Abstract
In preparation for JTE’s Major Forum at the 2014 AACTE Annual Meeting, Taking Charge of Change, the editorial team engaged in a series of discussions about their perceptions of change in the teacher education knowledge base over the past 10-15 years. We noted that the intended goal of several major reports published during this time period was to impact the nature and quality of education research in general and teacher education research in particular. In 2002, Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy provided the Office of Educational Research and Improvement and the U.S. Department of Education with a status report using a set of research criteria devised for the purpose of summarizing what we knew at that time about preparation of teachers, quality field experiences, alternative routes, and the effects of policies on teacher education (See Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2002). The National Research Council also published a report edited by Shavelson and Towne that same year on what constitutes rigorous scientific methods for conducting education research (National Research Council, 2002). The American Education Research Association followed three years later with a comprehensive volume of reviews of specific aspects of teacher education and an evaluation of the research findings and methods related to these topics (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005).
Taking stock of our progress in teacher education research since these critical reports, the presenters at the JTE-sponsored AACTE Major Forum (three of whom had also been authors of the reports) noted that many of the research questions have changed in the past 10-15 years. For example, we have shifted to a focus on the features of teacher education programs, rather than their designation as either alternative or traditional, representing a more complex view of teacher preparation. The presenters also concluded that we have made progress in a number of areas of teacher education study, including measurement of teacher knowledge and skills, studies of program effects, data systems, and reporting of research and the decision rules associated with the published research studies (Knight, Floden, Wilson, & Zeichner, 2014). The articles in this issue provide evidence both for and against their conclusions.
Highlights of the Current Issue
The lead article by Robert Bullough, “Toward Reconstructing the Narrative of Teacher Education: A Rhetorical Analysis of Preparing Teachers,” argues against the kind of progress advocated in recent reports of the status of teacher education research. While the progress noted by AACTE Major Forum presenters may appear to be reason for celebration, Bullough presents a very different view. He takes issue with a characterization of teacher education research ‘progress’ as occurring through a tightly aligned system of accountability with large scale randomized control studies of program effects and assessment of teacher training in practices and skills. In fact, he suggests that the tightly aligned system and focus on large-scale studies may not be appropriate for such a complex system as teacher education and maintains that “better knowledge does not resolve differences in values, opinions, or beliefs.” Through the deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction of the narrative of yet another, more recent, report – the 2010 National Research Council report Preparing Teachers: Building Evidence for Sound Policy – Bullough reaches the conclusion that the rhetoric advocating this type of ‘progress’ is an example of ‘scientism’ – with the goal of quantifying performance and outcomes in order to rate and rank teachers, teacher education programs, and institutions. From this viewpoint, we should resist the recommendations of reports that lead to a simplistic view of teacher education.
The other articles that comprise this issue represent the complexity that characterizes teacher education and the diversity that characterizes the JTE readership. Three of the articles focus on science teacher education – two on identity development of science teachers and one on enactment of open-inquiry labs. The contexts are varied with focus on international and local settings and both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed. In “The Practical Turn in Teacher Education: Designing a Preparation Sequence for Core Practice Frames,” Fred Janssen, Hanna Westbroek, and Walter Doyle report on a study designed to investigate a practice-based bridging strategy for preparing high school biology teachers to enact open-inquiry labs. The particular bridging strategy used in this study was designed to connect the preservice teachers’ current practices with target practices of enacting more open-task labs, as opposed to “cookbook labs.” From their analysis of 31 preservice teachers’ data, these researchers present the community with an empirically-based progression to support prospective teachers in moving from existing conceptions of appropriate practice to new teaching practices and understandings about teaching. This bridging approach, while developed in the context of science teacher education, has implications for teacher education in other subject areas.
The third article, “The Affordances of Blogging as a Practice to Support Ninth Grade Science Teachers’ Identity Development as Leaders,” by Hanuscin, Cheng, Rebello, Sinha, and Muslu, explores the usefulness of blogs in the development of teacher leadership. The study examined the affordances of blogging in secondary science teachers’ development with particular attention to opportunities for identity work. Analysis of teachers’ blogs over the course of a year provided evidence that online interactions provided opportunities for teachers to develop new professional identities as leaders as they implemented a freshman physics course. The findings indicate that teachers’ learning in professional development programs may be enhanced by the provision of structures, such as blogging, that encourage sustained reflection and social interaction.
In the next article, “Tracing a Beginning Elementary Teacher’s Development of Identity for Science Teaching,” Lucy Avramidou also focuses on science teacher identity, but at the elementary school level. Her study examines a novice teacher’s development of identity for science learning and teaching over a five-year period from her first year at university through her first year of teaching. The author employs four perspectives on identity (nature, institutional, affinity, and discourse) to frame her work. Data include narrative analysis of personal stories and interviews, lesson plans, and video-taped classroom observations. Findings indicated that a shift in her identity as a science learner occurred when she was provided opportunities to think and do science at the university. Specific experiences across time and contexts contributed to the development of an identity for science teaching.
The fifth article, “Visual Images as Tools of Teacher Inquiry,” by Nancy Bailey and Elizabeth Van Harken, presents the findings from a study conducted within a master’s level teacher certification program. As a part of their program of studies, the preservice teachers in this study were enrolled in a graduate research class. These researchers studied the impact of the prospective teachers’ uses of multimodal research methods. In particular, these PSTs used visual images as generative and analytical tools in their classroom-based investigations. Bailey and Van Harken argue that the visual images that the PSTs used in their multimodal analysis and composition became a powerful language for making sense of classroom teaching and learning.
The final article in this issue, “The Future of Professional Development Will Be Designed, Not Discovered,” by Fishman, Konotantopoulos, Kubitskey, Vath, Park, and Johnson, continues a conversation that was initiated with the publication of Fishman et al., “Comparing the Impact of Online and Face-to-Face Professional Development in the Context of Curriculum Implementation” in JTE 64:5 (2013). A response to the initial article, “Beyond Comparisons of Online Versus Face-to-Face PD,” by Jean Moon, Cynthia Passmore, Brian Reiser, and Sarah Michaels appeared in JTE 65:2 (2014), prompting the current commentary. In this response commentary, Fishman et al. expand on Moon’s response and describe the value of Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) for studies of professional development. The conversation is an excellent example of how, according to Bullough in this issue, one of the greatest values of large scale randomized control studies may be found in the local studies that they engender.
We hope that the articles in this issue stimulate your thinking about how research on teacher education has changed since you entered the field, the influence of different types of research on the knowledge base, and the role of status reports in effecting change. We invite you to participate in conversations about the implications of the findings of these studies for research, practice and policy. We look forward to receiving manuscripts from you in the future as well as your ideas directed toward improvement of the Journal of Teacher Education.