Area of Focus
This synthesis of the literature that explores the preparation of secondary English teachers is organized around the following three focus areas: (1) Preservice teachers’ developing identities and beliefs, (2) Teacher educators’ efforts to broaden understandings, and (3)Transitioning from university to secondary classrooms.
Focus Area 1: Preservice Teachers’ Developing Identities and Beliefs
Eleven studies related to the preparation of secondary English teachers framed learning to teach as a process of developing a personal identity as a teacher and/or developing beliefs about teaching. Some of these studies explored ways in which teacher educators facilitated those processes in English methods courses and related field placements (Filatov & Pill, 2015) as well as the ways in which technology was utilized to support preservice teachers in questioning and developing their identities as teachers (Bach & Weinstein, 2014; Katić, 2008; Schieble, Vetter, & Meacham, 2015). Scholars whose research was included in this focus area also considered preservice teachers’ conceptions of their own identities in relation to their conceptions of their adolescent students’ identities (Lewis & Patron, 2010; McGuinn & Naylor, 2009; Petrone & Lewis, 2012). In addition, these scholars often discussed the ways that power structures enabled or constrained preservice teachers’ abilities to enact teacher identities, particularly within field settings (Schieble et al., 2015; Smagorinsky, Gibson, Moore, Bickmore, & Cook, 2004; Smagorinsky, Wright, Murphy-Augustine, O’Donnell-Allen, Konopak, 2007).
These studies relied primarily on qualitative methods, such as interviews, coursework, and observations of preservice teachers in university courses and field settings (Bach & Weinstein, 2014; Burley, 2003; Filatov & Pill, 2015; Katic, 2008; Lewis & Patrone, 2010; McGuinn & Naylor; Pitfield, 2011; Schieble, Vetter & Meacham; Smagorinsky et al., 2004; Smagorinky et al., 2007). One study included an analysis of e-mail correspondence (McGuinn & Naylor, 2009), while four provided case studies of individual preservice teachers selected from larger data sets (Katić, 2008; Schieble et al., 2015; Smagorinsky et al., 2004; Smagorinsky et al., 2007). A final study (Petrone & Lewis, 2012) drew on mixed methods by collecting survey data.
Filatov and Pill (2015) looked explicitly at preservice teachers’ beliefs about their self-efficacy as English teachers in relation to their experiences in their university coursework. While most teachers in the study expressed confidence in their ability to impact students’ learning, those who expressed weak self-efficacy emphasized a lack of proper university preparation as the most important factor in the development of their beliefs. The findings suggested several key factors in instilling self-efficacy in beginning English teachers: exposure to practical ideas and techniques, building a knowledge base around adolescent literacy, gaining practice through teaching placements, and experiencing successful teaching.
Using technology to figure teacher identity. Teacher educators in two studies used videos in methods courses to facilitate preservice teachers’ reflections on developing teacher identities. Schieble et al. (2015) presented the case of one preservice teacher engaging in discourse analysis of classroom interactions within her own teaching video from her student teaching classroom. Using video to analyze moment-to-moment interactions in a classroom helped the preservice teacher understand “whether and how she enacted her preferred teacher identities (facilitator and advocate) during student teaching” (p. 245). The analysis supported the notion that videos of teaching in combination with discourse analysis could support preservice teachers’ awareness of the relationship between their actual teaching practices and their values and identities as teachers. Bach and Weinstein (2014) also described how teacher educators used video analysis in methods courses; however, these videos were drawn from a reality show starring Tony Danza as an English teacher. Preservice teachers viewed, questioned, and held discussions around Danza’s classroom practice. The perceived distance between Danza’s television representation of English teaching and their own experiences allowed the preservice teachers to interrogate and develop their conceptions of what the practice of teaching entailed and how they conceptualized themselves as teachers. These studies highlighted the ways in which video analysis might aid preservice teachers in recognizing, articulating, and problematizing their developing teacher identities and practices.
