachers. Given the emphasis in this study on
teacher candidates’ learning experiences in the field placement setting, I center my cross-
case analysis on the ways that interns demonstrated or communicated attitudes and
practices responsive to diverse student populations while engaged in teaching their
students. This initial work builds a rich description of these three interns’ progress
towards culturally responsive teaching practices. I then use this foundation to consider
what was possible across the three cases. I identify what seems to be reasonable
expectations for teacher candidates’ learning about student diversity in the classroom
based on the continuum that F eiman-Nemser (2000, 2003) has designed for

“strengthening and sustaining teaching” across the phases of a teaching career.

Teaching Practices Responsive to Student Diversity
Sociocultural Consciousness
Villegas and Lucas (2002) describe a teacher with sociocultural consciousness as
one who “recognizc[s] that the ways people perceive the world, interact with one another,
and approach Ieaming, among other things, are deeply influenced by such factors as
race/ethnicity, social class, and language. This understanding enables teachers to cross F
the cultural boundaries that separate them from their students” 03. xiv). Further, they

argue that teachers must be able to “understand that their students may see the world

 

differently than they do and accept that worldviews are not universal” (p. 198) allowing L
them to recognize the unique experiences and contributions that each member of the
learning relationship brings to the situation. Further, teachers who are socioculturally
conscious recognize that differences in social positioning are powerful descriptions of
who does or does not have access to status. For the interns in this study, the complexity
of this idea was beginning to become apparent to different degrees. David, Jane and
Elizabeth demonstrate that sociocultural consciousness, particularly across a range of
factors, is a complex goal for teacher candidates.

Elizabeth seemed more able to acknowledge how social class impacted whether
Sam did or did not fit into the cultural norms of her classroom. She acknowledged that
perhaps the norms of the classroom complicated his interaction with his peers and the
school culture. She seemed to understand that this was connected to the socioeconomic
distinctions that existed in the classroom. She did not blame Sam for his background or
imply that he needed to change who he was or his family background to conform to the

classroom norms and expectations. Rather, she attempted to see the challenge of the

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situation for what it was -— complex, personal, and something that she needed to consider
as she worked with Sam in this context. Elizabeth was particularly willing to
acknowledge that her perspective on the world was not the only view allowed;
understanding that Sam and his family may experience school and education (in
particular) in ways that did not match her experiences as a member of the middle class.
Elizabeth worked very hard to understand Sam and to try and consider his perspective
when things in the class were not going as she hoped they would.

In addition to the story told of the critical incident focused on Sam, Elizabeth also
had several conversations with me and with Amanda, her collaborating teacher, which
suggested her understanding of student diversity recognized more than one factor. A
student in Elizabeth’s university courses spoke regularly of the challenges of cultural
diversity in her urban field placement classroom. Elizabeth visited this teacher candidate
in her classroom and returned to Lancaster speaking extensively of her own
understanding of cultural diversity which reflected a complex notion of how best to meet
the learning needs of the students while respecting the backgrounds of each child.
However, Elizabeth never demonstrated these beliefs in practice in this context where she
did have students from other cultural backgrounds in her classroom. This suggests that
Elizabeth was beginning to work with the ideas at the theoretical level even if she was not
yet ready or aware of the need to consider these issues in her own classroom practices.

In the quote that opened this section of the text, Villegas and Lucas (2002) do not
list issues of diversity in academic ability as one of the factors that they encourage
teachers to recognize as they develop sociocultural consciousness. I see this as an

oversight in the richness of their framework. It is necessary to make sure that the range

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of factors that are considered when teachers address diversity is broad. Currently, many
teachers address issues of ability in the classroom but fail to understand and appreciate
the interconnection of this with other aspects of student diversity. Doing so encourages a
deep understanding of the rich complexity of diversity that truly challenges a beginning
teacher. Our teacher preparation program does include this in our concept of diversity
that we use to educate teacher candidates (Rosaen, 2003) and so I have included it here as
an aspect of Jane’s work to develop a rich understanding of students.

Jane understood that not all students learned as she did and that the instruction she
designed needed to be responsive to a range of Ieaming styles and specific needs. Jane
recognized that the social nature of the classroom setting complicated issues of academic
learning needs for her students and was particularly thoughtful about how to help her
students succeed in both academics and social relationships. She understood that there
was a connection here that influenced what her students took from their experiences in
the classroom. Jane was able to appreciate the complexity of this aspect of student
diversity on her classroom Ieaming and teaching practices. In this case, Jane
demonstrated a consciousness about her students that positively influenced the learning
opportunities and supports she developed for students.

However, as the ending of Jane’s chapter demonstrated, there were comments she
made about aspects of cultural diversity that reflected a tendency to oversimplify and
underestimate the challenges of working with learners from diverse cultural backgrounds
in the classroom. Jane believed that cultural diversity would be easier to address than
academic diversity and would not present too much of a challenge as long as she sought

out advice about how to support students and made sure to talk to families about their

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experiences. While both of these are appropriate strategies for learning about issues of
cultural diversity in the classroom, Jane’s casual response indicates a tendency to
discount the complexity of this issue and the influence that cultural background can have
on a student’s Ieaming experiences. This dichotomy between an intensive and thoughtful
effort to meet academic Ieaming needs and an oversimpliflcation of the complexity of the
influence of cultural diversity on Ieaming experiences results in questioning the degree to
which Jane has begun to develop sociocultural consciousness that embraced a range of
factors. There is evidence of progress but also noticeable evidence of gaps in Jane’s
practice.

David struggled to demonstrate sociocultural consciousness in his work with
Lucia, an English Language Learner. It appears that David failed to recognize the degree
of complexity that her English Language needs had both for her as a learner in this new
context and for his instructional practices. While I believe that David grasped that
Lucia’s ELL needs were something he had to consider, I don’t feel that he was able to
understand the degree to which this influenced every aspect of her Ieaming and the sense
she was making of the world around her. Early on in the semester, David demonstrated a
curiosity in Lucia and her ELL needs that caused me to believe that he understood how
complex it is to teach her. On reflection, it is evident now that I overestimated David’s
understanding of this issue. David did not succeed in crossing the cultural boundaries
with Lucia when it came to instructional activities. It is my perception that David valued
Lucia as a person but when her needs complicated his instruction, David began to build

barriers to this work, instead focusing on her behavior as opposed to her Ieaming needs.

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Based on these cases, sociocultural consciousness appears to be a complex goal
for teacher candidates to master across a range of factors. Sociocultural consciousness is
an attitude often founded on years of prior beliefs and experiences. Teacher educators
have found it very difficult to help students see the inequity in society (see for example:
Cochran-Smith, 1991; Ladson-Billings, 1991). The three cases in this study serve to
demonstrate this challenge with noticeable early understanding really present in only one
intern. The transition from exploring and realigning beliefs to engaging in practices that
acknowledge these beliefs is difficult for any teacher, let alone a novice. Villegas and
Lucas (2002) describe sociocultural consciousness as an attitude on a continuum where
teachers can be anywhere along the line from dysconsciousness to consciousness, likely
somewhere in the middle. Elizabeth and Jane each demonstrated a great deal of
awareness of student diversity on one domain. Elizabeth also recognized the potential
influence of cultural diversity on learners while Jane underplayed the challenges that she
would face as a teacher in making sense of instructional issues related to cultural
diversity. David struggled to demonstrate sociocultural consciousness in his practice.
Part of me is heartened to see that they were beginning to realize that these kinds of
issues do influence their practice. However, the lack of the awareness about the degrees
and complexity of student diversity continues to concern me. None of these interns has
become fully conscious at this early stage in their professional teaching careers.
Elizabeth’s understanding of socioeconomic diversity and awareness of cultural diversity
provide me with the most hope that she has begun to develop the sociocultural
consciousness necessary to continue to learn in and from her practice with a diverse

population of students. While sociocultural consciousness might well represent the

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attitudes that our teacher preparation program hopes to foster in teacher candidates
through course and field placements, it is evident from this description that demonstrating
this in rich and varied ways is difficult for novice teachers to do in practice.

Affirming Views

A stance of affirming views about students’ backgrounds and acceptance of
diversity as a teacher means that one recognizes the “resources for Ieaming in all students
rather than viewing differences as a problem to be solved” (Villegas & Lucas, 2002, p.
xiv). This stance implies that the resources for Ieaming are seen as a motivation for
developing responsive teaching practices; that teachers reach out to use their information
about students to support effective learning opportunities for students. Villegas and
Lucas (2002) place an affirming perspective at the opposite end of the continuum from a
deficit perspective towards students from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Jane was particularly focused on using what she knew about her students to create
an accepting and affirming classroom environment. Not only did she demonstrate an
appreciation for what her students needed as learners, she strove to create a classroom
Ieaming community that expected students to treat each other in the same way. Jane
effectively used what she knew about her students to create instruction tailored to meet
their academic Ieaming needs that also addressed their social relationships and status in
the classroom in ways that respected each student’s individuality. While, as described
above, Jane did not recognize the complexity of meeting all learning needs across a range
of factors, she did work incredibly hard to make effective adaptations to her instruction to

address issues of student diversity related to ability.

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Elizabeth also focused on using what she knew about Sam’s background and
experiences to support her efforts to meet his social and learning needs in the classroom.
Elizabeth understood that the issues of social class and socioeconomic status influenced
how Sam experienced the school setting and expectations of this first grade classroom.
Elizabeth did not treat Sam as though these characteristics negatively impacted her work
or practices as a teacher. She accepted them as a part of what he brought to the
classroom and took these issues into consideration as she organized her instruction and
worked to support Sam in making friends and learning to work with others. While there
were moments when Elizabeth realized too late the intersection of socioeconomic status
and classroom culture (e. g. the birthday treats issue), she also reflected thoughtfully on
how she would handle a similar situation in the future.

David recognized early on that Lucia had a specific Ieaming need as an English
Language Learner. However, as he engaged in his lead teaching practices, he was unable
to meet effectively those needs in ways that valued what Lucia had to bring to the
learning situation. While there were times when he took great pride in her progress and
efforts (such as her success on the science test on plate tectonics), he was not able to look
at her ELL needs as a resource for Ieaming. Rather, her needs became a point of
frustration and inactivity for him, resulting in him beginning to blame her lack of
involvement or success on behaviors she was demonstrating (such as avoidance of work).
Villegas and Lucas (2002) see this as evidence of a deficit perspective response to student
cultural diversity. Ultimately, David failed to view these Ieaming needs as a resource for
the classroom. Villegas and Lucas (2002) recommend that teacher educators need to help

teacher candidates understand the “consequences of teacher attitude on student learning”

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(p. 38). This became my goal with David after it was clear that the focus was no longer
on her English Language Learning needs during instruction.

For beginners, Elizabeth and Jane both worked very hard to develop instructional
practices that valued the contributions and abilities of their learners to the classroom
community. David made efforts to meet the academic Ieaming needs of the rest of his
students but was unable to design and implement effective instruction that met the
English Language Learning needs that Lucia brought to the classroom. One will notice
here that Elizabeth and Jane, who had more developed sociocultural consciousness, were
also more effective in utilizing affirming views of their students to design and implement
instruction that was responsive to student learning needs. Villegas and Lucas (2002)
acknowledge that teachers with sociocultural consciousness have an easier time
developing and maintaining affirming views of their students. David struggled to
understand the complexity of his students’ sociocultural backgrounds and how this
influenced his instruction, and similarly had trouble maintaining affirming views of
Lucia’s English Language Learning needs. Developing affirming views is certainly a
stance that we advocate as a teacher preparation program and we work hard to help
teacher candidates learn to view difference as a resource rather than a challenge to be
overcome. With aspects of diversity, even when they did not acknowledge needs of
certain populations, neither Elizabeth nor Jane demonstrated a deficit perspective.
However, it’s also fair to say that there is a difference between claiming to possess
positive and inclusive attitudes and implementing a practice that reflects those attitudes.
While I believe that all three of these interns claim to have open and reflective views of

diversity, only Jane and Elizabeth were able to begin to design instruction that supported

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the specific instances of work with diverse student needs that we explored through the
critical incidents in their classrooms. Additionally, neither Jane nor Elizabeth was able to
do this in ways that responded to all diverse learning needs in the classroom. Clearly
both are still in the early stages of transferring knowledge and attitudes into practices.
Educational Change

In keeping with a social justice stance, Villegas and Lucas (2002) believe that
culturally responsive teachers “have a sense that they are both responsible for and
capable of bringing about educational change that will make schooling more responsive
to students from diverse backgrounds” (p. xiv). They advocate teacher Ieaming that
helps teachers to see teaching as a “political and ethical activity” (p. 198) and believe that
culturally responsive teachers identify themselves as agents of change in the process of
making schools more responsive to issues of student diversity.

