Patrice had been excited to begin her first field placement—a 4th grade classroom at a large urban school. But now a particular teaching strategy employed in the classroom was beginning to disturb her. Both Jamake, her host teacher, and Deena, the paraprofessional, declined to answer students' questions. Instead, they turned questions back to the class or the individual. Patrice expressed doubts about Jamake's ability as a teacher and a mentor.
"He doesn't give the students any information, and Deena just follows along," she told her college supervisor. "They're not teaching anything. I thought teaching was conveying knowledge!"
"Is their teaching style successful?" asked the supervisor.
"If you mean are the students learning? I don't know. It's hard to tell."
When Patrice later requested that her placement be changed, her supervisor advised her to give it more time.
Beyond First Impressions
What was going on? A preservice teacher became so distracted by a specific teaching style that she was unable to see innovative aspects of the classroom, for example, the intriguing learning centers or the fact that her host teacher was highly skilled at teaching reading. Had Patrice asked her host teacher about his rationale for his approach to students' questions, she would have discovered that Jamake saw himself as carefully facilitating his students' use of their own critical thinking skills. Seeing Deena's role as simply a mimic, Patrice failed to appreciate the strategies needed to reinforce the classroom teacher and to create a classroom community.
Her supervisor, advising Patrice to give it more time, was of little use in helping the student reflect upon her experiences and her own perspectives. Taking a more proactive role—listening, then questioning—the supervisor could have enabled Patrice to move beyond her initial resistance to a teaching strategy she did not fully understand.
In today's public schools, a variety of teaming structures—such as gradelevel teams, classroom teams, and vertical teams (for example, grades K–3)—are renewing an emphasis on collaboration, a teaming strategy with which many preservice teachers often are unfamiliar. Teacher educators can do a great deal to parlay frustration into highly valued collaborative skills. They can help preservice teachers realize that some level of disagreement in philosophy and practice between themselves and their host team members is inevitable. At the same time, they can help preservice teachers appreciate a variety of attributes and skills displayed by team teachers and eventually choose which to incorporate into their own instructional repertoires. The challenge for preservice teachers is to tactfully work with team members and manage conflicts, so that the whole team can build on shared perspectives.
Conflict Enhances Reflection
Christopher's first experience in an urban setting was rewarding. His host teacher, Marissa, and a paraprofessional, Rivka, invited him to arrive early and greeted him warmly. As the children entered the classroom, so did Arnold, a speech therapist, who joined the team three mornings a week for the first hour. From that first day, Christopher was impressed with the manner in which the three adults interacted. The paraprofessional, who volunteered at the local historical museum, led a class discussion on New York State and its role in the Revolutionary War, while the teacher monitored several students who had difficulties with self-control during large group activities. Arnold, the speech therapist, added several comments during the whole-class component of the activity, and then joined a small group for the cooperative learning component. There, two children in this temporary group of five received the speech therapy described in their individualized education plans.
After this activity, the students stayed in cooperative groups to review for a math test. Marissa presented a series of problems and challenged each group to be the first with the correct answer. The winning group would be able to plan free time for Friday. To win, any member picked randomly had to be able to explain how the group reached its solution.
A groan was heard from Group Four. "Oh, great, and we've got Michael!" (a student with a disability). Christopher was taken aback. After observing a very effective cooperative activity the preceding hour, he watched as the climate of helpfulness and mutual learning degenerated into name-calling. The following week, a similar scenario unfolded, and Christopher called his college supervisor to discuss his concerns.
She listened closely to his observations and then asked Christopher several questions to help him reflect upon the various teaching strategies he had observed. "What have you seen thus far that you admire?" she asked. Hearing the question framed in this manner, Christopher easily came up with an extensive list: the use of cooperative groups, the sophisticated teaming skills, the use of a related service provider in the general class, a general climate of respect and concern for students. The supervisor asked whether Christopher thought the team would expect him to design competitive activities.
"No," he replied, "the team has given me freedom to initiate any design I please. We plan regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and I run my ideas by them. They've been very open and encouraging." The supervisor urged him to ask the team about the use of competitive structures to better understand the rationale for them. Even if Christopher disagreed with the perspective (and it was likely that he would), he would at least have better insight into how the team was thinking about instruction.
Critiquing Can Start with the Good
By leading Christopher through an analysis of the overall character of the class, the supervisor helped him refocus on what he admired about the team and its approach to teaching. Once he realized that his ability to critique teaching practices was an invaluable skill, he reentered the classroom able to make distinctions between those practices he would ultimately incorporate into his own repertoire and those he would not.
Without appearing judgmental, he was able to question each team member about why he or she chose a specific teaching strategy. Becoming aware of his team members' perspectives freed Christopher to learn from many other aspects of their teaching.
Strategies for Success
- Listen carefully to concerns of the preservice teacher. Through active listening, both the college supervisor and the college classroom instructor show that they value the preservice teacher's experiences and concerns. The preservice teacher needs to receive the message that he or she may discuss issues freely, regularly, and constructively, whether in the college classroom or in the field.
- Model respect and appreciation for the challenges that school staff experience. The teacher educator's attitudes and behaviors can powerfully model a fundamental respect for the challenges of teaching and teaming. The preservice teacher may need to be reminded of the resources teachers need, such as staff development opportunities to explore varied approaches to heterogeneous groupings.
- Explore the strengths of the current placement. By balancing discussions of problems and concerns with reflective talk about team members' skills and strengths, the teacher educator may divert students from teacher-bashing or from constantly venting complaints. Open-ended, guided questioning can uncover elements of a common vision with the team. This vision, in turn, may provide a starting point for discussion and a sharing of concerns in a professional manner.
- Encourage preservice teachers to articulate their own teaching and teaming philosophies and practices. Developing the critical analytic ability and reflection that characterize a good teacher will help preservice teachers identify and explore their own teaching philosophy. By nurturing this spirit of independent thought, teacher educators can create an environment where preservice teachers are able to raise differences they may have with the host team.
- Practice skillful ways of raising difficult subjects. Differences will be inevitable in any setting. The question becomes: Is it productive to raise a specific concern and perhaps create unnecessary tension? or Can my concern be negotiated in other ways? The teacher educator can provide opportunities to practice addressing such concerns without alienating the team.
Asking the preservice teacher to reverse roles is effective: "Imagine that you have been teaching for 10 years, and that a new practicum student questions you about a particular practice. What kinds of questions would you find offensive, and what kinds would lead to a discussion that is respectful of the teachers and their extensive experience with children? What is the difference between questions such as, How can you use competitive games when some students will always lose? and questions that are likely to lead to a sharing of perspectives rather than a debate: Do you use games very often? How do you feel about the way they work?
A renewed emphasis on collaboration and the growing number of inclusive classrooms make it important that teacher preparation programs develop new teachers' teaming skills. Such skills will help the preservice teacher reflect on her or his own philosophy and actions and enable teacher educators and host teams to communicate more fully about their partnerships. Most important, adults who are able to model collaboration for their students will find that, in so doing, they can meet the needs of all individuals within that classroom.