Examining a course for preservice teachers, Katić (2008) approached technology in a different way; rather than using technology to help preservice teachers explore their teaching identities, she examined their beliefs and identities in relation to technology itself, which Katic defined through a focus on the transfer and communication of information using a variety of tools, most saliently computers. She presented findings from a case study of two preservice English teachers in an educational technology course that focused on teachers’ conceptions of and beliefs about the role of technology in English teaching. Both preservice teachers believed that technology could be a tool to facilitate students’ learning in English classes; however, they conceptualized the role of technology as supporting rather than transforming traditional literacy practices.
Conceptions of adolescence in relation to teacher identity. Further studies discussed the roles that preservice teachers took up in relation to their adolescent students. McGuinn and Naylor (2009) explained how teacher educators supported preservice teachers developing teacher identities by facilitating email exchanges with high school students around their reading of King Lear. In their online interactions, preservice teachers shifted between different stances and roles in relation to their adolescent students, becoming more and less formal, dialogic and dominant, encouraging and instructive. The online space, subject to fewer habits and traditions for student-teacher interaction, proved to be a flexible location for different types of student-teacher relationships, and thus, allowed preservice teachers to experiment with different identities. Petrone and Lewis (2012) explored how preservice teachers conceived of adolescence and how they thought about their pedagogical roles as a result. Most often, preservice teachers positioned adolescents from a deficit perspective, as in need of adult intervention, and thought of their roles as counselors, therapists, or sculptors. Lewis and Petrone (2010) explained the ways in which preservice teachers’ perceptions of adolescence as both a dangerous time and a time of identity formation influenced their thinking about reading curriculum and instruction.
The role of power structures in the formation of teacher identity. Four studies explored the ways that power structures within schools impacted preservice teachers’ abilities to enact particular teaching identities in classroom settings. In these studies, the extant power structures in teaching placements led to conflicts between preservice teachers’ beliefs about teaching and their actual teaching practices. Smagorinsky et al. (2004) followed one preservice teacher from her university courses to her student teaching classroom and into her first job as an English teacher. The preservice teacher took up student-centered teaching practices in her university coursework and student teaching fieldwork; however, power structures around curriculum requirements and standardized testing in the context of her first teaching job hampered her ability to enact student-centered practices and identities. Similarly, Smagorinsky et al. (2007) found that various teaching contexts (university program, student teaching, first job, and second job) shaped another preservice teacher’s ability to teach grammar in ways that were engaging to students. The preservice teacher’s university program, student teaching placement, and first teaching job allowed for grammar instruction situated within students’ writing practices and daily language usage; however, her second teaching job was in a context with restrictive curricular mandates. Because of her previous classroom experiences, in which she was able to enact her preferred teaching identities and practices, the preservice teacher adapted her approach, allowing her to continue implementing student-centered grammar instruction within this more restrictive environment.
Considering the impact of national curricular standards on teachers’ conceptions of English as a discipline, Pitfield (2011) examined the ways in which preservice teachers in England conceived of drama in English classes in light of the way in which Britain’s National Curriculum situated drama within English instruction. Many of the preservice English teachers in her study doubted their abilities with drama and questioned the nature of the discipline in response to contradictory demands. On the one hand, they were asked to prepare students for standardized tests based on print literacy. Alternately, the National Curriculum required them to take on the mantle of drama instruction. From these interviews, a consensus emerged among the teachers that all wanted the freedom to develop curriculum that encouraged imagination, experimentation, and risk-taking, elements that many participants felt were limited by the National Curriculum’s influence on English classes.
Schieble et al.’s study (2015), discussed in relation to technology earlier in this focus area, dealt with issues of power within classroom discourses. In this piece, the researchers described a preservice teacher who wanted to facilitate rather than control student discussion in her student teaching classroom. As the preservice teacher engaged in discourse analysis of her own teaching videos, she recognized that she did not enact her preferred identity as facilitator but instead controlled student discussion and facilitated test preparation. The preservice teacher’s analysis helped her understand how power structures challenged her ability to enact a facilitator identity and how she might better align her teaching practices with her preferred identities.