Villegas and Lucas’ vision of educational change is more politically active than
the work that I engaged in with my interns at Lancaster Elementary. At the time this was
not part of my focus for our work together. My initial challenge was to get interns to
even recognize and acknowledge the presence of student diversity in the classroom.
Doing so would be a necessary precursor to understanding how social change might even
be critical in the classroom or school. Additionally, as beginners I was uncertain about
their ability to take this on in the midst of all the other parts of Ieaming to teach.
However, in their own way, Jane and Elizabeth pursued an agenda that supported the
needs of students who might be considered outsiders -— those who struggled with the
academic demands of the school setting in Jane’s case and Sam who was marginalized in

this setting because of his socioeconomic status in Elizabeth’s case. David is not an

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intern who would be considered to be one who was focused on or advocating issues of
educational change in the classroom. Villegas and Lucas (2002) recognize that “For
beginning teachers, the challenges of learning how to teach are so great that they have
little time or energy to think about trying to change things” (p. 56). I believe that, of the
three interns in this study, Elimbeth did begin to see the edges of the complexity of this
issue as she set high goals for herself and for Sam and then struggled to implement this
level of work in the context of this particular classroom and school setting. She was able
to see the differences between what Sam had access to and what her other students had
access to and understood how the school setting privileged the knowledge and
experiences of the other students. She began to try to make sense of this for herself as a
teacher with many students in her future and engaged in conversation that allowed her to
start to try to explore her options, both for Sam and in the future. Jane also began to
work on developing an understanding of what her future students would need through her
work with differentiated instruction, using this information to consider what might be
possible for learners of all ability backgrounds. It is important for teacher candidates to
begin developing rich conceptions of diversity that support efforts to change our
educational system as soon as possible.

The three interns in this study demonstrate the challenge of helping interns to
develop the sense of self as an educational change agent. While all three believed that
they could be effective teachers in a general way, only two began to see that they might
have some control in this situation. Elizabeth and Jane were able to attempt activities that
would begin to challenge the true inequity of the system. As interns who are guests in

another teacher’s classroom, opportunities for creating change are somewhat limited.

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Without the power or responsibility of formal employment, interns are limited to smaller
potential and opportunities to enact change.

Villegas and Lucas recognize that this is complex and advocate a range of
approaches that teacher educators can take to help prepare teachers to become change
agents. However, given the setting in which these interns completed their internships, the
need for change was less evident to them than it might be if they were expected to teach
in an urban school that challenged their personal experiences as a student. This
environment was familiar to them as former students and so seemed to meet their
expectations about what school is and should be like for teachers and students. Only
Elizabeth began to question what the context meant for a student who did not fit the
typical demographics of the student population. This is a difficult issue to resolve. These
interns learned high quality instructional practices, felt trusted as competent professionals
and yet were in an environment that reinforced much of their beliefs about the structure
and organization of schooling. When it comes to developing teachers who would take a
personal responsibility to act as agents of change, little growth came from their
experiences in this setting. However, it is reasonable to encourage teacher candidates to
begin to identify what needs to be changed in our educational system. Helping novice
teachers to develop views that recognize the inequities of our system is the first step to
educating teachers to see themselves as possessing the potential to change the system.
Constructivist Teaching and Learning

Culturally responsive teachers engage in constructivist teaching and Ieaming
practices that understand that learners give new meaning to principles, ideas and

knowledge through active construction of this knowledge (Villegas & Lucas, 2002). As

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Villegas and Lucas write, “The overriding goal of the constructivist teacher is to help
students build bridges between what they already know and believe about the topic at
hand and the new ideas and experiences to which they are exposed” (p. 75). These
principles of teaching and Ieaming realize that individual students bring their own
perspectives and understandings that must be considered as a part of the Ieaming process.
This stance recognizes the potential of diverse student characteristics to influence the
teaching and learning process. However, Villegas and Lucas do not say much about the
influence of cultural on this stance towards teaching and Ieaming. Perhaps what is
needed here is a social constructivist look at how teachers and students work together to
construct knowledge, using their own backgrounds and experiences to influence practice.

All three interns in this study would claim that their teaching practices are
founded on constructivist principles of teaching and Ieaming. In fact, all three did so in
their portfolio text (David, Jane and Elizabeth’s portfolio text). However, for David there
was again a distinction between the instruction and the philosophical claims that he made.
While I did see David demonstrate some constructivist approaches to his science
instruction on plate tectonics, I did not see him attempt to use these approaches
specifically to meet Lucia’s Ieaming needs or include her in instruction that was designed
to accomplish that as a conscious part of his teaching for the entire class. With Lucia,
David reverted to activities that were designed to fill her time and keep her occupied
while he worked on instruction with the rest of the class that she could not access at her
current level of written or spoken English language skills.

Jane’s work with her students was responsive to student needs and she

demonstrated a number of Ieaming experiences that reflected constructivist learning

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opportunities. Jane was better able than David to implement instruction that capitalized
on the various knowledge bases that her students brought to the learning process. Jane
appreciated the various contributions her students could make and worked hard to design
the curriculum in ways that accepted and utilized the contributions of students who were
struggling with the content and curriculum. She was able to use what students knew to
“build bridges” to the new content that she was striving to teach.

Elizabeth also demonstrated constructivist teaching and learning practices in her
work with Sam. She worked very hard to find ways to build on what Sam knew about a
subject and work from that point in designing her instruction or redirecting it in the
context of teaching the lesson. During her lead teaching experiences in the spring
semester, Elizabeth designed a series of activities in each subject area that allowed
students to gain access to the content in their own ways.

It is reasonable to expect teacher candidates to begin to engage in constructivist
teaching practices with the necessary support to help them take on this more complicated
approach to instruction. Because they may have been students in classrooms with more
traditional instructional practices, it likely will take extensive modeling through teacher
education courses to help them understand constructivist principles for learning and the
necessary types of instructional design. However, practicing this type of instruction can
help interns begin to understand how each student differs in what knowledge and beliefs
they bring to Ieaming experiences. Our teacher preparation program focuses on work
with subject matter throughout the senior and internship year courses with the intent that
this foundation will allow interns to see the possibilities for designing constructivist

practices. Jane and Elizabeth demonstrated that interns who are also aware of issues of

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student diversity can utilize that information to design instruction that is more responsive
to Ieaming needs.
Students’ Prior Knowledge and Beliefis and Responsive Instruction

There is an intimate connection among these last two components of culturally
responsive teaching practices. Villegas and Lucas (2002) argue for constructivist
teaching practices on the basis that a constructivist approach directly supports the
orientation that teachers will need to understand students’ prior knowledge and beliefs in
order to design responsive instruction. Because understanding students’ prior knowledge
and beliefs is a necessary precondition to design responsive instruction, I will look at the
cases for the last two of these criteria together. Villegas and Lucas (2002) argue that
culturally responsive teachers understand what their students bring to the Ieaming
experience and are aware that this body of information stems from both personal and
cultural experiences. Teachers must understand this information in order to help students
build bridges from their background knowledge to the experiences that they want
students to learn from in the classroom. They believe, “In a multicultural society,
responsible educators continuously tailor instruction to individual children in particular
cultural contexts” (Villegas & Lucas, 2002, p. 92). They describe culturally responsive
teaching as a “profoundly adaptive and creative activity” (p. 92) that requires teachers to
be able to transform their understanding of students into effective classroom practices.
However, they also use this information to stretch their students beyond the familiar
(Villegas & Lucas, 2002). One priority here is to teach in a way that makes the
classroom culture inclusive of all students as well as ensuring that students are able to see

varied perspectives themselves.

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When Lucia initially arrived in David’s class, he sought basic demographic
information on her about where she was from and what her parents did that brought them
to the United States. Early in the semester, David would try to use his ability to speak
Spanish with Lucia to connect with her on a one to one level and would periodically
engage her in conversations during instruction where she might share some language or
cultural knowledge with her peers. David also worked for a short time in a modified
Book Club model that had Lucia reading and writing in Spanish while everyone else was
working on another book. However, that was the extent of awareness that David seemed
to have about her prior knowledge and beliefs and was the only attempt he made to build
on her linguistic resources in the classroom. It now seems likely that David did not know
what to do with the information he gathered beyond recognizing that this was part of
welcoming a new student to the classroom. When encouraged to pre-assess her
knowledge on a topic (such as the science material on plate tectonics) in order to design
instruction with her knowledge in mind, David never followed through on this. He did
not use this opportunity to gain additional information about what she might already
know or be able to represent (in Spanish or in English). Because of the communication
barrier that they had, David’s attempts were limited to a few conversations in Spanish
that caused him to realize he was lacking the necessary language skills to understand or
probe her conceptual knowledge simply by relying on his Spanish language skills. David
did not succeed in building on her prior knowledge and experiences in a way that
influenced his instructional design or allowed him to use that material in ways that

supported his own attempts to figure out how to help her learn English.

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Elizabeth had a decent understanding of Sam’s prior knowledge and beliefs given
that Sam often had a difficult time focusing on the activities at hand and demonstrating
what he did, know or could do. Elizabeth was skilled at observing Sam and engaging
him in one-on-one conversations that allowed her to begin to make sense of what Sam
knew and could do from the first grade curriculum. With this knowledge, Elizabeth was
able to accommodate her instruction to meet his particular Ieaming needs. Elizabeth
engaged in many of the activities that Villegas and Lucas (2002) describe as responsive
instruction. She was able to help Sam learn to engage in activities with his classmates.
She was able to work with his Ieaming needs through using appropriate materials and
varied approaches. Elizabeth also worked hard to make the classroom community
inclusive of Sam, with some degree of mixed success, given the behavioral issues that
were a part of this situation. However, Elizabeth made a good faith effort to engage in
the appropriate kinds of support and practices that allowed Sam to contribute to the
classroom and learn in fitting ways.

Jane also understood that her fifth graders had a great deal of information and
prior experiences that she needed to understand in order to support their learning. She
was skilled at using pre-assessments and post-assessments as well as observations of their
performances, both in action and in artifacts, to determine her next steps in instruction.
For Jane, her understanding of what her students could and could not do was critical for
designing her instruction in ways that allowed her to meet the wide range of ability levels
present in her classroom. Like Elizabeth, Jane was able to use a range of the teaching
practices that are part of the recommended responsive instructional approaches advocated

by Villegas and Lucas. Jane succeeded in using a variety of instructional activities to

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help her students gain access to the knowledge in the most compatible ways through
differentiated instruction in math, varied the materials to meet the particular needs of her
students and was able to build on their interests and abilities in multiple subject areas to
support the classroom community.

For Jane and Elizabeth, this process of designing responsive instruction stemmed
from a more complete picture of the various components of culturally responsive
practices as described by Villegas and Lucas (2002). These last two pieces of the
framework are the culmination of the other ideals and practices that result in actual
teaching practices designed to support student learning. While they were not proficient in
each aspect of this process, Jane and Elizabeth were able to begin to bridge their beliefs
and their practices in ways that supported the students who were the focus of the critical
incidents explored in this study. David’s Ieaming is not as well developed in this area as
his peers. Because he struggled early in the internship year with the challenges of
stepping into the teacher’s role, and because of the fact that Lucia arrived in January, he
did not have the time and skill across the internship year to progress to the level that Jane
and Elizabeth did during the internship year. However, having a goal for interns of
developing culturally responsive teaching practices by the end of the internship year is
not unfounded. With an understanding that all teacher candidates will be in different
places with this goal at the end of the year, it is possible and worthwhile to use field
instruction practices to support growth and development of responsive teaching practices
in each intern.

This section considered in detail the outcomes of the three cases in terms of what

they offer for our understanding of how teacher candidates begin to become culturally

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aware and responsive teachers who attend to issues of student diversity both in attitudes
and in practice. By looking at the actions and statements of these interns through the lens
of Villegas and Lucas’ framework, both gaps and elements of development are identified.
This raises the question of what is actually reasonable to ask of teacher candidates as they
complete their initial field experiences. The following section explores this question by
considering the overlap between the work of these three interns on Villegas and Lucas’
framework and the teaching career continuum.
Comparing Interns’ Growth to the Teaching Continuum

F eiman-Nemser (2000, 2003) advocated an approach to teacher education that
extended across the entire continuum of teaching experience. In the early years of
preservice teacher education, F eiman-Nemser argued for attention to issues of student
diversity, given that currently there is little structure in place to support this kind of
Ieaming during the practicing teacher stage. She described the task of Ieaming about
students’ cultural backgrounds as a critical piece of preservice teacher preparation given
that there is a “need to cultivate the tools and dispositions to learn about students, their
families and communities, and to build on this knowledge in teaching and learning”
(Feiman-Nemser, 2000, p. 10). Given the analysis of the interns as culturally responsive
teachers, it is possible to use Feiman-Nemser’s continuum to consider what is reasonable
for our expectations of interns. This helps us to answer the question, “What progress on
issues of student diversity is realistic or feasible for interns at this stage in their learning
process?”

Villegas & Lucas’ (2002) descriptors of culturally responsive teachers provide

some insight into the components of practice and attitude that can support the

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development of teachers who are responsive to student diversity. Villegas and Lucas
describe what we would like to see in all teachers, not just those who are moving through
teacher preparation programs or beginning in the classroom. Feiman-Nemser (2000)
asserts that preservice teacher candidates need to learn about students’ cultural
backgrounds. while during the induction years. teachers need to learn about the larger
community of their teaching context and take what they learn about students to
implement effective instructional practices. The year-long internship program in place at
Michigan State University affords interns the opportunity to move farther along the
continuum of Ieaming to teach than the typical teacher candidate who is completing a
relatively quick ten to fifteen week student teaching experience. Given the range of
Ieaming to enact culturally responsive teaching demonstrated in the three cases, it is
possible to consider what is reasonable for teacher candidates as they complete teacher
preparation programs with intensive field placement components.

