Raising the Visibility of Asia in Teacher Preparation

1. Raising the Visibility of Asia in Teacher Preparation Professor Tim Keirn Departments of History and Liberal Studies California State University Long Beach timkeirn@csulb.edu Professor Kim Trimble Department of Teacher Education California State University Dominguez Hills ktrimble @csudh.edu

2. Origins and Objectives of the Pilot Project at CSULB • Widen and deepen elementary and secondary student knowledge about Asia • An alternative model to in-service professional development with K-12 teachers • Professional development with teacher educators and through them pre-service teachers • Cost-benefit analysis

3. Origins and Objectives of the Pilot Project at CSULB (cont.) • K-12 teacher preparation programs fail to integrate pre-service ‘content’ and ‘pedagogic’ knowledge • Deficiencies in pre-service understanding and recognition of Asia are not addressed in teacher education programs • Teacher educators (like the students they teach) often have little academic preparation in Asian studies

4. Origins and Objectives of the Pilot Project at CSULB (cont.) • Bridging the content and pedagogic divide with a focus upon Asia • CSULB is well situated for this work • Integrated Teacher Education Program for elementary education • Secondary credentials programs are housed in the disciplines as opposed to the College of Education • Large CSU system facilitates collaboration not only across departments but institutions as well • The Single SubjectHistory/Social Science Program

5. The Pilot Project • Adapting the ‘Freeman Model’ of K-12 professional development to the needs of teacher educators • The structure of the pilot • 6 day intensive summer seminar with scholarly presentations and pre-meeting readings • Study trips to Asia • Design and develop curriculum and instructional materials (for the teacher education classroom) for the web

6. The Pilot Project (cont.) • Two cohorts (California and national) • The first cohort • 20 teacher educators from nine universities • Asia and history education with particular focus upon the (new) world history • Themes based on needs assessment of K-12 standards • Pedagogic focus upon recent scholarship in history learning and cognition • K-12 students must not only be ‘taught Asia’ but more importantly ‘learn and retain Asia’

7. The Pilot Project (cont.) • The template for the curricular projects • addresses a specified Asian historical problem or development • has a concrete conceptual and pedagogic objective that facilitates specific historical skills and habits of mind • common format that includes: • introduction and extensive historical context • scholarly bibliography and guide to relevant primary materials • schedule of instructor and pre-service teacher inputs • all materials in pdf • summative assessment to evaluate pre-service performance

8. The Pilot Project (cont.) • Each project is piloted during the spring semester • contains samples and an evaluation of pre-service student work • reflection and discussion of the revisions implemented based on the evaluation of student work • after evaluation and revision, published to the website in June

9. The Pilot Project (cont.) • The breadth and scope of the 20 curricular projects • introductory history education courses • capstone courses in subject matter preparation programs • history teaching methodology courses • graduate courses in curriculum and instruction • The second cohort will be national in representation with a language arts track

10. Aims of the Project • To meet the general goals of Freeman projects as they pertain to K-12 educators, but to do so more efficiently by focusing efforts at the ‘source’ (i.e. teacher preparation) • To raise the visibility of Asia in teacher education in meaningful ways • Not only facilitating pre-service recognition and understanding of Asia, but aligning this knowledge with the formation of historical skills and habits of mind, and the pedagogic means to implement it in grade-appropriate settings

11. Aims of the Project (cont.) • To create sustained and lifelong professional interest in Asia amongst teacher educators • To disseminate the achievements of the project via • the project website • the ‘train the trainers’ format of the project • through supported collaboration across institutions • through national conference presentations • through the creation of a permanent center for Asia in Teacher Preparation

12. Challenges of Preparing Teachers • Content vs. disciplinary Knowledge • Orientalist vs. globalist view of Asia • Context of state curricular standards

13. Content vs. Disciplinary Knowledge • Learning about Asia • Stand-alone Asian courses • Isolated Asian units in existing courses • Asia as a vehicle for deepening understanding of key social studies concepts, skills, interrelationships • ex. migration, trade, cultural diffusion, political change

14. Orientalist vs. Globalist View of Asia • “Exotic” Asia • Samurai, geishas, & footbinding • Focus on the historical • Medieval China & Japan • Contextualize in European & American colonialism • Marco Polo, Admiral Perry, the Raj

15. Role of State Standards • Omnipresent ? • In 48 of 50 States • Omnipotent ? • Determine Textbook Content • Mandate What is Tested • Control In-School Curriculum • Next Steps ?