Focus Area 2: Teacher Educators’ Efforts to Broaden Understandings
A number of studies focusing on teaching and learning in secondary English methods courses highlighted the efforts made by teacher educators to broaden their own understandings as well as the understandings of preservice teacher participants. These studies demonstrated how teachers and students developed new perspectives about the teaching of readers, the teaching of writers, diversity and the teaching of linguistically and culturally diverse students, digital tools that can be used in the classroom to demonstrate thinking and learning, as well as the act of teaching itself.
Fifteen of the eighteen studies assigned to this focus area relied on qualitative analysis of data sources, which included document analysis of course materials and syllabi as well as the coding of assignments; discussion board responses; planning documents; questionnaires; audio and video recorded class discussions, seminars, and events; post-lesson conferences; narrative journals; student work; field notes; analytic memos and retrospective notes (Bach & Weinstein, 2014; Bell, 2007; Burley, 2003; Glenn, 2012; Friedman & Wallace, 2006; Gort & Glenn, 2010; Hochstetler, 2007; Jay, 2002; Katić, 2008; Lewis & Petrone, 2010; Nicholson & Bond, 2003; Rush, 2009; Schieble, 2011; Skerrett, Warrington, & Pruitt, 2014; Staples, 2013). Seven of these qualitative studies referenced data collected in interviews, as well (Friedman & Wallace, 2006; Hochstetler, 2007; Jay, 2002; Katić, 2008; Nicholson & Bond, 2003; Rush, 2009; Schieble, 2011). The remaining three studies highlighted in this focus area employed mixed methods designs, making use of data collected through self-report surveys and statistical analysis, paired with many of the qualitative methods discussed above (Bruce & Chiu, 2015; Carlson & Archambault, 2013; Caughlan, Juzwik, Borsheim-Black, Kelly, & Fine, 2013).
Broadening understandings of the teaching of readers. Five studies focused on teacher educators’ efforts to broaden understandings about the teaching of readers, addressing preservice teachers’ responses to young adult literature, (Lewis & Petrone, 2010; Schieble, 2011) popular culture narratives, (Staples, 2013) as well as the teaching and learning of poetry (Bruce & Chiu, 2015; Carlson & Archambault, 2013). In Lewis & Petrone’s (2010) study, preservice teachers shared their thinking and planned curricular activities, inviting their future students to engage with young adult literary texts. As preservice teachers participated in these experiences, many communicated that they viewed adolescence as a dangerous time in which students are in process of forming identities. They saw young adult literature as a transformative tool that can be drawn on in the classroom to support students in making sense of the preservice teachers’ perceived understandings of adolescence.
Scheible’s (2011) study, discussed, as well, in another section of this focus area, highlighted the conversations that preservice teachers had with secondary students as they interacted with the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, in a virtual classroom. While the preservice teachers’ efforts to implement a critical approach to literacy instruction created opportunities for the teachers and students to engage in conversations about race and identity, considering the perspectives of others, both the preservice teachers and their students failed to position racism as an institutional issue.
In an effort to support students in critically responding to the texts they interacted with in their daily lives, Staples’ (2013) study highlighted a teacher educator’s invitation to preservice teachers to draw on the gaze framework as they engaged with popular culture narratives. This framework supported Staples in recognizing preservice teachers’ interest in working with popular culture texts that were relevant to their lives. It also allowed preservice teachers to organize their thoughts in response to a traumatic event. The four gazes that Staples and her students tried out supported Staples in better understanding how educators might offer “pedagogical care,” (p. 37) as students make sense of challenging ideas presented in media.
Discussed in more detail in other sections of this focus area, Bruce & Chiu (2015) and Carlson & Archambault (2013) argued that the participating preservice teachers recognized that digital tools, like digital medium VoiceThread and digital video, might be used to make the teaching of poetry more relevant as well as to support students in demonstrating their thinking in response to poetry explored in the classroom.