Feiman-Nemser (2000, 2003) pushes for preservice teachers to learn about
students’ culturally backgrounds, something that aligns with Villegas and Luca’s desire
for sociocultural consciousness and knowledge of students’ period knowledge and
experiences. Feiman-Nemser advocates attention to attitudes during this phase. When it
comes to attitudes towards students, David, Jane and Elizabeth demonstrated varying
degrees of awareness of the complexity and impact of student diversity in the classroom.
David struggled with the entire process of Ieaming to teach and spent much more of the
year focused on himself as one who was learning to teach than on the specific needs of
his student. However, he did make significant progress and was successful in becoming

certified to teach. Elizabeth and Jane were able to move very quickly to a focus on their

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students as learners with specific needs. That prepared them to be able to take on more
actions designed to work with their understandings of student needs in the classroom.
One can only imagine how David would have experienced this work in a semester long
student teaching program. While all students were developing an understanding of
student diversity, only Jane and Elizabeth could transfer theoretical understandings about
student Ieaming needs to actual attempts at responsive practices. However, based on
Feiman-Nemser’s recommendations, Elizabeth and Jane are beginning to make progress
past the expectations for preservice teacher education.

Although this dissertation includes only three cases and thus can not be used to
generalize to all interns, they provide evidence that teacher candidates can begin to
develop a limited sociocultural consciousness (Villegas & Lucas, 2002) even if they are
unable to enact it in their practices with consistent effectiveness during their field
placement experiences. These three teacher candidates did begin to learn about their
students’ diverse backgrounds. What is missing is a more complete and detailed picture
of diversity for each classroom. No intern successfully addressed the diverse learning
needs of every component of a diverse student population. There were gaps in
knowledge, practice and exposure that can not be filled in the context of this one
experience. However, it does seem appropriate to use teacher education field experiences
as a place to begin to develop and explore sociocultural consciousness. When it comes to
complex notions such as sociocultural consciousness that commonly challenge
fundamental beliefs about schooling and society, the development of sociocultural
consciousness is something that must begin early in teacher preparation programs. This

is the only way that teacher candidates can possibly be prepared to tackle the

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implementation of these beliefs in practice during an internship. It is particularly critical
to support this in ways that lead to actual practices that affirm students’ diversity as it
impacts learning needs.

Is it reasonable to expect a teacher candidate to make the transition from attitudes
to practices that are responsive to diversity? Our year-long approach to the internship as
well as the support that is provided for interns as they learn to teach indicate that there is
room to begin to help them transfer their ideas to actual practices related to students.
Even if they do not succeed in meeting every need during the internship, any progress on
this front would be valued and important to support as field instructors and collaborating
teachers. This progress may put a number of novice teachers ahead on the continuum
that F eiman-Nemser describes, better preparing them to make effective instructional
decisions for a wider population of diverse students during the early years of their
careers.

Feiman-Nemser (2000) never specifically used the terms of developing teachers
as agents of change in her description of the teaching continuum. At the earliest stage of
the curriculum during teacher preparation, F eiman-Nemser advocates for a critical
analysis of teaching beliefs and forming new visions. She recognizes that these ideas can
act as barriers that impede new Ieaming or exposure to new ideas that challenge the prior
experiences of a teacher candidate as a former student. I am not sure that the talk or
behaviors demonstrated by any of the interns in this school setting indicated an awareness
of the complexity of the inequalities in the school system at a larger level. In a suburban
setting such as Lancaster, the relative inequities are not particularly visible to the interns

as they go about their daily lives of Ieaming to teach even though they are present.

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However, I do believe that at least two of these interns made progress on the first two

 

criteria of developing attitudes that are culturally responsive towards student learning
needs in the classroom. Perhaps this is significant enough progress given the complexity
of the challenges of Ieaming to teach. However, it does serve to alert us about the
messages that intern candidates do not take from their suburban placement and may
indicate a need for further attention to the concept on the part of the field instructor in r
order to help interns develop more complex visions of the reality of schools in our
country today.

Some aspects of the Villegas & Lucas (2002) framework are beyond the scope of

 

expectations for preservice teachers. In F eiman-Nemser’s (2000) framework, designing a
responsive instructional program is a task that is considered to be part of induction during
the first few years of a teaching career. So if interns progress on this front during the
preservice field placement it could be viewed as early progress in advancing along the
teaching continuum. Elizabeth and Jane demonstrated the ability to build off students’
background knowledge and prior beliefs in order to design and implement constructivist
teaching practices that were responsive to the curriculum and to the Ieaming needs of
their students. Although David was unable to do this in ways that responded to Lucia’s
English Language Learning needs, he did demonstrate a trend towards constructivist
practices in his science instruction.

For our intern candidates, it is possible — with a supportive context such as these
interns had where teachers are already invested in constructivist practices — to encourage
them to design constructivist teaching practices that are responsive to learner needs. In

some instances. designing practices that are responsive to multiple aspects of learner

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diversity may be the next challenge to take on in school contexts where constructivist

practices are already in place to deal with a range of ability needs. If this is the case, field

 

instructors who advocate similar approaches can support interns’ development of
knowledge about the role of the students’ prior knowledge and beliefs in learning.
Pushing the interns to achieve at the level that Elizabeth and Jane did during this
year may not be wise field instruction practice in every case, given the Ieaming needs of i
the intern and the context of the specific classroom in which that intern is practicing as a

novice teacher. Some interns may not be ready to take on the challenges of this work

 

even though it is important to help them understand what it is that they’re not yet able to ii
do. However, this work demonstrates that, at least for some interns, it is possible to
begin to learn important lessons about student diversity and responsive instruction in
suburban field placement settings with support. Given where interns are on the
continuum of learning to teach, it is reasonable to ask them to develop attitudes and
beliefs that are responsive towards diverse student populations and to begin to work with
that information in all aspects of classroom life. Villegas and Lucas (2002) write:
It is unrealistic to expect teachers-to-be to become the type of culturally
responsive teachers described in this strand [responsive instruction] during their
preservice preparation. The extensive knowledge and sophisticated skills of
culturally responsive teachers develop only with experiences. In fact, becoming a
culturally responsive teacher is a lifelong process. It is realistic, however, to
expect prospective teachers to come away from their preservice teacher education
programs well on the way to becoming responsive educators. (p. 110)
I believe that Elizabeth demonstrated the type of progress that Villegas and Lucas are
advocating. Jane is making progress towards that goal with gaps in that knowledge; only

David lacks the degree of progress that would indicate a strong basis for his own future

Ieaming about issues of student diversity and the impact that those issues have on the

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teaching and learning process. I agree with Villegas and Lucas that it is fair to begin to
expect teacher candidates to start to make sense of the learning process in ways that
impact instruction. They state that preservice teachers “could be expected to demonstrate
an initial ability to tailor their teaching to particular students within particular contexts”
(p. 110). As a field instructor, I expected to see that occur in their instruction during lead
teaching in the spring semester. Even if teacher candidates are unable to act on these
ideas that foster tailored instruction, we need to encourage them to explore options and
understandings through conversation and reflection with field instructors and
collaborating teachers. That leaves us with the question of what sort of field instruction
support helped Elizabeth to achieve what she did and what lessons we can learn from
what David did not accomplish during the period of the internship.
Implications for Field Instruction Practice with Issues of Diversity

This set of criteria for culturally responsive teaching and the outcomes of this
study on how the three interns engaged with these ideas in the classroom suggest some
implications for field instruction practice. This section explores these implications to
determine possible directions for field instruction practices that help interns learn to work
with student diversity in the classroom. While the next chapter is focused more broadly
on issues of social constructivist field instruction practice, several implications for
practice are included here because they focus specifically on helping interns become
culturally responsive teachers. These include field instruction attention to the students in
the classroom, the types of support that the intern is receiving from the collaborating
teacher and how to work with that relationship, and several structures of field instruction

practice that can support learning about student diversity.

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Elementary Students

When helping interns to address issues of student diversity in the classroom, it is
crucial to know something about the particular needs present in each classroom. In this
study, the glue that held our work together was a focus on the students in each intem’s
classroom. While this study was designed to focus on critical incidents that demonstrated
the work we did together around a particular student or group of students, all field
instructors need to know about the children in the classroom. One of the strengths of this
study was to uncover the importance of being able to talk with interns about their
experiences with specific students in the classroom. While all supervisors may talk about
what happened during a lesson, how a lesson went, etc., it was particularly important to
my efforts to engage interns in discussion about diversity that I speak with them about the
challenges of specific children in specific situations. Without the ability to talk about the
children, this experience could have failed to become focused on addressing the Ieaming
needs of the students in meaningful ways.

In a study focused on supervisory practices in a professional development school
environment, Gimbert and Nolan (2003) found that one positive outcome was a mutual
focus on the support for children’s Ieaming that both the supervisor and the student
teacher possessed. Nolan, as the supervisor, was someone who the children knew and
thought of as another teacher in the classroom setting. This relationship with the students
allowed him to involve himself in activities and work with children in a way that gave
him insight into the particular needs they faced. Jane, Elizabeth and David all recognized

the support they received from me because I understood the needs of particular learners

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in the classroom. As well, Amanda commented on this as one of the effective
components of my field instruction practices:
Amanda: I like that flexibility that you and that maybe a little bit of downtime
where you know what, I can just go in and be a part of that room. I mean my kids
see you as another teacher in this building. They know that you’re Ms. P’s
teacher but you’re not a stranger to them and I think that’s really important. I
think it’s important to make it better when you do go in to observe your intern
because the kids aren’t like who’s that lady and what is she doing here? I think
you get a truer sense of what’s going on.
Alisa: Yeah, I have to turn kids away.
Amanda: Leave me alone, I’m working!
Alisa: One of them says “I’m going to write with you” and it’s “I’m sorry I
have to write today too.”
Amanda: But I think that’s a great thing about you, Alisa. My class, and they did
this last year too, Ms. Bates is here. It’s just, you’re a part of the team and I think
that’s a real strength. (Amanda’s spring interview, p. 13-14)
This demonstrates the natural role that I was able to play in the classroom, developing an
understanding of the learners and becoming a natural part of the classroom Ieaming
community. This information allowed me to tailor my feedback in the most supportive
ways to facilitate the kinds of practices that were responsive (Gimbert & Nolan, 2003).
In order to help the interns move forward in working with the specific children in their
classroom, field instructors must use the children and their Ieaming needs to
communicate the expectation that interns will move from a focus on themselves as a
teacher to the students in the classroom as individual learners. Being able to talk about
students and model the kind of thinking that promotes culturally responsive teaching in
the classroom was an important component to our work together. While working to meet
individual needs is a daunting task for a novice teacher, support through field instruction
can begin to make this possible.

Given the importance of this knowledge of learners in the classroom context, it is

critical to consider how it influences field instruction practices. Knowledge of the

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learners in each classroom did not develop quickly. It took time to come to know the
learners in each intem’s classroom in ways that ultimately could help me to design field
instruction responses that addressed these particular students’ needs. This is a
commitment to spend time in each classroom at a more informal level in order to come to
know the setting, focusing on the students and their activity as well as the intern and
his/her activity. Also, during this study, I was in my third year of field instruction
practice at Lancaster Elementary. A number of the students were in classes I practiced in
during previous school years, particularly in Jane and David’s classrooms. In this study,
only Elizabeth’s first grade class was an entirely new set of children for me. This
allowed me to become more quickly involved in knowledgeable conversations about their
students’ learning needs. Additionally, the time commitment in a given week was quite
high compared to the load of interns. I had six interns with a time commitment of ten
hours a week in one school setting to work with them. This suggests that field instruction
practice needs to continue to be viewed as a time intensive process where there is a '
commitment to working in depth with a small group of interns in a school setting. In
order to help interns work with complex visions of student diversity, it is worth the time
commitment and structural support to design field instruction in ways that allow for this
individual attention to interns’ classroom settings.

There are several ways that field instructors can begin to build this knowledge
about the learners in collaboration with the intern. Field instructors observe interns in the
field placement classroom multiple times during a semester. One responsibility that the
field instructor already possesses is to ensure that the intern is capable of teaching all

subject areas in the traditional elementary school curriculum. This sampling is a natural

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way to learn about the students in the classroom, allowing a field instructor to determine
where an intern might struggle to meet Ieaming needs (e. g. it may be harder for them to
address Ieaming needs in literacy than in science) but also to understand how students
learn and perform in different contexts. Early in the year, the field instructor can begin to
discuss these patterns with the interns, encouraging them to share from their teaching
experiences but also to share from their observations of how students work in content P
areas that the intern may not yet be attempting to teach.

Given this understanding, the intern and the field instructor can then work

together to select focus students that demonstrate a range of the diverse learner issues

 

present in the classroom. At the beginning of the year, these students can serve as the
center of conversations about issues of diversity in the classroom and how these learners’
needs are or are not effectively met through instruction. If interns need support in
selecting the focus students, the field instructor can engage the intern in a discussion of
the students on the class list, asking them how they are meeting the academic, social and
linguistic needs of their learners. This focus also allows field instructors to begin to
understand the theoretical perspectives and attitudes of the interns on issues of diversity.
This intensive focus provides a common basis for the reflection that serves as a central
part of the work together as intern and field instructor. It also narrows the range of
stimuli that a field instructor is asking an intern to pay attention to at a time in the
Ieaming process when it’s possible for the intern to become easily overwhelmed by the
complexity of the teaching practice.

This careful attention to the attitudes and understanding of the intern during the

early phases of the internship can play a critical role in helping the field instructor

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understand how to design practices and responses that are reflective of the interns as
learners with particular needs for their own knowledge of learning to teach.
Supporting the Intern ’s Context and Enhancing Existing Field Instruction Practices

If we do indeed make the commitment to design and implement field instruction
practices in ways that support the intem’s and field instructor’s knowledge of their
students, then there are several steps that can be taken by the field instructor to further “A
support the intem’s Ieaming. This includes work on the typical activities of the field
instructor as well as the structure of the internship.

