All for one and one for all: building communities of practice during a secondary social studies student teaching experience

Calls to redesign clinical experiences within teacher education programs continue to gain widespread attention. Traditional student teaching placements, characterized by one-to-one (1:1) assignments of a cooperating teacher and student teacher currently dominate most clinical experiences. Research studies continually identify concerns with these traditional placements, including but not limited to student teachers’ feelings of isolation, weak professional relationships among participants, and limited exposure to multiple pedagogies. Some interventions, such as paired placements and web-based communication tools, are encouraging but rarely used within the same experience or expanded in scope. As a single-iteration design-based research study (Ma & Harmon, 2009), I present a new model of shared student teaching placements whereby student teachers systematically work across a number of classrooms and regularly engage with multiple peers and practicing teachers in a broader community of practice. I investigate the model in its original design in a single high school setting with a small number of participants (n=11). Through qualitative data collection and analysis, I consider the design of the shared student teacher model with regard to participants’ experiential learning, instructional practices, and collaborative relationships. Presenting findings in three distinct narratives of critical learning incidents, I then discuss the student teachers’ situational learning through the theoretical framework of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and expansive learning. I conclude with an evaluation of learning outcomes influenced by the design and limitations that warrant additional research and possible future iterations of the model.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Curriculum and Instruction

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Mann, Jay Anthony

Contributors dc:contributor

• Johnston-Parsons, Marilyn A.
• Dressman, Mark A.
• Schwandt, Thomas A.
• Dymond, Stacy K.

• Student teaching
• Teacher education
• Design-based research
• Cultural Historical Activity Theory
• Expansive learning

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2017 Jay Mann

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97308

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/97308