Student Teaching: A Process Approach to Reflective Practice - Softcover

Goethals, M. Serra; Howard, Rose A.; Stollenwerk, Debra A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0139201254 ISBN 13: 9780139201257

Publisher: Pearson College Div, 1999

Synopsis

This book promotes reflection on recognized best practices and personal growth as a professional teacher. It emphasizes the importance of the beginning teacher's involvement in building a professional life as a reflective educator. Features reflective activities that recognize best practices and personal adjustment in the teacher role. Reviews theory behind specific teaching strategies. Shows how to compile a Standards-based professional portfolio. Includes technology tips and websites for lesson planning and other resources. Emphasizes journaling throughout. Addresses model standards for beginning teachers. Appropriate for anyone in or interested in the teaching profession.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Welcome to the second edition of Student Teaching: A Process Approach to Reflective Practice. For more than a dozen years while directing or facilitating seminars and field experiences for undergraduate and graduate student or intern teachers, we searched for meaningful activities and processes that engage and guide beginning teachers. Our search focused on strengthening the link between education courses and the field-based aspects of learning to teach. In addition, we wanted to provide student teachers with opportunities to reflect on their professional knowledge and personal growth—to integrate these understandings into their total experience of being a teacher.

Student Teaching: A Process Approach to Reflective Practice encourages student or intern teachers and those pursuing alternative teacher certification to engage in reflective thinking, reflective practice, and reflective writing—the doors that lead to effective teaching based on sound pedagogy. Authentic teacher tasks are designed to invite beginning teachers to recall learning acquired through courses in the arts and sciences, content from the teaching major, and educational research and best practice. These reflective activities are process oriented and challenge each student or intern teacher to take ownership of the journey by actively engaging in a thoughtful examination of what they do in the classroom and the rationales that fuel their performance.

Expected outcomes and activities in the text take the preservice or intern teacher through the whys and hows of reflective practices by actively involving the teacher in the application of these practices. Beginning teachers are challenged to contemplate current educational paradigms and practices, analyze them, effectuate them, and reflect on their learning experiences in a journal forum. Involving preservice and inservice teachers in the application of educational best practices promotes ownership and helps them build a professional life with reflective practice at its core.

A constructivist learning approach underwrites each chapter and invites beginning teachers to consciously relate all types of learning to new situations and to make meaning from this learning. Student or intern teachers are encouraged to combine their personal investments and experiences of teaching with recognized best practice. Throughout the student or intern teaching experience, the beginning teacher is urged to develop a positive attitude toward what is observed and practiced at the school level, to look for opportunities for learning, to raise questions, and to seek understanding through reflection. It is our goal that through reflective practice, beginning teachers will use their knowledge and experience of teaching to create an electronic or digital portfolio that documents their ability to impact student learning. It is our hope that beginning teachers will continue to engage in this process throughout their professional career.

AUDIENCE AND INTENDED USES

We offer a practical guide for reflective practice in day-to-day teaching and provide models of current best practice based on national standards. The book can be used in a variety of ways with beginning or experienced teachers.

• Undergraduate student teachers will find this process approach to learning helpful throughout their professional placement in the school setting and in the seminar or class accompanying the experience.
• Graduate interns or others interested in pursuing an alternate route in obtaining state licensure will find exemplary reflective teaching practices needed to facilitate learning.
• Beginning teachers trained by school system consultants will find the reflective process a strong support in bridging theory and practice.
• Experienced teachers desiring to refresh and refine their own reflective teaching practices may review the teaching strategies and application to the national standards.

ORGANIZATION OF THE TEXT

Student Teaching: A Process Approach to Reflective Practice calls the student or intern teacher to develop a professional teaching identity through reflective practice. The text is organized around a double focus: personal experience and applying recognized best practices of the teaching-learning experience.

Focus One encourages beginning teachers to reflect on their own personal and professional development and the accompanying perceptions, attitudes, and feelings about assuming a new role, that of teacher. Specially designed activities offer student or intern teachers opportunities to tell their individual stories about life as a classroom teacher to explore their personal and professional development and gain insights from others as they move toward becoming a professional teacher. Cooperative learning groups are suggested for this portion of the seminar to encourage purposeful dialogue.

Focus Two engages student or intern teachers in reflection about the recognition and use of theories connected with effective teaching and learning. Beginning teachers review and apply their knowledge of learning theory and implement strategies recognized as educational best practice. Focus Two briefly reviews research that supports selected teaching strategies and connects them to national standards. Through meaningful application activities, teachers apply these best practices in classroom instruction and reflect on their impact on student learning. Follow-up questions prompt discussion and direct beginning teachers to clarify and analyze problems and decisions made in their classrooms, gain new insights into their practice through discussion, and initiate change necessary for more effective teaching.