Villegas and Lucas (2002) recognize that Ieaming to become culturally responsive

 

teachers requires attention to attitudes and dispositions as well as practices that teachers
use for instruction with students. This study demonstrates that there are gaps in the
interns’ knowledge about particular aspects of diversity, perhaps overlooked by them
partly due to their school placement setting in a relatively homogeneous school
community. Given this stance, I believe that field instruction practices need to consider
whether or not interns have a deep understanding of the complexity of the issues of
student diversity. Very few interns are likely to make significant progress in
implementing extensive practices that respond to all aspects of student diversity. This is
reasonable given the expectations that Feiman-Nemser (2000, 2003) and Villegas and
Lucas (2002) set out.

Field instructors need to do more to probe conceptual and theoretical ideas about
aspects of diversity to help interns meet diversity needs and tailor field instruction
practices. It is not enough to assume that teacher education courses have fully developed

the theoretical knowledge that interns need to have in order to begin to make sense of the

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complexity of educating students with diverse features in mind. Jane and David
demonstrate, in particular, that there needs to be more done to help interns conceptualize
their understandings of the interconnectedness of the diverse features of students as
learners. While I endeavored to work with issues of student diversity during our weekly
seminars, I do not believe that I was effective in all situations in communicating the
complexity of these various factors as they influence student Ieaming. I believe it might
be more effective to try and connect this work in seminar to the specifics of individual
interns’ learning needs. I propose that field instructors teach mini-lessons during
seminars on the relevant theory about certain practices to meet diverse learning needs that
build off what they might already know from their teacher education courses but connect
that work to the specific students in each classroom who demonstrate those
characteristics. Eventually, interns could begin to share this role and teach each other
about the various students they are learning to teach in the classroom. This seminar work
or individual ‘mini-lessons’ can support each intern in figuring out the specifics of his or
her learners. Compared to my work during this study, these activities would further push
me to be explicit with interns about their knowledge and stances around issues of
diversity.

If we advocate attention to issues of diversity in seminar, then another broad
implication is a need to focus careful attention on the explicit naming of issues of
diversity in the classroom. Too often, we speak of children and their needs in global
ways. CTs speak of their students in ways that focus on them as individuals but it may be
rare in a context such as Lancaster to hear CTs speak of the explicit features of diversity

that can influence a child’s Ieaming needs. One outcome of this study is the realization

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that there needs to be attention paid to the language that a field instructor uses with an
intern. There needs to be attention to the children and in helping the interns identify their
Ieaming needs in meaningful ways without shying away from the difficult conversations
that may ensue. If CTs are not going to have this conversation, then it becomes the
responsibility of the field instructor to help the intern come to understand the complexity
of becoming a culturally responsive teacher. Field instructors and collaborating teachers r
can manage a great deal of progress when they are on the same page about the purpose
and value of work that focuses on the issues of student diversity in the classroom. If they

are not on the same page about the importance of this work as a part of the internship

 

experience, then the field instructor needs to work in other ways to communicate the
importance of this work for student Ieaming.

If this is the case, then one potential implication for field instructors involves
modeling the practices that we hope to see interns use. In a case such as David’s, where
his collaborating teacher was not providing the kind of modeling that he needed in order
to understand how to work effectively with Lucia, it is possible for the field instructor to
work in several ways to provide that support. Depending on the relationships that exist,
one possibility is for the field instructor to do some modeling of the appropriate practices
in the classroom by teaching an activity or small group lesson with the intern observing
and debriefing the experience afterwards. This takes additional knowledge on the part of
the field instructor to be able to step in and work with the intem’s students in this way. It
also requires that the field instructor and collaborating teacher have a relationship that
allows the field instructor to step in and take control of some aspect of curriculum and

instruction. This may not be feasible for a number of reasons related to issues of power,

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time, space, etc. If that is the case, there are several other options that could be used to
meet the needs of the intern as a learner.

One possibility is that the field instructors in a program work together to create a
master list that includes teachers who would make exemplary models of work with a
particular aspect of student diversity. This group could then serve as a set of teachers
who interns could visit to see particular strategies or approaches modeled. This further
demonstrates the importance of these issues in the practicing teacher’s classroom even if
interns are not seeing this in their own classroom. Field instructors would be involved in
helping to find appropriate matches for intern visits and in advocating that interns make
these visits a part of their personal professional development during the internship year.
As a participant in the school setting, the field instructor can then help the intern to
debrief on their visits and explore connections between the modeled work and the
specific needs of the students in the intem’s classroom. This work reinforces the value of
the task but also moves interns outside their immediate settings so that they can see the
possibilities that are available to them as future teachers of diverse student populations.

As future teachers, interns will need to have additional support during the
induction phase of their teaching careers. In order to continue growing in their
knowledge and skills as teachers who are responsive to student diversity, induction
programs will be necessary that foster these attitudes and approaches. David likely needs
different kinds of support than Elizabeth and Jane because of their more developed sense
of cultural responsiveness, however, there are also several ideas that would be of benefit

to each intern.

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Induction programs commonly provide mentors to provide additional support
during the first few years of a teacher’s career. All three interns would benefit from
relationships with mentors who are culturally responsive teachers, attentive to their
students’ diverse Ieaming needs along a range of dimensions. This study considered
limited aspects of the interns’ experiences with classroom diversity and no intern
successfully attended to every aspect present in their classroom. Since it is unrealistic to r
expect a novice to succeed in doing this during the internship in a consistent and effective
manner, this can be a goal for them as they begin their teaching careers. Attention by a

mentor attuned to the complex subtleties of such work would be worth the time and

 

effort.

For example, David could use mentor support and professional development
opportunities that forced him to challenge his understanding of the complexity of student
diversity on the Ieaming experience. The first step in this may be additional attention to
David’s theoretical and conceptual understanding about aspects of diversity. This should
be done in context of his personal experiences and lack of background with a wide range
of diverse people in his own life in order to raise his own sociocultural consciousness.
This will support his ability to see connections between learners and their personal
experiences or backgrounds. David failed to recognize the connection between Lucia’s
learning needs and her language background. He also did not grasp the connection
between this and her social relationships and experiences within the classroom.
Mentoring that provides conversation about these interrelationships as they are playing

out in his classroom would benefit his understanding of student diversity and Ieaming.

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Because Jane and Elizabeth are both highly reflective teachers in their own right,
their support would likely start farther along the continuum. Each was able to recognize
student Ieaming needs in at least one domain of diversity. However, both could likely
use support as they begin to work in other areas of student diversity and confront
different challenges. Elizabeth’s reflective nature would naturally support her work with
a mentor inclined to help her address these issues and challenge her perspectives in order
to help her broaden her understanding of the relative importance of all aspects of student
diversity on Ieaming experiences.

Jane’s case demonstrated that we did not successfully address all aspects of
diversity in her experiences. Further, she claimed a belief about the relative ease of
determining how to address cultural diversity. This was an oversimplification that will
need to be addressed for her to be effective with all students. Professional development
opportunities that connected closely with Jane’s experiences in the classroom might fill
this need because of her tendency to be highly reflective on her practice (this would also
be effective with Elizabeth). Additionally, mentor support that gave her an outlet for
conversation as well as another person to support her reflective efforts would benefit
Jane’s continued growth. Efforts on the part of induction programs to continue teacher
development towards culturally responsive practices need to take into consideration the
Ieaming needs of the teachers as they move from teacher education environments to
responsibility for their own classrooms.

This chapter explored what was learned about the feasibility of interns learning to
become culturally responsive teachers. It is a mixed bag that demonstrated both the

strengths and challenges of this work. The next chapter looks carefully at how my social

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constructivist field instruction practices supported and complicated this process for the
interns, critiquing the appropriateness of a social constructivist stance for field

instruction.

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Chapter 8

A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO FIELD INSTRUCTION
PRACTICE

As a field instructor, I utilize my pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986,
1987) as described in chapter two to promote intern Ieaming about issues of student
diversity. By using my own knowledge about my intern learners, issues of student
diversity and the best pedagogical moves to help the interns gain access to that
knowledge, I am able to design a thoughtful and responsive practice. As I wrote in
chapter two, “Not only does a teacher have to know the subject matter, she needs to know
her learners and how to best support the interaction between the subject matter and the
students to encourage learning.” This is just as true for me as a field instructor as it as for
an elementary classroom teacher. I chose to embed my work in a social constructivist
stance towards field instruction practice. As described in chapter two, “Social
constructivism is not a method — it is a view of Ieaming that provides a theoretical base
for making decisions about pedagogy and curriculum” (Oldfather, et al., 1999, p. 91). A
social constructivist stance towards my field instruction practice influenced the decisions
I made about how to work with interns as learners themselves and focused my efforts on
their attempts to work with specific students in their classrooms. I will document the
practices that I engaged in with each intern and identify patterns that demonstrate the
social constructivist stance I hold about teaching and Ieaming.

To structure this chapter, I will look carefully at the issues for field instruction
practice through a social constructivist lens of viewing interns as learners. It is important
to note that although this dissertation focused on issues of working with interns about

student diversity, I also used social constructivist approaches to my practice throughout

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all work with interns — all subject areas, classroom management issues, etc. — thus this
chapter will consider issues of social constructivist practice more broadly. I will consider
the various dimensions of analysis used throughout this study including Glickman et al.’s
(1995) continuum for supervisory beliefs and Schon’s (1987) notion of naming and
framing the problems of practice. The previous chapter explored the knowledge and
practices of the interns as they learned about issues of student diversity. This chapter
reflects on social constructivism as a stance for field instruction that had a critical
influence on this experience of learning to work with diverse student populations. The
next section will address the implications that this work has for future practice. In
closing, I will consider the continuing research agenda that stems from this work.
A Social Constructivist Approach to Field Instruction

A social constructivist approach to field instruction practice was the foundation of
my work with David, Jane and Elizabeth. A field instructor needs to know a great deal
about the individual needs of the intern learners, the appropriate ways to engage them in
action and reflection that improves practice, and have an understanding of the diverse
student population that each intern is attempting to teach. To build on each intem’s zone
of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) and to scaffold their learning in this zone
(Tharp & Gallimore, 1988), a social constructivist approach explores the kind of support
necessary to engage in this practice. There were moments when this stance was more or
less effective depending on the situation and the needs of the learner as well as my ability

to see and identify those needs.

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Social Constructivist Stance

My practice as a field instructor relied on my own experiences as a classroom
teacher and as a teacher educator involved in teaching courses in the teacher preparation
program on campus. However, there’s more than just experience at play here. I brought
my beliefs about teaching and learning to this role and was required to find ways to
translate that into effective practices for field instruction work with teacher candidates.
As a field instructor conducting research into my own practice, I was forced to
conceptualize and identify my beliefs about my practice. This process of determining
what I believe and recognizing how that may influence what I do in my day-to-day
practice is something that I advocate for all field instructors. Previously in the
dissertation, I conceptualized my social constructivist stance towards field instruction
practice. In chapter two, I wrote about the five broad features of my social constructivist
approaches to field instruction practice:

These five include: (1) attention to interns’ learning needs; (2) support for

interns’ efforts to learn; (3) recognition of the teaching context’s influence; (4)

exploration of outside contexts; (5) mutual respect demonstrated through

conversation and action. (p. 27)
Doing so heightens the field instructor’s awareness of how practice and beliefs intersect.
I will show throughout this chapter that awareness of (or lack of) one’s own stance is
intimately connected to what does or does not happen in interaction with interns.

In chapter seven, I described the Ieaming that came from these three cases around
issues of diversity and provided implications for field instruction practice that related to
issues of diversity as an important aspect of our work together as interns and field

instructor. However, diversity is not the only aspect of teaching and learning that field

instructors focus on as they support interns in Ieaming to teach. In addition to work on

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diversity, content in field instruction includes (but is not limited to) the following areas

described in the table below.

 

 

Content of Field Field Instructor Knowledge
Instruction
Classroom management Knowing how to organize and manage learning

opportunities and classroom spaces in order to support
the development of classroom Ieaming communities

 

Subject matter knowledge Knowing the fundamental knowledge, skills and methods
of the content taught in school (literacy, math, science,
social studies, etc)

 

Professionalism Understanding the development of professional behavior
through speech and dress; knowledge of professional
roles and responsibilities in the school and community;
knowing how to communicate effectively with parents,
students, and colleagues

 

 

Diversity Knowing how to respond to and support the Ieaming
needs of a wide range of students across a variety of
diverse Ieaming needs (e.g. English Language Learning,
differentiated instruction, cultural preferences, etc.)

 

 

Reflection and inquiry Knowing how to develop stances that encourage attitudes
of reflection and inquiry into teaching practice as career-
ltg habits of mind

 

 

 

Table 2: Content areas of field instruction practice.

Each of these content areas can be viewed as a focus of field instruction practice
at different times and with different emphases throughout the internship year. However,
this table emphasizes the knowledge a field instructor needs to possess and does not
provide the actions or behaviors that might be taken to address the chosen content area in
practice with an intern. This is where a field instructor must be aware of the chosen
stance towards field instruction practice and consider the impact that this approach has on
the learner.

