Instruction and Leadership in Education

ABSTRACT Within the past few years literacy scholars have begun voicing serious doubts on theoretical and practical grounds about the efficacy of the longstanding notion that every teacher is a teacher of reading. In this commentary, we add our voices to the conversation around content area literacy as well as offer our perspectives on the recent calls for alternative practices grounded in disciplinary literacy. We conclude by advocating compromise based on honest, intelligent dialogue between literacy specialists and content area teachers.

Over a 7-year period, graduate teaching assistants participated in a teacher education doctoral seminar designed to develop emergent scholarship and practice in teacher education. Six former students in the seminar, all now assistant professors, joined Dinkelman in an open-ended, far-ranging, month-long conversation captured in a threaded, online discussion forum. The study unfolded as a collaborative self-study that made use of this forum and subsequent analyses to address two central research questions: (1) What influence might our seminar have had on your development as an emerging scholar? and (2) What influence might our seminar have had on your development as a teacher educator? In this article, we reflect on how participation in the seminar shaped the emergence of new scholars and teacher educators, as doctoral students and also as new faculty members. Findings suggested the seminar facilitated emergent scholarship by helping participants map the terrain of teacher education research, prompting actual research, and blurring the knower and known in studying teacher education. The seminar also helped develop emergent teacher educators practice through helping participants learn a language for teacher education, develop a sense of program, value collaboration, and define purpose and care for the practice of teacher education. The concluding discussion emphasizes the need for additional inquiry into the ways early-career teacher educators develop commitments to teacher education research and practice.

Over a 7-year period, graduate teaching assistants participated in a teacher education doctoral seminar designed to develop emergent scholarship and practice in teacher education. Six former students in the seminar, all now assistant professors, joined Dinkelman in an open-ended, far-ranging, month-long conversation captured in a threaded, online discussion forum. The study unfolded as a collaborative self-study that made use of this forum and subsequent analyses to address two central research questions: (1) What influence might our seminar have had on your development as an emerging scholar? and (2) What influence might our seminar have had on your development as a teacher educator? In this article, we reflect on how participation in the seminar shaped the emergence of new scholars and teacher educators, as doctoral students and also as new faculty members. Findings suggested the seminar facilitated emergent scholarship by helping participants map the terrain of teacher education research, prompting actual research, and blurring the knower and known in studying teacher education. The seminar also helped develop emergent teacher educators practice through helping participants learn a language for teacher education, develop a sense of program, value collaboration, and define purpose and care for the practice of teacher education. The concluding discussion emphasizes the need for additional inquiry into the ways early-career teacher educators develop commitments to teacher education research and practice.

In this article, the authors discuss a case study in which beginning teachers interviewed young adolescents as part of structured teacher education coursework designed to challenge teachers’ low expectations for young adolescents. Based on pre- and post surveys, pre– and post–focus group interviews, classroom field notes, and teachers’ written analysis papers, the authors’ data suggest that the coursework helped to shape changes in beginning teachers’ views of young adolescents’ analytical capabilities and social studies knowledge. However, these shifts in teachers’ thinking about young adolescents’ capabilities did not translate into shifts in the teachers’ ideas about middle school social studies instruction. The authors argue that carefully structured coursework like this interview project holds promise for helping beginning teachers develop new understandings about learners, but attention to students’ abilities must also be accompanied by attention to teachers’ purposes and pedagogical understandings.

This paper reports on the processes and outcomes of a collaborative self-study conducted by three beginning teacher educators who sought to examine the efficacy of their teaching practices while working with student teachers in the field. By systematically embracing opportunities to explore mutually pressing issues and concerns manifest across the student teaching semester, the authors found that collaborative self-study provided a useful framework for considering their pedagogical reasoning and decision making as they encouraged student teachers to engage in rationale-based practice. The understandings gleaned from this study provided the authors with a basis upon which to reexamine their developing teacher educator pedagogies, as well as to critique the nature and structure of their teacher education program.

ABSTRACT This article reports a literature review of self-studies by beginning teacher educators examining their experiences of the transition from classroom teaching to teacher educator. The authors conclude that becoming a teacher educator involves several complex and challenging tasks: examining beliefs and values grounded in personal biography, including those associated with being a former schoolteacher; navigating the complex social and institutional contexts in which they work; and developing a personal pedagogy of teacher education that enables construction of a new professional identity as a teacher educator. This research provides beginning teacher educators with a reference point for understanding their personal and professional transition to university-based teacher education. It also provides teacher education faculty and administrators with key information about how the transition from teacher to teacher educator can be supported and enhanced within professional learning communities.

At a large public university in the south eastern United States, prospective middle and high school social studies teachers complete a four semester undergraduate program that prepares them for the classrooms of America. Like many programs, this one begins with an introductory course that provides students an opportunity to explore questions about the nature, purpose, and practices of social studies in the modern school curriculum. As a part of this course, students also develop a rationale for teaching social studies which is used as a part of admission into the Social Studies Education program. Once they have been admitted to the program, students typically complete one or more semesters of discipline specific courses prior to their final two semesters at the institution. During their second to last semester in the program, students complete social studies methods and curriculum courses along with an initial field experience that is designed to provide them with some experience de...