Broadening understandings of the teaching of writers. Three studies focused on teacher educators’ efforts to support preservice teachers in developing new understandings about writing pedagogy in the secondary English class. Hochstetler (2007) explored three different instructors’ approaches to preparing preservice teachers to teach writers in secondary English methods classes. The findings of this study demonstrated that each of these courses seemed to be driven, primarily, by one theory of professional development, (directing students to resources, survival, or becoming writers) despite being influenced by all three. The findings also addressed the many outside factors that impacted how preservice teachers were prepared to teach writing, including the size of the institution; the student population; whether or not the course was connected to an English department, a writing program, or a National Writing Project site; as well as the background of the instructors who taught these courses. Because writing was often taught outside of the English methods course, Hochstetler pointed out the need to better understand how preservice teachers are prepared to teach writing across the different courses in which they participate throughout their teacher education programs, instead of focusing, solely, on English methods courses.
Though the findings of Rush’s (2009) study, discussed in more detail in another section of this focus area, did not specifically demonstrate a teacher educator’s efforts to broaden preservice teachers’ understandings about the teaching of writers, preservice teacher participants came to see multigenre writing as a way to communicate knowledge gained through research, a practice that they might eventually draw on to support writers in their future classrooms.
Similarly, as described in other sections of this focus area, Bruce & Chiu (2015) found that preservice teachers believed that digital video had the potential to engage student learners while simultaneously providing them with opportunities to practice the kinds of thinking that writers do when drafting and revising print texts.
Broadening understandings of diversity and the teaching of linguistically and culturally diverse students. Five studies described the efforts made in English methods courses to develop preservice teachers’ understandings about diversity and teaching diverse learners in their classrooms. Burley (2003) focused on an initiative that aimed to support preservice English teachers in developing new understandings about language, preparing them to better meet the needs of a diverse population of students. This program invited preservice teachers studying both English and modern languages to think together about their language histories, develop understandings about language acquisition, compare different languages at both the word and sentence level, as well as engage in collaborative planning in an effort to support students in their language development. Through participating in this language education program, preservice English teachers developed stronger identities as teachers of language. Through articulating their philosophies on language education, they broadened their understandings regarding what it meant to be a teacher of English.
Both Glen’s (2012) and Schieble’s (2011) studies looked closely at preservice teachers’ interactions with counter-narrative texts. Glen demonstrates how engaging with counter-narrative texts provided preservice teacher participants with opportunities to better understand, empathize, and make connections with characters whose lived experiences initially seemed different than their own. As the preservice teacher participants explored counter-narrative texts, many challenged assumptions made about people of color, both in literature as well as in society. In addition, they began to consider their own Whiteness. Scheible’s (2011) study, discussed in another section of this focus area, highlighted preservice teachers’ and secondary students’ experiences thinking together about the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, focusing on the teachers’ and students’ tendencies to position the racism the characters endured as individual struggles rather than institutional concerns.
Similar to Scheible’s (2011) study, Skerrett et al. (2014) looked closely at how preservice teachers negotiated race and identity in an English methods course. However, Skerrett et al. (2014) focused on one preservice teacher’s experience drawing on racial knowledge and socioculturally situated identities in her class blog to make sense of what quality teaching and learning might look like in diverse schools. Discussed in another section of this focus area, this study described how this preservice teacher positioned herself and her peers as racially literate English educators who had the potential to engage in quality teaching and learning. Despite this positioning, classmates often rejected race as a framework for knowing, and, in doing so, devalued the racial knowledge that this preservice teacher brought to the classroom community.
Gort & Glen’s (2010) self study focused not on the preservice teacher participants, but, instead, on the challenges Glen navigated while revising her secondary English methods course in order to better prepare her preservice teachers to meet the needs of the linguistically and culturally diverse learners they would likely work with throughout their teaching careers. The findings of this study highlighted Glen’s struggle to find a balance of EL-oriented content and English/language arts content in the English methods class, to navigate the perceived discomfort in the classroom that seemed to grow out of a focus on EL-oriented content, and to acknowledge the areas in which Glen had room for growth as a teacher educator.