Below is a summary chart of practices I used across all three cases organized
across the broad features of social constructivist field instruction. It identifies where it

was used in my work with the three interns in this study and what the practice typically

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looked like in action. This table provides the actions that can be taken as a field

instructor who advocates a social constructivist stance towards practice regardless of the

chosen content area. The selection of a focus content area provides a lens through which

to view the actions of a social constructivist approach in practice. Thus, while this study

focused on issues of student diversity in learning to teach, any of the categories described

in the table above are relevant for selection as a lens through which to consider the

behaviors in this chart. Further description of each category comes after the table.

 

 

COLLABORATIVE INTERACTION

 

 

The Action Intern Example/Definition Examples of Intern Learning
Cases

Attention to novices’ learning needs

Goal setting Elizabeth Helping Elizabeth to Elizabeth learned to set
see what was possible realistic goals and to take
with Sam and Ieaming pride in the accomplishments
to value their success they achieved together.
together

Generating David, Helping David figure David learned that there were

choices Jane, out his options for multiple options for practice

Elizabeth Lucia during Book and that it was worth

Club instruction

generating these options
before choosing.

 

Mutual respect demonstrated through conversa

tion and action

 

Respecting
intems’
beliefs and
ideas for
practice

David,
Jane,
Elizabeth

 

Allowing each intern
to explore their own
understanding of the
situations at hand and
respecting the ideas
that they came up with
for implementing or

 

altering practices

Jane learned that she had
something valuable to
contribute to our work
together and appreciated that
her ideas were valued and
worth consideration as we
discussed practice.

 

 

 

LOCATION

Recognition of the teaching context’s influence

 

 

Knowing
students
and context

David,
Jane,
Elizabeth

 

Understanding the
specific situations
each intern faced with
the students discussed
in each case as well as
the classrooms and

 

school setting

All three interns learned that it
mattered to know their
students and to be able to
discuss them intelligently as
learners in professionally
appropriate ways.

 

 

Table 3: Practices that reflect my social constructivist stance for field instruction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing
the school
and
classroom
context

David,
Jane,
Elizabeth

Using my knowledge
of the classrooms and
school community to
help interns make
wise decisions about
practice with
individual students

Elizabeth learned that
effective teaching and
Ieaming required one to know
about a student’s needs both
in and out of the school
context.

 

Support for novices’ efforts to learn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection David, Regular talk with each Jane learned that reflection
Jane, of the interns that helped her to think through
Elizabeth focused on what sense her options for practice and to
they were making of assess the effectiveness of
their experiences as instructional choices that she
well as reflection on made.
my observations of
their practice
Providing David, Finding ways, both All three interns learned that
spaces Jane, formal and informal, conversation about students
Elizabeth to talk with each provided alternative ideas and
:2 intern regularly about approaches for handling
:g their experiences with challenging instructional
E- these particular issues issues.
and children ‘
Exploration of outside contexts
Sharing David, Sharing my Jane learned that she was not
personal Jane, experiences with Jane the only teacher to face
experiences Elizabeth of working with certain challenges and learned
heterogeneous ability that it was worth talking to
classrooms others to gain alternative
perspectives on an experience.
Sharing Jane, Providing Jane with Jane learned of other
resources Elizabeth materials for resources that existed beyond
differentiated her classroom and learned to
instruction talk to colleagues for ideas.
Selecting res onsive theories for practice
Reading the David, Recognizing that the Elizabeth learned that her
E situation for Jane, situation each intern situation was context-specific
c appropriate Elizabeth found his/herself in and how I chose to respond to
E3 theory and required attention to her was directly related to the
[- making the nuances of the challenges she faced in her
effective situation with the work with Sam.
choices student

 

Table 3 continued.

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Just as I was working to help interns learn to teach in ways that were responsive
to the needs of their students, the chart demonstrates that the practices I engaged in
focused on the specifics of intern learners. Further, each of these practices is something
that the interns (and their collaborating teachers in many instances) valued as a part of
our work together, citing these as elements that allowed them to feel supported and
encouraged as they took on the challenges of each of these critical incidents. This, in
part, reflects the importance of the fact that each of the above activities is structured so
that individual learners and their contributions to the learning experiences (Vygotsky,
1978) can be recognized as a critical part of our work together. Each of these issues was
raised as a part of the field instruction implications in at least one of the case chapters,
exploring how it might influence social constructivist stances as well as future field
instruction work in that context. Thus, the following sections document the common
features of these interactions as well as the importance of talk and the location for our
work together as intern and field instructor.

Collaborative Interaction. The activities in the top rows of Table 2 demonstrate
an attention to interns’ Ieaming needs as they worked with me one-on—one to develop
their teaching practices. Social constructivist approaches in teacher education are based
on the interaction between the learner and the mentor, highlighting the importance of a
collaborative effort to learn new material, stances and practices (Vygotsky, 1978). Tharp
and Gallimore (1988) spoke of the concept of assisted performance where learners are
supported in developing new knowledge and skills through scaffolded work with a more
experienced mentor. They embedded this work in a social constructivist lens because of

the attention afforded to the collaborative work. They divided this work into stages that

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involve the decreasing support and involvement of the mentor (in this case, the field
instructor) as the learner becomes increasingly able to perform independently. The kinds
of activities in the chart are open-ended enough for varying degrees of involvement by
the mentor in determining what and how it happens with the intern based on the specific

Ieaming needs of each intern. For example, goal setting can be initiated by either party as

 

deemed necessary by either person of the relationship, as can the majority of the ideas on I:
this list. Regardless of the degree to which each of these is used in a particular
relationship with an intern, the use of assisted performance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) ’
helps us to see where the social constructivist practices were more or less effective with

individual interns.

In the three cases described here, the interns displayed differences in their ability
to move through the various stages of becoming increasingly independent (Vygotsky,
1978) in their efforts to design and implement instruction. David’s case demonstrates
that while we were not ultimately successful in working together to help him develop
teaching practices that were attuned towards and responsive to Lucia’s English Language
Ieaming needs, there was still respect and a place for David’s attempts and ideas as a
novice teacher. David’s case required that I modify my preferred social constructivist
approaches. I took more responsibility and control for pushing David in particular
directions because he was unable to learn from what we were doing together and take that
Ieaming into consideration in the design and implementation of classroom instruction.
He needed further scaffolding (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) to see what was expected of
him in practice. In the specific case of David’s work with Lucia, we did not make

significant progress in helping David to move past the early stages of assisted

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performance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). He still relied heavily on others to push him to
design responsive instruction or to support him in meeting Lucia’s needs in the
classroom. For David, social constructivist approaches to work centered on Lucia were a
mixed set of results. While he stepped in to play a role in our work together, seeking
conversation and ideas that could support his classroom efforts, ultimately the outcome
was not nearly as strong as I hoped for his work with diverse student Ieaming needs.
Elizabeth and Jane were more successful at transferring their learning from our
work together, pursuing options and reflecting on their practices to design instruction that
was responsive to their students’ Ieaming needs. Each was able to take a significant lead
in working with me on the various activities included in the chart (such as generating
choices and reflecting on practice), demonstrating a motivation and curiosity to improve
her own practice as well as the more culturally responsive stance as described in chapter
seven. Jane and Elizabeth were well matched with my social constructivist stance in
most respects and each needed less scaffolded support to move forward in her own zone
of proximal development (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988; Vygotsky, 1978). This may be due
to the fact that we were also aligned with the naming and framing of each intem’s critical
incident (this will be discussed further later). Each felt that the experience was
supportive and responsive to their needs, allowing them to pursue their desire to become
effective teachers. Both were reflective teachers who wanted to engage in conversation
about their experiences, about their new ideas and about their questions or concerns of
practice. Highly reflective novice teachers and a social constructivist stance towards

field instruction seem like a strong match.

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While goal setting and generating choices were practices that worked to support
particular interns in particular situations, demonstrating respect for interns’ ideas and
practices was critical in each case. Social constructivism relies heavily on the efforts of
the learner to take risks with ideas and publicly present their beginning efforts to learn
new material and demonstrate new knowledge (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). In order to
create an environment where those risks feel as safe as possible, it is critical to support
the interns’ fledgling efforts in ways that encourage them to continue to try and to
continue to risk as they move forward in the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky,
1978). The key to this is to demonstrate respect for the ideas as well as the challenge of
publicly sharing them. I believe that it is impossible to engage in social constructivist
practices without demonstrating respect and support for the interns by appreciating their
efforts as well as their ideas for practice. Once these ideas are out, it is possible to use
them as the groundwork for developing goals and generating choices for action. By
demonstrating respect for each intern, even in situations such as David’s where progress
was more limited, the relationship can be used a as foundation for further growth.

I do not believe that I can personally determine what works for every field
instructor or every intern engaged in the complexity of working together to help someone
learn to teach. However, I do not think that it is possible to engage in field instruction
that is responsive to the needs of the learner without engaging in many of the practices
that are included here. I believe that the three cases described here demonstrate that it is
critical to understand the learning needs of each individual intern in order to design
approaches that model the responsiveness towards student diversity we hope to see in

future teachers. The particulars of how each field instructor approaches this might vary,

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but the value of the talk as demonstrated in these three cases pushes for an approach to
field instruction practice that relies heavily on knowledge of interns as learners and the
critical need to work collaboratively together to foster effective practices.

This table clearly reflects the importance of the work of the field instructor in
creating the time and space to engage in the types of interactions that support intern
learning. The next section considers the issue of location as critical to the development
and implementation of a social constructivist practice.

Location. There are two relevant aspects when it comes to issues of location in

social constructivist field instruction practices. The context and features of the location

 

matter when it comes to helping interns make sense of their Ieaming experiences. In this
study, Table 2 (bottom rows) displays the features of the student population and the
context were critical to understanding the sense that interns were making of their work
with diverse student populations. For work with issues with student diversity, the context
will always be something that the field instructor needs to understand and address so that
the work done together actually reflects the complexity of the intem’s teaching situation.
Without any attention to the context, there would be no real transfer from the
conversations between intern and field instructor to the actual practice of teaching in
which the intern engages. Social constructivist teaching practices rely on use of this
knowledge about the context in order to support intern Ieaming and are an appropriate
choice for field instructors interested in supporting learning about diverse student
populations. This is because the work that social constructivist field instructors do values

the contributions about and experiences of the intern in the classroom and school setting.

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As a field instructor, I need to understand what sense the intern makes of the
setting in which he/she teaches in order to understand where to advocate further Ieaming
and where to support existing knowledge. David’s case demonstrates a situation where
this was more complicated than it first appeared. As his field instructor, I did not succeed
in developing a deep understanding of his perspectives and attitudes towards Lucia until
it was late in the semester. Likely, more explicit conversations and directives would have F
helped him to implement responsive instruction. However, in my collaborative
interaction with David (Table 2, top rows) respecting his perspective as a member of his

own learning is a foundational part of social constructivist field instruction practices as I

 

conceptualized them. This is a tension that is difficult to balance but ultimately, when the
Ieaming of an elementary student is compromised, it is critical that the field instructor use
her knowledge of the context and students to direct the intern with further learning and
work that meets the students’ learning needs.

In Jane’s case, we worked through the entire semester and I did not come to the
realization that she needed additional support in thinking through issues of cultural
diversity until our final interview in late April. Attention to the social environment in the
Ieaming relationship is critical to developing a strong sense of what happens in each
intem’s attempts to teach. While Jane was successful in meeting the learning needs of
the wide ability range present in her classroom, not all aspects of diversity in the
classroom were considered — either for those fifth grade students or for the development
of an understanding for future student populations. With David and Jane, I did not
succeed in gathering all the necessary information to support them in working effectively

with all issues of diversity in the classroom. The later section on Schon’s (1987) concept

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of naming and framing will explore potential ways to enhance social constructivist field
instruction practices to further improve this aspect. However, one initial issue is to
consider how field instructors can use the spaces of their practice in order to encourage
conversation about these beliefs and understandings.

Talk. Across all three chapters it is evident that the actions in Table 2 took place
in a variety of typical field instruction spaces. These spaces included observations, E
seminars, debriefing conferences, informal conversations, and formal evaluation
conferences (mid-semester conferences and end of semester conferences). While some of

these situations included written materials (such as evaluation forms and observation

 

If

notes), it is critical to note that all of these spaces relied heavily on the use of talk for
making sense of experiences in Ieaming to teach. It was critical to our conversations
together to provide a variety of venues so that interns had multiple opportunities as well
as structures to connect with me through conversation. By offering both formal and
informal conversations, I was able to learn about different aspects of interns’ practice and
personal experiences with diverse student populations. I believe that this variety allowed
them to feel the space to start conversations with me as well as opportunities to be the
ones who were engaged in more formal activities of field instruction.

As Smith (2003) writes, “Through talk with a more knowledgeable other, interns
can reflect on their ideas, encounter new ones, and construct images and views of
teaching” (p. 56). For my practice as a field instructor, this included sharing personal
experiences and resources. By doing so, I was able to use my experiences and
knowledge to support and scaffold (Tharp & Gallimore, I988) interns as they worked to

make sense of their Ieaming experiences. Doing so pushed them beyond the confines of

300

what they were seeing at school and gave me an opening to provide them with additional
ideas and perspectives on how to deal with specific diverse learning needs in the
classroom. By providing this, I was able to help them think beyond the experiences of
the internship year and move more towards their own future teaching careers as I pushed
further on their individual zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). This kind
of talk supported a realization of the future responsibilities they would have as the
primary teacher who would need to think about the students’ learning needs and their
subsequent instruction in all aspects of their teaching practices.