Format

• The Introduction invites active engagement in the process of reflective learning and provides a road map for using subsequent chapters of the text. This section concludes with suggestions for active involvement in a cooperative learning group. It is intended as a model to enhance teachers' ability to establish and contribute to an atmosphere of professional responsibility within their classrooms and the school.
• Chapters 1 through 3 include observation techniques, designing and planning for instruction, and activities connected with the initial weeks of the beginning teaching experience.
• Chapter 4 reinforces the continued exploration and provision of appropriate instruction that values and addresses diversity among learners and promotes individual and collective academic achievement.
• Chapter 5 extends instruction through the use of technology to enhance and impact teaching and learning.
• Chapters 6, 7, and 8 refine lesson presentation, address the stimulation of critical thinking through questions, and highlight other key teaching strategies to support instruction for all learners.
• Chapters 9 and 10 are devoted to creating and maintaining the learning climate within the classroom. Included are suggested methods and models of discipline strategies designed to assist the beginning teacher in making connections with observation and practice in the classroom.
• Chapter 11 focuses on the use of multiple assessment instruments for assessing student learning and offers suggestions for communicating the results to students and parents or guardians.
• Chapter 12 emphasizes collaborative efforts with parents, colleagues, and community, and suggests activities for developing a collaborative spirit.
• Chapters 13 and 14 focus on refining student or intern teachers' reflection and assessment of their teaching experience and developing a commitment to professional growth.
• Chapter 15 provides suggestions and procedures for pursuing a teaching position. Suggestions for professional portfolios, including an electronic or digital portfolio, are given in this chapter.

SPECIAL FEATURES

A learner-centered, reflective, and participatory approach to instructional planning is presented. Beginning teachers are encouraged to adopt an inquiring mind with respect to their observations and experiences in schools.

• Organization is logical and motivational, so that beginning teachers can use this book as a framework to refine their teaching strategies and attitude toward teaching, and as a practical resource in a professional education career.
• Affective activities acknowledge and validate the importance of beginning teachers' personal involvement and ownership in building their professional lives as reflective educators.
• Cooperative learning groups are actively promoted, involving the beginning teacher in the group process.
• Probing discussion questions ask beginning teachers to observe, examine, explain, and discuss their field experiences with peers.
• Developing a professional portfolio is emphasized to help beginning teachers clarify and communicate their educational philosophy and growth as teachers. Portfolio Tasks based on INTASC Performance Standards are included in Chapters 3, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13 to guide the design of such a portfolio to procure a teaching position.
• The summary at the end of each chapter captures major concepts.
• Chapter 4 is devoted to diversity among learners in the classroom. The idea of diversity is developed in subsequent chapters to reflect the changing demographics of today's classrooms and demonstrate the need for teachers to use strategies that work for all learners.
• The integration of technology into teaching and learning is a new feature of the text. Chapter 5 provides Web sites for student or intern teachers to use as resources.
• Journal Excerpts provide current views and experiences of student or intern teachers from secondary, middle, elementary, and special education placements.
• References and suggested readings at the end of each chapter give student or intern teachers ample materials to further their exploration or reinforce, the concepts presented.

NEW TO THE SECOND EDITION

The second edition features much new content:

• A new chapter with a strong focus on integrating technology in teaching and learning accompanied by Web sites (Chapter 5).
• Up-to-date information on electronic or digital portfolios and multiple job-search Web sites (Chapter 15).
• Technology standards for teachers and students (Appendix C).
• A stronger emphasis on multicultural and special education. Facilitator tips for instructors with ideas for using the text (Appendix B).
• Expanded section on learning styles (Chapter 2).
• Up-to-date information about best practices.
• Additional examples of lesson plans based on national and state standards (Appendix E).
• A number of new student reflective journals.
• Updated references and suggested readings in all chapters.

A NOTE TO THE FACILITATOR, INSTRUCTOR, OR SUPERVISOR

The chapters and learning experiences described in the text are designed for you to reference, use, or revise to meet the specific needs of your student or intern teachers. Facilitator tips are provided in Appendix B to assist you with engaging student or intern teachers in reflective practice through individual and group learning activities. Although facilitators remark that the sequence of the text meets their student teachers' needs, you may reorder the sequence of the chapters as you wish. Each chapter stands alone, and you may present the material in the sequence that best connects with what your student or intern teachers are seeing and doing in the classroom.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson College Div
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0139201254
• ISBN 13: 9780139201257
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 223