Broadening understandings of digital tools that facilitate teaching and learning. Five studies in this focus area demonstrated teacher educators’ efforts to introduce digital tools that might further support preservice teacher thinking and learning in the context of English methods courses. In using these tools with preservice teachers, teacher educators simultaneously pointed out the role that the tools could play in classrooms.These studies focused on the use of digital video to compose poems in response to literary texts (Bruce & Chiu, 2015), the use of digital medium VoiceThread to teach poetry (Carlson & Archambault; 2013), the use of class blogs and discussion boards to facilitate conversation and further develop preservice teachers’ thinking, (Nicholson & Bond, 2003; Skerrett et al., 2014), and, more broadly, the use of technology in the secondary classroom (Katić, 2008). Findings in three of the five studies demonstrated that preservice teachers responded positively to the use of digital tools to support student learning in English classes but voiced that they had much to learn about the use of these technologies as well as the implementation of other digital tools in the classroom (Bruce & Chiu, 2015, Carlson & Archambault; 2013; Katić, 2008). These studies also demonstrated that the digital tools introduced to the preservice teacher participants provided them with opportunities to make connections between print and non-print methods of composition (Bruce & Chiu, 2015), build racial perspectives on the teaching of English in diverse settings (Skerrett et al., 2014), extending conversation beyond the walls of the classroom. The discussion that the preservice teachers engaged in through the use of these digital tools often offered them professional support, (Nicholson & Bond, 2003) but, other times, discredited preservice teachers’ prior knowledge and experiences as well as their developing understandings regarding what teachers might need to know to support student learners (Skerrett et al., 2014).
Although three studies demonstrated that preservice teachers recognized the value of using digital tools to support teaching and learning in the classroom (Bruce & Chiu, 2015; Carlson & Archambault; 2013; Katić, 2008), Katić (2008) argued that the participating preservice teachers’ conceptions about the use of technology seemed to grow out of their personal experiences with digital tools, rather than the perspectives presented in the course in which they participated. Despite the fact that preservice teachers voiced that they saw technology as a tool that could support teaching and learning, the participants in Katić’s study failed to embrace its transformative potential.
Broadening understandings of the act of teaching in English/language arts classes. Five studies focused on teacher educators’ efforts to broaden preservice teachers’ understandings of what it means to take on the role of teacher and engage in the act of teaching in the English language arts class. Four of these initiatives seemed to support teachers while one did not. Bach and Weinstein’s (2014) exploration of Teach: Tony Danza demonstrated how this reality show and related website broadened preservice teachers’ understandings of the roles and responsibilities of English teachers, creating opportunities for conversations about managing classrooms, engaging in course content, forming relationships between teachers and students, and assessing student understandings.
Similarly, Rush’s (2009) study, discussed in another section of this focus area, demonstrated how preservice teachers began to link theory to practice as they engaged in multigenre writing. Though these preservice teachers were initially nervous about the invitation to communicate through creative forms of writing, their comfort level grew as they composed their responses, often leading them to try out new genres that supported them in making connections between the theoretical concepts addressed in course readings and the work that they might eventually do as teachers of readers and writers.
Jay’s (2002) study looked at a teacher educator’s efforts to model scaffolding in her own practice in hope that preservice teachers would be able to incorporate this into their planning and instruction, as well. The data collected demonstrated that there were many ways to approach modeling. Student participants in this study seemed to develop new understandings about teaching and learning through both explicit and implicit approaches and benefited from opportunities to explore complicated concepts in a variety of ways. While modeling worked well to introduce the participating preservice teachers to the concept of scaffolding, many struggled to incorporate scaffolding into their lesson plans. In reflecting on this, the preservice teachers voiced that exposure to a variety of examples was useful to their thinking, clarifying, however, that some examples proved to be more helpful than others. For modeling to be effective in teacher education courses, Jay argued that both the instructor and the students must be able to take on the lenses of both teachers and learners throughout the process.