Throughout all of the cells on Table 2 runs a thread of reflection. Each of the
activities that we engaged in together pushed us to collaboratively reflect on teaching
practices and the Ieaming needs of students. Without reflection, our work together would
not have progressed past a description of practice and a recitation of events. The
reflection we engaged in together was the lynchpin of my social constructivist practice.
Pushing interns to reflect and pushing myself to support and scaffold (Tharp &
Gallimore, 1988) their reflection in ways that helped them develop culturally responsive
practices centered our conversations in ways that supported intern learning. While the
progress each intern made varied, the purposefulness of our work together helped each to
make progress in reflecting on their developing teaching practices.

As such, social constructivism as a stance is particularly relevant for this kind of
practice (Wells, 2002). In chapter two, the social constructivist stance as described by
researchers and authors relies on dialogue as a critical detail in the process of designing
teaching and learning experiences. I selected a quote to use in chapter two that I believe

is demonstrated by my practice:

301

 

 

It is imperative to stress that dialogue does not imply simple discussing and
telling, but rather, includes the analysis of ideas, the synthesis of verbal sources,
the evaluation of the intersection of multiple sources, and reflective explanation of

one’s own thoughts and understandings. (Doolittle, 2001, p. 512)

Doolittle’s text refers to the necessity of doing more than telling and describes the
components of reflection through dialogue. This type of work highlights the important
nature of the conversations that we had. Talk truly became the centerpiece of my work
with interns. I visited classrooms and worked in each classroom context, but the real
place where our work together occurred was in the conversation we had together about
the experiences of the classroom. While it is certainly fair to say that social
constructivism is not the only kind of stance that utilizes talk to accomplish goals, it is
one that values the contribution of the learner to the experience and emphasizes the use of
the talk between intern and field instructor to make meaning about the learning. Working
together through social constructivist approaches highlighted the value of each person’s
contributions to the relationship. Certainly, there were areas where we may have missed
the mark in our work together. However, we were able to capitalize on our
conversational work together to help each intern make as much progress as possible. I
also learned extensively about my own practice by considering my approaches to practice
through conversation with each intern.

While talk is critical to social constructivist approaches to field instruction
practice, it is also important to those who choose to use social constructivist approaches
that they ensure there is the time and space to engage in the level of conversation
appropriate for intern learning needs (Vygotsky, 1978) that encourages reflection and

thought about appropriate actions for working with diverse student populations. The

intersection of collaborative interaction, talk and location are the cornerstones of my

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social constructivist approaches to field instruction practices. Each of these areas
informed the theoretical choices that I made as a field instructor.

Theory. Each field instructor brings to the situation a variety of theories that
address effective principles of teaching and Ieaming. In my case, these included Schon’s
work (1987), Glickman et al.’s (1995) continuum of supervisory beliefs, and the criteria
for culturally responsive teaching that informed my work on student diversity (Villegas &
Lucas, 2002). Over all of this was a social constructivist theory that informed my visions
of teaching and learning in my work with the interns. While I advocate these as effective
choices for me — both in this practice and for the purposes of analysis in this study —— there
are multiple effective and valuable choices that could have been made in place of these
ideas. While engaged in practice, decisions are made quickly about next moves and
responsive instruction that addresses a particular moment in time. I do advocate a social
constructivist approach to practice but, within that context, there are many more choices
to be made about practice that are equally valid with those that I made such as to consider
how I named and framed issues of diversity with the interns in this study. For me, this
was the right theory at the right time to encourage practices that I felt met the needs of the
students in each intem’s classroom.

Conclusion. Social constructivist field instruction practices are complex to
implement and require that the field instructor is able to work with the subtle nuances of
what an intern learner needs, the goals of the teacher education program, and the field
instructor’s own beliefs about effective teaching and learning practices. Not every action
listed in the chart will work for every field instructor, even if they prefer social

constructivist approaches to practice. These are my activities, not the activities of a social

303

 

constructivist stance towards practice. This research is not widely enough focused to be
able to determine whether the approaches that I’ve taken are representative of others who
claim to have social constructivist stances towards practice. However, I do believe that
the types of activities that I utilized might be typical of the range used by others who
pursue similar agendas with their teacher candidates. This stance affords the interns
much involvement in their own Ieaming process, with the potential to help them develop
the skills and power to continue to learn what it means to teach all students long past the
time period of the internship. By involving the interns in their own Ieaming to the degree
that social constructivist practices require, there is truly the opportunity to help new
teachers start their careers prepared with the kinds of actions and mindsets that help them
continue to be learners throughout their careers.
Implications for Restructuring or Enhancing Field Instruction Practice

The careful look at social constructivist practices across these three cases
highlight areas for growth and redefinition of field instruction, both as a practice and as a
critical role in the support system for helping someone learn to teach. The previous
chapter included implications for field instruction practice that focused specifically on the
goal of helping interns learn to work with diverse student populations. This section
focuses on those that relate closely to social constructivist teaching practices and the
intersection of that with interns’ learning needs. As a field instructor, one must
constantly select among the best theoretical options for practice. This section will
include additional attention to the theoretical frameworks I chose to use in crafting my

field instruction practice.

304

 

Social Constructivist Approaches to Learning Needs

Field instructors need an awareness of their interns as learners so that they can
accommodate the individual perspectives and work to meet the specific Ieaming needs of
the intern by scaffolding them appropriately in the zone of proximal development (Tharp
& Gallimore, 1988; Vygotsky, 1978). Not only does this model the kind of practice that
field instructors hope interns will demonstrate towards their students, it recognizes the
complexity of Ieaming to teach. There are several aspects of the internship that are
influenced by this understanding on the part of the field instructor.

One issue that came from this work was an awareness of the importance of
tailoring the flow of the internship year in order to support individual intem’s learning
needs. For example. perhaps letting David step back during lead teaching to watch
Catherine teach Lucia would have better supported his need to see explicit modeling of
the practices that I was asking him to engage in to meet Lucia’s English Language
Learning needs. Field instructors need to have the freedom to tailor the program in order
to match where learners are in the process of becoming teachers.

David was in a very different place than Jane and Elizabeth throughout the
internship year. In the fall, the women were ready to teach and were quick to transition
from a focus on themselves as teachers to a stance that focused in much more depth on
their students as learners. David spent more time trying to figure out what he was doing
as a teacher and was more focused on himself as a learner. David’s zone of proximal
development was focused on more basic tasks of learning to teach (Vygotsky, 1978).
The transition that he made from himself to his students was a more gradual process.

Only in second semester did he begin to really understand the ways that his students

305

learned and how his work as a teacher influenced their Ieaming. For his work with Lucia,
this challenge was too great because he struggled to make sense of her learning needs. If
we consider the work of Ieaming to teach to be a process of moving across a continuum
that moves from a focus on the self as teacher to a focus on the students and their learning
needs, it is important to understand the work that interns do in moving from one extreme
to the other. In retrospect, I should have done more to factor in this type of
understanding in my work with David in order to think about how best to support his
efforts to meet Lucia’s learning needs. Field instructors should attempt to determine
where interns are in the process of moving from a focus on themselves to a focus on their
students early in the year and continue to monitor this progress throughout the year.
Doing so would allow a field instructor to continue to tailor instruction and provide the
appropriate types of assisted performance to meet the Ieaming needs of the intern (Tharp
& Gallimore. 1988).

In addition, a social constructivist stance towards field instruction focuses on the
relationship between the field instructor and intern. To engage in this kind of
relationship, there needs to be a strong commitment to the amount of time that it takes to
develop a relationship where interns feel free to contribute their own knowledge as well
as pursue the questions they have about practice. It also takes time to come to know each
intern as a learner. This is true of time spent both in observation and conversation in
order to see the interns in practice as well as to discuss how interns make sense of their
experiences in Ieaming to teach. In her spring interview, Amanda described how she felt
this approach to field instruction practice supported interns:

Supportive, instructive, guidance. . .constructive criticism. . .edification of the intern
and what they’re doing that’s right and spending the time to tell them what they’re

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doing right. Questioning, "But have you thought about that?” or “What about this?”
(Amanda’s spring interview, p. 11)

The kinds of things that Amanda comments on as effective strategies for field instruction
imply that field instructors need to know their interns well as learners in order to be able
to effectively support their experiences of learning to teach. The commitment of time is

significant but worth the trouble.

 

Additionally, it takes time to understand how an intern views issues of diversity in k
the classroom, recognizing that the personal and political nature of discussions about

diversity will influence how quickly interns and field instructors feel comfortable in their

 

relationship in order to present their true opinions on such topics. It takes time to develop J
a social constructivist stance towards practice. Thus, if this is a stance that is valued by

teacher preparation programs, then it is necessary to figure out how to provide the time

and space in field placement experiences to develop these relationships. One additional

aspect of this is also to think about how to support relationships with collaborating

 

teachers and school contexts over time. Time spent in the same classrooms, in the same
school building over a series of years provides a field instructor with more involved
knowledge about the student population, the school expectations and the attitudes
towards student diversity. If teacher preparation programs, and field instructors, can find
the way to make the commitment to extended work in one setting it appears that the
arrangement has the potential to increase the impact of field instruction practices.

The next section compares the work I described in the chart with the supervisory

belief continuum and related actions of Glickman et al.’s (1995) work for supervisors.

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The Supervisory Belief Continuum

Throughout this dissertation, I have compared the work that l was doing with
interns from a social constructivist stance with the conceptions of Glickman et al.’s
(1995) continuum of beliefs for supervisors working with practicing teachers. They are
that supervisors need to understand their own approaches to practice, and recognize
whether they function as a nondirective, collaborative or directive supervisor and what
sorts of behaviors cause them to engage in with supervisees. I agree with their argument
because this would help field instructors to make more informed choices about their
instructional decisions. In each of the three case studies, I have worked to point out in
which type of practice on the continuum I engaged. I also identified places where I felt
my behaviors and actions no longer aligned with the types of activities or work that they
advocated for each of their stances.

Across all three cases, I referred to my practice as primarily nondirective. This
stayed true for the entire year with Jane as she dealt with these issues of ability and
socialization. With Elizabeth, I would occasionally push her to be realistic about what
she could accomplish during the internship year, being more forceful about accepting her
own limitations as novice but continuing to work with her around issues of Sam’s
learning in a nondirective way. In David’s case, I moved farther from a social
constructivist, nondirective stance as it seemed so difficult to implement action to support
Lucia’s English Language Learning needs. There was little continued evidence of
progress in this case as there was in work with Elizabeth and Jane. Particularly in

David’s case, where my work with him moved farthest from my own social constructivist

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stances, I found some areas of overlap but also some necessary accommodations to this
continuum for supervision of teacher candidates as compared to practicing teachers.

The behaviors in Table 2 reflect actions that I engaged in through the lens of my
social constructivist practices. Glickman et al. (1995) listed a series of behaviors along a
continuum that defined their structure of supervisory activities. There is not a direct
overlap between my actions and those of Glickman et al. but there are commonalities
between my behavior and those located at the nondirective end of the continuum. Table
3 demonstrates the places that my work overlaps with that of the supervisory behavior
continuum. It also demonstrates where there are gaps that exist between my practice and

the one designed by Glickman et al. (1995).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My social constructivist Nondirective supervision Collaborative supervision
stance (Glickman et al., I 995) (Glickman et al., 1995)
Goal setting Problem solving
Generating choices Presenting
Respecting intems’ beliefs and Negotiating
ideas for practice
Reflection Listening, clarifying,
reflecting
Providing spaces Encouraging
Sharing personal experiences Presenting
Sharing resources Presenting
Knowing students and context
Knowing the school and
classroom context

 

 

Table 4: Comparison of social constructivist field instruction and Glickman et al.’s
(1995) continuum

The nondirective approach to supervision describes a series of actions that
supervisors would engage in. For the supervision of practicing teachers, this includes
listening, clarifying, encouraging, reflecting and presenting.22 While all of these are

relevant to the work that a field instructor can do with the intern teacher, I believe that a

 

22 Presenting is defined as giving “his or her own ideas about the issue being discussed” (p. l 14).

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few more features are also relevant and closely aligned with the work described in Table
2. Glickman et al. describe several characteristics of collaborative supervision that I
believe can be adapted for nondirective work with novices. Because novices are lacking
the knowledge of option choices that practicing teachers may already have in their
repertoire, the field instructor can engage the intern in problem solving and negotiating
without taking a strong stance on the selected choice of options that the intern might
make. Glickman et al. define this as something that the teacher and supervisor negotiate
together.

I see field instruction from a social constructivist stance focusing more on the
choices and decision-making processes of the intern with support and guidance from the
field instructor in considering what options may exist, not in determining which option
for action will be chosen. In order to help interns develop an understanding of what
might be possible, the field instructor can provide guidance and ideas. As stated in table
2, one of the actions I engage in through my social constructivist practice is to provide
suggestions for other options by sharing my personal teaching experiences as well as
teaching resources. But to also help interns become competent and thoughtful decision-
makers about practice and options, she must encourage the interns to be the one to make
the choice that is most appropriate and feasible from their perspective. This also provides
space for the collaborating teacher with more knowledge of students and context
particular (e.g. what the science curriculum requires of first graders) to become a part of
the conversation and decision-making support for the interns. As the ones who will
provide a great deal of the support for implementing decisions in the classroom, the

collaborating teacher’s judgment can be of significant use here for the intern. Knowing

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how the teacher will support the intern as well as the teacher’s knowledge of the
classroom context are both critical details for understanding how a field instructor might
best support an intern.

