Exploring pre-service teachers’ literacy practices with children from diverse backgrounds: Implications for teacher educators
Abstract
The context for this investigation was an undergraduate literacy methods course taught by Cindy, the first author of this manuscript. A central course goal was to prepare pre-service teachers to provide effective literacy instruction for children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The focus of this study was an examination of the learning and reflections of the pre-service teachers in Cindy's class. Cindy required the pre-service teachers in this study to engage in a literacy practicum at an urban elementary school where over 85% of the student population was comprised of children from ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Each week for seven weeks, the pre-service teachers worked in small teaching teams in different upper-elementary classrooms to create, teach, and reflect upon their one-hour long literacy lessons. In this study we explored the pre-service teachers’ responses to the literacy needs of children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and we articulate the implications of this work for us as teacher educators.
Reference
Brock, C. H., Moore, D. K., & Parks, L. (2007). Exploring pre-service teachers’ literacy practices with children from diverse backgrounds: Implications for teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(6), 898-915. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.02.002
Journal
Teaching and Teacher Education
Analysis
Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?
no
Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?
no
Research Approach
Geographic Setting
Institutional Context
Certification Level
Programatic Focus
Research Location Context
- field-based methods course
- Literacy methods course
- Literacy, Language, and Culture Course
Preservice Participants
- undergraduate preservice teachers
- Undergraduates in a Reading and Language Arts methods course
Preservice Sample Size
7
Other Participant Data
- Teaching Assistant
- University Professor
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- Audio recordings
- fieldnotes
- lesson plans
- reflections
- Small group discussion
- Transcriptions
- Tutoring plans
- Tutoring reflections
- Video
- written feedback sheets
Data Analysis Tools
- Discourse Analysis (Gee, 1999 framework)
- Qualitative Analysis
Researcher Positionality
- inside (staying their own students)
- Inside (studying their own practices)
- Inside (studying their own programs)
Research Questions
There are no RQs directly stated in the paper.
"We are concerned with how pre-service teachers in a literacy methods course respond to children whose most influential community is of a culture and language different from their own." p. 900
In this study the researcher and research assistant were the instructor and TA for the literacy methods course. They sought to examine how PTs' reflections along with their guidance and feedback could support the PTs in "meaningful learning." They wanted to also understand when their guidance was not conducive of meaningful learning.
"In this study we examined the topics two teams of pre-service teachers discussed in each of their postteaching debriefing sessions. We also sought to learn what the pre-service teachers’ debriefing conversations
revealed about their literacy instruction for children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds." p. 902
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Combination