Caughlan et al.’s (2013) study, which discussed teacher educators’ efforts to prepare preservice teachers to plan for dialogically organized instruction in secondary English classes, demonstrated an increase in preservice teachers’ use of dialogic tools compared to those of teachers who had not participated in similar professional development experiences. The findings of this study showed that as preservice teachers engaged in dialogic teacher discourse, new patterns of interaction were established in the secondary English classroom, which led to an increase in student participation, particularly with the use of student-led tools.
Friedman & Wallace’s (2006) study focused not only on the thinking of the preservice teacher participants but also on the ways that cooperating teachers and faculty in the fields of English and education grew as a result of engaging in “border crossing” (Friedman & Wallace, 2006, p. 16). In an effort to better prepare secondary English teachers for their work in schools, English faculty, education faculty, cooperating teachers, and student teachers thought together in seminars and in secondary classrooms to ensure that students received necessary support in content, theory and pedagogy while participating in field experiences. During the three years that this study was facilitated, participating faculty developed new understandings about the contexts in which their students would eventually teach English. This challenged some of the faculty’s initial assumptions about urban schools. As faculty developed new understandings about the preservice teachers’ experiences in secondary schools, they revised their curriculum in order to make connections across high school and post-secondary English classes. The participating student teachers felt better supported as a result of being mentored by those with content expertise and pedagogical expertise. In addition, the participating high school teachers were pleased to be included in conversations that they had been left out of in the past. Through collaborating with English and education faculty, the participating high school teachers developed new understandings about the teaching of English. One teacher even voiced that participating in this experience renewed his passion for his work.
In contrast to the growth that teachers experienced through the use of the tools and methods highlighted in this section, Bell’s (2007) study demonstrated the challenges of implementing micro-teaching as a way to broaden preservice teachers’ understandings of what it means to take on the role of English teacher. Although teacher educators have often positioned micro-teaching as an invitation to plan for and deliver a lesson in a methods course in order to prepare preservice teachers for the work they will eventually do in the classroom, this study demonstrated that preservice teachers often viewed this method as a performance or a course requirement, rather than as an authentic teaching experience.
Focus Area 3: Transitioning from University to Secondary Classrooms
Several of the studies focused on the preparation of secondary English teachers examined the ways that they drew on university experiences in their work in secondary English/language arts classrooms. Some of these studies explored how preservice teachers were supported by their university program when they went out into their field placements (Bieler, 2010; Filatov & Pill, 2015; Stevens & Lowing, 2008; Street, 2004), while other studies explored the alignment between university and high school curricular and instructional beliefs (Athanases, Wahleithner & Bennett, 2013; Jobe & Pope, 2002; Schieble, 2011; Sleeter & Grant, 2007; Williamson, 2013). A final group of studies examined the relationships and tensions between these two institutions and explored the practices for teaching and learning that consequently ensued (Benko, 2016; Smagorinsky, Gibson, Moore, Bickmore, & Cook, 2004; Smagorinsky, Rhym, & Moore, 2013; Smagorinsky, Wilson, & Moore, 2011; Smagorinsky, Wright, Murphy-Augustine, O'Donnell-Allen, & Konopak, 2007; Smith, Bowen, & Dohm, 2014).
These studies relied on qualitative methods, collecting data such as, individual and focused-group interviews, class discussions and papers, and teaching observations and field notes. One study was design development (Stevens & Lowing, 2008), one a naturalistic inquiry (Street, 2004), one longitudinal (Smagorinsky, Rhym, & Moore, 2013) and eight were case studies (Smagorinsky, Wilson & Moore, 2011; Bieler, 2010; Smagorinsky, Gibson, Moore, Bickmore & Cook, 2004; Jobe & Pope, 2002; Smagorinsky, Wright, Murphy-Augustine, O’Donnell-Allen, Konopak, 2007; Smith, Bowen, Dohm, 2014; Williamson, 2013; Athanases, Wahleithner, & Bennett, 2013; Schieble, 2011; Friedman & Wallace, 2006; Filatov & Pill, 2015; Benko, 2016).