Because interns are novices who need support in seeing their options, it is
reasonable to alter a set of supervisory beliefs for those who work with teacher candidates
to include more involvement in describing options but encouraging the interns to step in g
and take responsibility for making the decisions of teaching practice. Glickman et al.’s
continuum provides a useful starting place for supervisors to consider their own beliefs
and then explore how they have altered them in order to support their work with novice
teachers. One of the findings of this study is an awareness of how such supervisory
behaviors must be surfaced and adapted for the work with novices in order to be
responsive to the specific learning needs that an individual teacher candidate possesses.

Glickman et al.’s (1995) continuum offers some ideas for field instructors as they
work to improve their practice. I believe that this continuum provides field instructors
with a place to begin the work I described. In order to understand how you approach
teaching practices in field instruction, the first step is to begin to name those actions.
Using a continuum such as the one Glickman et al. provide can serve as a place to start to
name what it is that a field instructor believes she/he does in practice. Whether or not
this specific continuum is the one used by field instructors to engage in this process,
something along these lines can provide a basis from which to expand one’s individual

understanding of her practice as a field instructor.

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Schon’s Conception of Naming and Framing

The other primary framework used for analyzing the data of this dissertation was
Schon’s (1987) notion of naming and framing as a means of developing an understanding
about the problems of practice so that they can then be successfully managed. While
framing does not necessarily require a social constructivist stance, it is predicated on the
assumption that there is something to be learned when mentors and novices work
together to understand and manage a problem in practice. This section explores what was
learned from this study about the place and value of field instructors and interns working
together to name and frame problems and then how the field instructor can provide
support that fosters the management of the problem.

When field instructors and interns work together to name the problems that the
intern is working to address in the classroom, this kind of careful and thoughtful attention
to the challenges of teaching has the potential to put both parties on the same page.
However, this study demonstrated that the work of naming needs to be explicit with both
groups making clear what it is that they believe they have named as the problem. For
example, David’s case demonstrated that there was attention to the English Language
Ieaming needs in our work together but that we were not effective at naming and framing
the problem in the same way and were not making ideas explicit. While we may have
named the problem as Lucia’s English Language Learning needs, we did not frame how
this problem challenged David’s teaching practices in similar ways. Instead we relied on
the more generic conversation we had about Lucia as a foundation for our work together.
We did not come to any explicit and clear conclusion about what we felt the issue was in

meeting Lucia’s needs.

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Jane’s case demonstrated the opposite experience. Our work together with issues
of academic ability in the classroom was well orchestrated and illustrates a case of
cohesive naming, framing and managing of a problem. Our work together in naming and
framing this problem was aligned from early in the internship year and provided a strong
foundation for our work. Elizabeth’s case was similar in that we had a strong focus and
similar stance on the naming and framing of her work with Sam as a central focus for her
work throughout the internship year. Taken together, these three cases demonstrate the
importance of explicit naming and framing as critical in the process of getting to the
implementation of action. How the problems are named and framed directly influenced
our success in working together to support the interns’ efforts to manage the challenge
across time. It seems that coherent and thoughtful naming and framing is necessary to
get to the point where reflection in and on action is possible in a way that causes forward
motion and responsiveness to practice.

When it comes to managing the problems of practice, the effectiveness seems to
be directly connected to how clearly and explicitly the problem was named and framed.
David and I were unable to successfully manage his problem in practice. This seems to
be related to the fact that we were never really on the same page as to what the problem
really was, instead framing the needs that Lucia had in different ways. Work that I did
with Jane and Elizabeth demonstrate the possibilities of what can be accomplished when
the problem is effectively named and framed leading to better management of the
situation. Naming and framing the problem in the same way does not automatically lead

to a successful experience in managing the situation but it does provide more support for

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work together than having trouble with the first phase of negotiating what the problem
really is.

Although this framework was used for analysis and was not a conscious part of
my work during the data collection period of this study, I believe that this work
demonstrates the value of this analytic process for field instructors who are supporting
interns as they try to make sense of the difficult process of learning to teach. In this
study, this framework was particularly helpful for considering how we structured our
work together on issues of student diversity in the classroom. Without doing so, efforts
between field instructor and intern may be wasted in terms of time spent inadvertently
pursuing alternate and possibly conflicting purposes. This may be particularly crucial in
relationship to aspects of diversity if these are not seen as a part of the context or not
supported/pursued by the collaborating teacher in overt ways and thus tend to take a back
seat to the relationship of other ideas that are pursued with the field instructor. Teaching
this framework to field instructors seems as though it could offer a way of approaching
the student diversity in the classroom in more explicit ways (something that was
recommended in chapter seven to improve work on issues of diversity). An awareness of
the importance of making sure that the field instructor and intern are interpreting the
situation in similar terms seems helpful for supporting the work of the interns as they
learn to teach.

Helping Field Instructors Develop Their Practice

Throughout the work on social constructivism in this chapter, I have advocated

that field instructors need to be aware of their stances towards their practice. This leads

into natural implications for practice. I believe that there need to be efforts made to help

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field instructors be metacognitive about their beliefs of teaching and Ieaming. While
field instructors in our program typically have previous experiences as classroom
teachers, they need to be aware of their stances/beliefs/biases about field instruction as a
form of teaching that is both similar and different from work with elementary students to
make a difference in how they choose to pursue their practices. This issue of conscious
awareness can not be understated. Field instructors need to understand what they believe
and how they approach their practice in order to consider how they will handle some of
the previously described issues — such as knowing interns as individual learners.
Teacher education has a responsibility to educate all supervisors on these critical
issues. Currently, Michigan State requires that all new field instructors, who are also
graduate students, take a practicum course that supports the development of their
practices. This course began the year that I started doing field instruction at MSU and I
believe that it was a significant support for me as I worked to develop my understanding
of the role. Teacher education programs must understand that supervision is a complex
practice that requires support for the field instructors as they learn to engage in this role.
Even those with years of teaching experience who may retire and take on supervisory
roles as a later career need guidance in thinking about their new supervisory
responsibilities. Many of those fulfilling supervisory roles in university programs are
outside the mainstream of the education faculty and programs need to find ways that
support their Ieaming needs. One effort made by the teacher preparation time I work for
is to have weekly meeting for all field instructors to come together and discuss the
problems of field instruction practice with support from programmatic staff. These

meetings are designed to help us reflect on various aspects of our practice through

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conversations with others experiencing similar challenges. Our work over the last few
years has included attention to issues of student diversity but less explicit attention to the
stances we use to conceptualize our practices. This may be one further direction these
meetings could go to support field instructor Ieaming. While there are no simple
solutions to the logistical issues that surround this recommendation (and many of these
would vary by university), it is important to understand that these efforts could make a
difference in how field instructors are able to support interns’ efforts to teach all students.

These implications for practice suggest a range of possibilities for future research
into field instruction roles, beliefs, practices and stances. The following section
addresses these potential research areas.

Conclusions and Research Implications

Social constructivist approaches to field instruction practice can be used to
support the development of interns who are learning to become responsive to all students
when field instructors are conscious of and responsive to the Ieaming needs of the
interns. Particularly when it comes to critical issues of classroom diversity, it is
necessary to consider what might happen when the findings of this study are used as a
basis for a continuing research program. Currently, I have several ideas for next steps on
this research agenda. I conducted a self-study into my own field instruction practices for
my dissertation research. I would now like to move outside of that and begin to explore
others’ conceptions of their supervision practices and mentoring models. This would
include emphasis on several areas of the work that I have started over the last few years.

Below are descriptions both of topical areas as well as questions that are of interest for

316

 

future research in addition to research approaches that would expand this work beyond
self-study.
Field Instruction Stances

There needs to be additional work on the theoretical lens that is use by field
instructors or supervisors as a means of conceptualizing their stance towards practice.
This study has demonstrated that there is an important connection between how a field
instructor conceptualizes her practice and how it is enacted with interns in the school
setting. One area of interest for future research is to find out how other field instructors
understand and define their practice in connection with their beliefs about teaching and
Ieaming. How do field instructors make meaning of what they do as a practice? Are they
consciously advocating a stance in their model and activities with interns? These first
few questions suggest a specific approach to research that might include work such as
case studies of other field instructors and how they utilize their stances in defining their
work with teacher candidates. These questions suggest a research approach that moves
beyond the confines of one person’s practices. A descriptive look at how others
conceptualize their practice would add information to the literature on supervision for
novice teachers that updates the more traditional work on the use of checklists and
objectives.

At another level, there are a series of questions that can be asked about how
departments and colleges of education are working with issues of supervision in their
teacher education preparation programs. How are other teacher preparation programs
training/preparing field instructors with attention to their attitudes towards practice?

What do we know about stances of individuals and programs that inform their work with

317

 

the teacher candidates? Research in this arena would entail studies that cross programs
and institutions to determine how others are preparing and engaging field instructors in
practice.
Interns as Learners

In addition, there are potential research questions that consider the impact of the
interns as individual learners on how field instructors define their work and
responsibilities towards their learners. These questions explore how a specific aspect of
practice is addressed. How do field instructors respond to interns’ Ieaming needs in ways
that promote growth and recognize the individuality of the learner? How do they do this
in ways that model for teacher candidates the importance of doing the same for their
students? While these questions are also connected to issues of stance in the design of
field instruction practices, they also focus more carefully on the specific feature of how
field instructors respond to individual learners. This is a critical area for further research
because how we as field instructors who are teaching others about practice respond to
individual needs sends an implicit or explicit message for how teacher candidates think
about responding to their own learners. Research approaches in this context would
include careful looks, from intern and field instructor perspectives, at how the intern is
thought of and responded to as a learner. This is connected to issues of stance but does
not imply that the stance of choice must be social constructivist.
Social Constructivist Practices

This study lays down a beginning foundation for continued work on social
constructivist approaches for field instruction practices, attending to how they can be

used to think about teaching in addition to Ieaming. This study acknowledges how

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interns felt about the way I chose to work with them, and identifies places and ways that
they felt were particularly effective in supporting them. However, additional work can
also be done on how interns feel about this type of support as it works with or against
them as they learn to teach with a more overt and explicit announcement and theoretical
description of a social constructivist stance towards practice than I provided my interns.
To that end, there are some additional questions for future research.

Can a knowledge base or series of actions be determined that continue to foster

 

the use of a social constructivist approach to field instruction practice in meaningful

ways? If so, a number of other questions arise that challenge the implications of this

 

' 1_I

approach. How does social constructivist field based teacher education work in varied
settings? Do school and collaborating teacher perspectives influence the effectiveness of
this approach and in what ways? These two questions demonstrate that context might be
varied in different research designs to determine the effectiveness of a social
constructivist approach in a variety of locations with differing student demographics.
What are the impacts of these characteristics on the role and job description of the field
based supervisor? There are many ways that this body of questions can be explored
through research. This can be done at the individual case study as well as at the
programmatic level, considering the nature of the social constructivist stance as a
personal approach or as a programmatic commitment. This set of questions also includes
a series that focuses on the school and community context that influences the types of
practices that are used to deal with specific situational needs.

These questions suggest a research approach reliant on a set of case studies across

locations as well as those that focus deeply into the nuances of a particular context. My

319

work did more of the latter by looking carefully at how this played out at Lancaster
Elementary school. Further research would be useful in settings that are urban or rural
and deal with different challenges related to student diversity as a way of exploring how
social constructivism is more or less effective as a result of the setting’s particular needs.
I believe that this approach to research is a necessary first step to determine the necessary
features to be included in larger, qualitative studies that focus on samples of more
supervisors. Given the understanding that would come from these individual and then
programmatic level studies, the foundation would be laid to research across programs and
at more complex levels of interaction.
Issues of Student Diversity

As described in chapter seven, issues of student diversity are of particular
importance to the development of future teachers. That makes it an important aspect of
the work that is done by the teacher preparation program, and more specifically, the work
of the field instructors who help teacher candidates to make sense of their experiences in
the field. This study focused on the critical incidents in each intem’s classroom that
influenced our work together as they learned to respond to the needs of particular learners
in the classroom. This work, from a social constructivist perspective, is an initial attempt
to conceptualize how to work with interns about these issues in a suburban community.
Further work needs to be done to answer the questions in more detail and from the
perspectives of more participants in the process. There is little literature on the
experiences of field instructors’ work with issues of diversity during student teaching or
internship experiences. Much work needs to be done to simply map the lay of the land

with the intersection of these issues. How do supervisors support the work of teacher

320

candidates as they attempt to meet the Ieaming needs of diverse student populations?
What role does the supervisor play as a catalyst in this learning process? What
approaches seem to be more or less effective in doing so? Research that addresses these
questions will need to be done at multiple levels of interaction — both individual
experiences that occur in a particular time or place as well as considering how programs
are structured to support these goals.
Conclusion

I continue to be interested in research that pays close, careful attention the
realities of the field and the experiences that all involved in teacher education have in that
context. To that end, I can identify a range of important questions to be asked of these
experiences and relationships and the influence this process has on the development of
teacher candidates. I recognize two different levels at play here - how to continue to
develop deep and thoughtful cases of the experiences that are had in the field and the
need to begin to broaden some of this theory (in this case, a social constructivist approach
to field based teaching) to consider implications and issues that extend beyond the
individual pairs of supervisors and teacher candidates. One of my initial research goals is
to begin to develop work at both of these levels because I feel that this approach to
practice has rich potential to support the development of reflective, culturally responsive

teachers who are attuned to their students’ individual Ieaming needs.

