Effective Novice Teachers: A Study of How Systems of Support Can Transform the Clinical Experience During Teacher Preparation

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

This Noyce Research Track 4 project seeks to develop and study systems of support for preparation of teachers who are learning to enact equitable instruction in high-needs schools. This type of instruction provides students with opportunities to reason deeply about core subject matter ideas, take part in the discourses of the discipline, and solve authentic problems. It is designed to engage all students, regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, or cultural background, and to enable all students to learn science and math. This project proposes to: (a) test tools, routines, and materials designed to develop pre-service teachers' knowledge of their students; (b) identify instructional practices appropriate for novice teachers at different points on their learning trajectories; (c) support cooperating teachers in their roles as mentors; and (d) investigate the links between agency and novice learning. In this context, agency is the capacity to seek out diverse opportunities to learn and to advocate for opportunities to plan, teach, and engage with students. The project will develop ?opportunities-to-learn resources? and associated case studies. These materials have the potential to help other teacher education programs improve the impact of preservice teachers? clinical experiences, resulting in more teachers who are prepared for their own classrooms, especially when serving racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students. Cooperating teachers (veteran teachers) may benefit from other project resources that will be designed to guide collaboration. These materials will also include guides for complex instruction and students' intellectual engagement. Adoption of these opportunities-to-learn materials by teacher education programs, novice teachers, and mentor teachers in host schools could create a common language and understanding of research-based clinical practices, which could inform more effective teacher field placements. This work builds on a previously-funded Noyce Research project that documented how the clinical experience of 68 pre-service teachers shaped their eventual practice, and by extension, chances for their future students to learn. Based on these data, this project intends to: a) strengthen the framework about systems of support for novice learning during clinical experiences by combining findings from the previous and the current study: b) develop a system of tools, routines, and resources that teacher education programs and their school partners can use to enhance pre-service teachers' opportunities-to-learn about ?ambitious instruction? over the course of their field placement; and c) test the implementation and effect of the opportunities-to-learn materials that the project will develop. More than 60 pre-service secondary science and mathematics teachers, and their cooperating teachers, will participate in the project. The three teacher education programs involved in this research study recruit from diverse demographics and send their novices to varied communities, mostly underserved urban, sub-urban, and rural. This participation should allow the project to improve materials and implementation procedures for their specific context, and to disaggregate the findings according to different groups of pre-service teachers and the communities served by their placement schools. Data analysis should increase the functionality of the project's theory of action and the system of supports across settings. Survey and interview data will be collected to test if the system of resources influences the frequency, variability, and quality of pre-service teachers' opportunities-to-learn. The project will examine the novice teachers' adherence to a productive trajectory of such opportunities over the course of their clinical experience. Study findings will contribute to understanding how pre-service teachers learn under supportive conditions, as well as assist the project in refining resources and programmatic experiences to optimize the potential success of pre-service teachers as professional educators. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.