University and school-based support in the field. Four studies found that university and school-based mentors were influential to preservice teachers’ development of their teacher identities and teaching practices (Bieler, 2010; Filatov & Pill, 2015; Stevens & Lowing, 2008; Street, 2004). Across these four studies, Street (2004) and Bieler (2010) examined school-based mentors, and Bieler (2010), Filatov & Pill (2015) and Stevens & Lowing (2008) examined university-based mentors. Street (2004) examined the role of mentoring during preservice teachers’ field experiences, and found that school-based mentors helped preservice teachers negotiate the school context (i.e. physical space, teaching practices, conceptual understandings). Bieler (2010) found that mentoring, both school and university-based, eased a preservice teacher’s transition into the field, while also helping him or her find places to act agentively in contexts that were resistant to change. Focused on examining the complexities of mentoring discourse, Bieler (2010) found that mentoring conversations, which asked preservice teachers to pause and reflect, could also be spaces for agentive identity-making. Filatov & Pill (2015) similarly found that there was a strong relationship between university mentors’ and preservice teachers’ identities as English teachers. They looked specifically at the presence and development of self-efficacy in their preservice teacher participants. The researchers found that although the mentoring relationship was not the only factor that contributed to the students’ “English teaching self efficacy” (p.38), the mentors’ “real experience” in the classroom gave them credibility in the eyes of the preservice teachers, which informed how prepared they felt to enter the field.
Stevens & Lowing (2008) also explored the mentor/preservice teacher relationship, but through the process of giving and receiving observational feedback to preservice teachers. This study illuminated the complexity of lesson observation and feedback in teacher education. The researchers suggested that university mentors needed to be sensitive to the broader social contexts that influenced secondary education when giving feedback to their preservice teachers. They needed to be aware of preservice teachers’ personal histories as well as the social, historical and cultural influences that span across contexts of university programs and high school classrooms. The preservice teachers in this study valued both written and oral feedback, especially when it acknowledged the preservice teachers’ own concerns (e.g. when values and practices at their field placements conflicted with their own).
The transfer of curricular and instructional lessons from university coursework into classroom teaching. Four studies examined what curricular and instructional understandings preservice teachers took with them from university coursework into classroom teaching. Athanases, Wahleithner and Bennett (2013) examined how an inquiry-focused university curriculum prompted preservice teachers’ learning about multilingual students and their writing process. Through their qualitative analysis of 15 post-baccalaureate students, they found that preservice teachers’ inquiry into their secondary students’ writing resulted in a more appreciative perspective of students in their classrooms. Jobe & Pope (2002) found in their qualitative analysis of four students that the concepts taught in their methods class were also reflected in the teaching strategies enacted during student teaching. In another study, Williamson (2013) found that his preservice teacher participants struggled translating their university coursework to their teaching practice. As illustrated through his case study of two preservice teachers, transitioning from the mindset of a student to that of a teacher is not an easy progression. In the student-centered lessons within their university courses, the preservice teachers engaged in course activities, but needed more support from the teacher educators to bridge what they were doing as students into teaching practices they could implement.
Schieble (2011) found that in a teacher education program aimed to train teachers to “be proponents of social justice through use of ‘politically guided practice’ (Sleeter & Grant, 2007) and multicultural curriculum” (p.206), preservice teachers must have ample opportunities to apply critical and social theories related to a social justice framework to their own instructional practices. The teachers in this study were encouraged to apply a critical literacy framework to their teaching in English Language Arts. However, when they implemented their curriculum and interacted with adolescents, the researcher found that the discussion between preservice teachers and their students focused solely on the characters’ feelings of marginalization and did not explore larger institutional forms of oppression. Schieble’s study unearthed the complexity of preparing teachers for social justice, and suggested possible avenues for teacher educators to consider as they support novice teachers develop these conceptual frameworks and practices.