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APPENDICES

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APPENDIX A
Intern Winter Interview Questions

Introductory Statement: This year you have had a LA Practicum as part of fall
semester. We will be focusing primarily on the LA practicum in this interview, but if you
want to add comments on the math practicum that you think are relevant, please feel free
to do so. We’d like to get a sense of your understanding of the practicum, how you have
experienced it, and whether and how it has been helpful to your learning.

Practicum:
What is your understanding of the Practicum—its purpose and activities?

Who provided support to you in the Practicum? How?
0 Probes: field instructor, course instructor, CT

Team Two decided to offer this practicum to make a bridge between your TE 401 '
learning to teach language arts and your classroom teaching in the fall. What
opportunities to work on your practice, as a teacher of language arts, have you had this
semester?
0 Probe: ideas, concepts, strategies, specific tools and activities (from practicum
handout: types of guided observations, pre/post conferences with CTs, exploration
of language arts curriculum materials)
0 Probe: how have FT, CT, Course Instr. been involved in supporting those
opportunities?

Given your experiences so far, how do you hope to be involved in teaching of language
arts during January? During guided lead teaching?

What opportunities to prepare to teach language arts in spring semester do you wish you
had?

Context:
Describe your school. What is this place like? Tell me about the community—probes:
what opportunities have you had to get to know the parents? What are they like?

Tell me about the students in your classroom. Probes: What are they like as learners?
What are they like as people/kids? Are there any particular kids who stand out for you in
this group? In what ways?
0 When I ask you to think about the range of Ieaming needs (social, academic,
linguistic support) that exists in your classroom, what comes to mind for you?
[Here is a first step at getting to diversity without specifically using this term]
0 How have you learned about them? Can you describe your strategies for doing
this?

Diversity:

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When I use the term "diversity" in relation to your classroom, what comes to mind for
you? What issues have you faced in your classroom?

0 Probe: what conception of diversity is and isn’t — if they don’t mention all of the
following, ask specifically about each: race/ethnicity/culture, ability — gifted or
special education, socioeconomic, linguistic [if they’ve mentioned these in
question 2 they don’t need to repeat their description]

0 how they have learned about their students based on these descriptions, how CT
or F1 have helped them to identify and understand these various issues of diversity

Have you already faced some challenges associated with meeting the Ieaming needs of

your students? What sorts of challenges do you think this classroom diversity will

present for you in lead teaching this spring? If so, were you able to work through these

challenges? If yes, how did you accomplish this? If not, why do you think you weren’t

able to do so? [Probe for specific cases so particulars can be explored in depth]

0 Probe: strategies they have seen or have in mind to try this spring, issues that they

are concerned about, students’ needs or characteristics that they are concerned
about

To what extent has the TE program helped to educate you on issues of helping diverse
learners in language arts?
0 Probe: specific courses where worked on this area — ask for specifics

What sort of help has your CT given you in helping diverse learners?

What do you feel like you still need to learn about your students before lead teaching
spring semester?

What are your teaching strengths in working with your students? What are some areas
where you’d like more information, resources, etc?
0 Probe: planning, assessment, making teaching decisions in the moment

Field instruction:
How has your field instructor been supporting your learning? Any strategies you find
particularly helpful in supporting your learning?

 

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Collaborating Teacher Winter Interview Questions

Introductory Statement: This year you have had a LA Practicum as part of fall
semester. We will be focusing primarily on the LA practicum in this interview, but if you
want to add comments on the math practicum that you think are relevant, please feel free
to do so. We’d like to get a sense of your understanding of the practicum, how you have
experienced it, and whether and how it has been helpful to your Ieaming.

Practicum:
What is your understanding of the Practicum—its purpose and activities?

Who provided support to your intern in the Practicum? How?
0 Probes: field instructor, course instructor, CT

Team Two decided to offer this practicum to make a bridge between the intem’s TB 401
learning to teach language arts and his/her classroom teaching in the fall. What
opportunities has the intern had to work on his/her practice as a teacher of language arts
this semester?
0 Probe: ideas, concepts, strategies, specific tools
0 Probe: how have FT, CT, Course Instr. been involved in supporting those
opportunities?

Given the intem’s experiences so far, how do you hope to get him/her involved in
teaching of language arts during January? During guided lead teaching?

What opportunities to prepare to teach language arts in spring semester do you wish s/he
had?

Context:
Describe your school. What is this place like? Tell me about the community—probes:
what are the parents like? How do they support the work in your classroom?

How does your class this year compare to classes you’ve had in the past few years?
Describe this year’s class. Who are your learners? Have there been changes in your
typical class make-up as a result of the redistricting from closing Edgewood?

How does your intern respond to the various learning needs of your students? What
catches his/her attention? What do they comment on? How does he/she talk about kids?

Diversity:
When I use the term "diversity" in relation to your classroom, what comes to mind for

you? What issues have you faced in your classroom?

0 Probe: what conception of diversity is and isn’t, how they have learned about their
students, how intern has engaged in trying to identify and understand these various
issues of diversity

0 How are you working with your intern to learn about these students/needs?

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What are some of your intern’s strengths in working with the Ieaming needs of your
students?

What sorts of challenges do you think this classroom diversity will present for your intern
in lead teaching this spring? [Probe for specific cases so particulars can be explored in
depth]

Have you already observed interns dealing with issues/challenges that involve the
teaching of diverse learners? How have interns managed in these situations?

How did this intern compare with other interns you have worked with? Probes: ideas,
concepts, strategies, tools. To what extent do you think the Practicum influenced what
you saw this semester?

To what extent do you feel the TE program has helped to educate your intern on issues of
helping diverse learners in language arts?
0 Probe: ask for specifics or why they have that impression

Field instruction:
How has the field instructor been supporting your intem’s learning? Are any specific
strategies particularly helpful from your perspective?

 

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APPENDIX B
Intern Spring Interview Questions

Practicum and Language Arts:

In the fall we talked about the learning opportunities you had (review what those were).
How well did those influence/support (or not) your teaching of language arts this
semester? To what extent did they seem to prepare you for taking on more responsibility
in the spring?

Who provided support to you in Ieaming to teach language arts during this semester?

0 Probe: how have FT, CT, Course Instr. been involved in supporting those
opportunities?

How would you describe your knowledge and skills as a teacher of language arts? What
are your strengths and weaknesses?
o How did the Practicum prepare you for teaching language arts?
0 How could the Practicum have better prepared you to learn to teach language
arts? '
o How could your spring semester experiences have better prepared you?

Diversity:
Based on identification of diversity issues in the classroom from the fall semester

interview (review these), would you still describe these challenges in the same way?
Why or why not?

0 How did literacy teaching this spring go with these (students, issues, etc)?

0 Were you able to address the literacy and diversity challenges that may have
arisen in this situation? (If yes, how did you accomplish this? If not, why do you
think you weren’t able to do so?)

0 Did you feel that you were successful in meeting students’ diverse needs? Ask for
examples (pro or con) in literacy, but in other subject areas if it comes up.

0 Who helped you to engage in this work? (probe FI, CT and CI)

0 Last time we met, you talked about some challenges you were facing (review
what they were). Did these remain challenges for you? Why or why not?

0 Did you sense a change in your approach, challenges etc over the course of lead
teaching? How do you feel that you have changed since this time in your ability to
meet the needs of all of your students over time?

o Are there areas — such as a certain subject matter — in which you find it easier to
address diverse Ieaming needs? Are there any areas that you find difficult to
address diverse needs? (Probe for certain instructional/learning instances that they
feel support their claims. Raise any specific content areas that might seem
relevant based on observations over the semester.)

What one moment, experience, etc. in the semester was the biggest “aha” moment for

you? What stood out to you in working on teaching practices this year? Particular
issues, kids, etc.

327

 

A critical incident in Ieaming to teach or work with all students?

If they don’t suggest specific groups of children or specific cases, I will probe by
suggesting some of the children that I felt were challenging for them (David -—
Mary, Ashok, Lucia, James; Jane — gifted boys, Julia, Nigel; Elizabeth — Sam)
Do you think any of that kind of stuff that’s been important will show up in your
portfolio in some way?

Field instruction:
Team 2 is trying to think about the role of the F l and how to improve FI. Briefly, can you
give me some words that you think characterize the field instructor role?

Based on what they offer, which of these is most prominent? (hopefully
something about knowledge, teacher)

Describe to them the ideas behind the expert novice relationship. Can you
characterize the way we work together to develop your knowledge? (telling,
guiding, exploring)

Field instructors are responsible for both assistance and assessment (describe this
distinction briefly for them). Where was the emphasis for you and did it feel
formative or summative along the way? Did it influence the way you talked to
me? If no, why not and if yes, what do you think were the issues around this in
helping you to learn to teach?

What else could a team two field instructor do in this role that would help you in learning
to teach all kids?

Wrapping up:

 

What issues of working with diverse students do you feel you need to learn more about in
order to become effective with all students?
0 Probe: Where/how do you think you will acquire this knowledge?

What type of school/district do you hope to be teaching in next year? What do you think
will be your biggest challenges during your first year of teaching?

328

CT Spring Interview

Practicum:
Overall, how do you feel that the internship went for your intern? Please share some of
the intem’s strengths and weaknesses during the internship.

In the fall we talked about the learning opportunities the intern had (review what those
were). How well did those influence/support (or not) the intem’s teaching of language
arts this semester? To what extent did they seem to prepare him/her for taking on more
responsibility in the spring?
0 Probe: ideas, concepts, strategies, specific tools and activities (from practicum
handout: types of guided observations, pre/post conferences with CTs, exploration
of language arts curriculum materials)

Who provided support to the intern in Ieaming to teach language arts during this
semester?
0 Probe: how have FT, CT, Course Instr. been involved in supporting those
opportunities?

How would you describe your intem’s knowledge and skills as a teacher of language
arts? What are his/her strengths and weaknesses?
o How did the Practicum assist interns in Ieaming to teach language arts?
0 How could the Practicum have better prepared your intern to learn to teach
language arts?
0 How could the spring semester experiences have better prepared your intern?

Diversity:

Based on identification of diversity issues in the classroom from the fall semester
interview (review these), would you still describe these challenges for your intern in the
same way? Why or why not?

0 How did literacy teaching this spring go with these (students, issues, etc)? Did
you feel that the intern was successful in meeting students’ diverse needs? Ask for
examples (pro or con) in literacy, but in other subject areas if it comes up.

0 Did you sense a change in your intem’s approaches, challenges etc over the
course of lead teaching? How do you feel that your intern has changed over the
course of the semester in their ability to meet the needs of all of your students
over time?

o Are there areas — such as a certain subject matter — in which you think your intern
finds it easier to address diverse Ieaming needs? Are there any areas that you feel
your intern finds difficult to address diverse needs? (Probe for certain
instructional/Ieaming instances that they feel support their claims. Raise any
specific content areas that might seem relevant based on observations over the
semester.)

329

 

From your perspective, what one moment, experience, etc. in the semester was the
biggest “aha” moment for your intern this year? What stood out to you about the intem’s
learning to work on teaching practices this year? Particular issues, kids, etc.
0 A critical incident in Ieaming to teach or work with all students?
0 If they don’t suggest specific groups of children or specific cases, I will probe by
suggesting some of the children that I felt were challenging for them (David —
Mary, Ashok, Lucia, James; Jane — gifted boys, Julia, Nigel; Elizabeth — Sam)
0 How have they shared their concerns or issues with you? (e.g. face on, waiting
until they have a real problem, etc)

Field instruction:
Team 2 is trying to think about the role of the FI and how to improve FI. Briefly, can you
give me some words that you think characterize the field instructor role?

0 Based on what they offer, which of these is most prominent? (hopefully
something about knowledge, teacher)

0 Describe to them the ideas behind the expert novice relationship. From your
perspective of watching the way we work with interns, can you characterize the
way we work together to develop your intern’s knowledge? (telling, guiding,
exploring)

o How would you hope the F I here would do this job? At the end of next year,
what would you want me to tell the team about the needs and expectations you
have for a PI?

 

What else could a team two field instructor do in this role that would help interns in
Ieaming to teach all kids?

Wrapping up:
How did this intern compare with other interns you have worked with? Probes: ideas,

concepts, strategies, tools. To what extent do you think the Practicum influenced what
you saw this semester?

What issues of working with diverse students do you feel your intern needs to learn more

about in order to become effective with all students? Where might or how would you
suggest your intern learn these necessary things?

330

APPENDIX C
Student interview conducted with each intern

Talk me through your class list and tell me a little bit about each student. Start with some
descriptive words about each child as a learner as well as anything else you think I should
know. Pretend that we haven’t been talking about these kids on and off all year — some
we’ve discussed a lot and some I don’t know very much about. [Use class list here to
ensure that all students are included in the conversation]

You’ve mentioned several students that seem to need a range of accommodations to the
general instruction in your classroom. I’ve got a hunch about the lesson plans you’ve
been creating and wanted to see what you thought. I’m curious about the adaptations and
accommodations section — how did your thinking about this change over the course of the
year — especially as you moved through lead teaching? (If necessary, point out that the
attention to this section really seemed to drop off as they moved on — why was this?)

What do you think is important to know about your learners as you think about going into
next year?

How do you think about assessment of kids when you have so much variation in needs

and abilities going on in your classroom at the same time? (Talk with them about
formative and summative and how this might be affected by the kids, etc)

331

 

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332

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