Graduate Students
At the University of Wisconsin- Madison (as well as at USF), graduate students are usually the ones teaching and supervising pre-service teachers in order to receive financial aid that funds their graduate studies. Many of these students do not have an interest in teacher education and therefore, do not take classes or read literature connected to pre-service teacher education and learning to teach. Graduate students who do have the knowledge necessary to teach pre-service teachers will only remain teaching at the university for the duration of their coursework, and then a new group of doctoral students will take over. Often times, graduate students attend UW-Madison from other school districts and are unfamiliar the local schools. At UW-Madison, most pre-service teachers have a different supervisor each semester during their two year program, making it difficult for supervisors to go in depth with their students.
Classroom Teachers
Classroom teachers are also being asked to do the work of teacher educators in addition to the responsibilities of a classroom teacher. Compensation is usually minimal, if there is any compensation at all. Classroom teachers are usually not provided with the support needed to be mentors. Mentors also may not have experience sharing their thinking and decision making with their pre-service teachers.
Application of Theory
Pre-service teachers learn theory in the university classroom and are expected to go to into the field and apply that theory. Previously, it was assumed that pre-service teachers would learn what they needed to about teaching in the classroom. Some programs believe that pre-service teachers can become teachers of record early and learn on the job from a mentor. Other programs require coursework and a residency experience prior to pre-service teachers receiving their own classroom. A problem that exists between coursework and field experience in traditional programs is a lack of connection between coursework and fieldwork. Classroom teachers often know little about what pre-service teachers are taught in their coursework and how to enact it in the field. Pre-service teachers do not often get the opportunity to try out what they learn in their coursework in the classroom and receive feedback on it. Field experience also lacks a “clinical curriculum” and teachers and pre-service teachers are left to figure out their day to day schedule without support.
Inquiry
Inquiry is an example of changing paradigm in pre-service teacher education.
Third Space
This concept is based on hybridity theory and acknowledges that as people make sense of the world, they draw on multiple discourses. Third space rejects the ideas of theory and practice as separate and integrates them in new ways to create competing discourses.The third space in pre-teacher education brings together teacher educators and practitioners to enhance the learning of teachers. In this model, practitioners and academics are viewed as equal as they support the student teacher’s learning.
Boundary Crossing
A boundary spanner is someone who has experience in both the K-12 classroom and the university. This is someone who is equally respected in both settings.
Boundary spanning roles:
- K-12 educators who are hired as adjuncts to teach university coursework and supervise pre-service teachers
- Teacher-in-residence
- Bringing K-12 teachers into coursework to discuss teaching practices
- Teacher educators bringing in examples from their own K-12 teaching experience
- Hold coursework in a K-12 school
- Make connections between coursework and what is occurring in the K-12 curriculum
- Critical faculty positions
- The work of teacher educators takes place in K-12 schools and on the university campus
- Hybrid teacher educator positions
- “These efforts involve a shift in the epistemology of teacher education from a situation where academic knowledge is seen as the authoritative source of knowledge about teaching to one where different aspects of expertise that exist in schools and communities are brought into teacher education and coexist on a more equal plane with academic knowledge” (Zeichner, 2010).