Relationships and tensions between university and high school contexts. Six studies examined the relationships and tensions between the two major stakeholders involved in preparing high school English teachers: the high school and university. This research illuminated the tensions between rigid and often traditional high school curriculum and student-centered values and practices taught in university teacher education programs (Smagorinsky, Rhym, & Moore, 2013; Smith, Bowen, & Dohm, 2014; Smagorinsky, Wright, Murphy-Augustine, O'Donnell-Allen, & Konopak, 2007; Smagorinsky, Gibson, Moore, Bickmore, & Cook, 2004; Smagorinsky, Wilson, & Moore, 2011; Benko, 2016). However, in response to this area of research, one study spoke back to these tensions and offered an innovative solution that brought together the various stakeholders involved in the preparation of high school students (Friedman & Wallace, 2007). Friedman & Wallace’s (2007) research told the story of a collaboration between a university college of education department, an English department within the same university and a local urban high school’s English department. This collaboration came together through an inquiry into how the college could better prepare preservice English teachers to design and enact pedagogy that emphasized culturally relevant strategies for helping diverse learners access understanding about literary theory and content. The researchers found that despite the complexity of bringing these stakeholders together, the preservice teachers saw immediate benefits in both their learning and teaching. The mentors also benefited from the collaboration--university English professors inquired into their own pedagogical practices, while challenging their privilege and learning from the perspectives of the local students; high school faculty enjoyed being a part of the conversation around preparing teachers, and developed “a renewed interest in teaching” (p. 21).
Six studies explored the tensions between what preservice teachers learned in their university methods classes and what was then asked of them in school contexts. Smagorinsky et al. (2004, 2007) found that new teachers struggled to find space for their student-centered, progressive practices within the traditional and testing-orientation of schools. Both of these studies found that the high school context had the greatest impact on these teachers’ instructional practices. For example, teachers who asserted beliefs about the importance of student-centered English curriculum and pushed against traditional grammar instruction in their student teaching reverted back to traditional worksheets when pressured by their schools (Smagorinsky et al., 2007). Other studies found that even when preservice teachers’ instruction and beliefs appeared to align with their teacher preparation program, they struggled to enact practices that embodied the complexity of the learning task. For example, in Benko’s (2016) study of preservice teachers’ implementation of cognitively demanding writing instruction, she found that the teachers did employ writing-as-a-process pedagogy, but struggled with modeling this process for their students, and demonstrated a paucity of conceptual understanding around writing development. In an interview, the teachers reported using their methods course the least in their teaching and employed the district-made curriculum and their own experiences in K-12 schooling the most. As other researchers have found, even when teachers held certain ideas about instruction, their actual teaching was greatly dependent on experiences outside of their university program (e.g. the school context they taught in and life experiences) (Benko, 2016; Smagorinsky et al., 2007; Smagorinsky et al., 2011).
Other studies found divergence between what was taught in university courses and the practical skills needed to teach in schools. Smith, Bowen & Dohm (2014) noted disagreement between the Praxis II test preservice teachers were asked to take for their teacher certification and what was taught by the English and education faculty at the university. Participant interviews demonstrated that this difference was the result of a conceptual mismatch between the faculty’s understanding of literacy and of the test. Smagorinsky et al. (2004, 2007, 2011, 2013) found that schools often held assumptions around language and literacy practices that differed from what preservice teachers were learning in their university coursework. In all four of these qualitative studies, the teachers were pulled by competing traditions of practice, impacting their approach to teaching. All four studies concluded that preservice teachers’ learning to teach was strongly impacted by the school context, and their teaching in the first few years after graduation was largely dictated by the immediate concerns of their school environment.