Tensions between traditions: The role of contexts in learning to teach
Abstract
In this study we look at one teacher, Jimmy Ladd, and his early-career efforts to develop an approach to teaching within competing traditions. We pay particular attention to the contexts in which he learned to teach—his university program, his site of student teaching, and his first job—to understand the ways in which they suggested or impressed particular traditions on the teachers within them. Our inquiry is driven by the following questions: 1. In the major settings of Jimmy’s learning to teach, what conceptions of teaching and learning were available? How did the goals, structures, What teaching traditions were evident in Jimmy’s teaching? Towhat extent did his instructional practice exhibit consistency of a teaching conception? In essence, our study of Jimmy’s teaching situates teacher education programs in the context of the old breadth vs. depth discussion about learning to teach: Which is preferable, broad coverage of all possibilities or a more limited and concerted study of fewer approaches, particularly across time and settings? Each has different consequences: a more inclusive tool kit in one case, a more unified tool kit in the other and processes of activity in those settings affect Jimmy’s development of an approach to teaching?
Reference
Bickmore, S. T., Smagorinsky, P., & O'Donnell-Allen, C. (2005). Tensions between traditions: The role of contexts in learning to teach. English Education, 38(1), 23-52.
Journal
English 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
- Multi-sited (high schools)
- University
Preservice Participants
Preservice Sample Size
1
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- Experiences across time of a preservice teacher who becomes an inservice teacher
- Interviews
Data Analysis Tools
Researcher Positionality
- Outside (not directly invested in the program or operations)
Research Questions
In the major settings of Jimmy’s learning to teach, what conceptions of teaching and learning were available? How did the goals, structures, and processes of activity in those settings affect Jimmy’s development of an approach to teaching?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes
What teaching traditions were evident in Jimmy’s teaching? To what extent did his instructional practice exhibit consistency of a teaching conception?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes