Student Teaching and the Pedagogy of Necessity

1. Student Teaching and the Pedagogy of Necessity The adoption of a critical- inquiry perspective in student teaching.

2. United States and Australia • The pedagogy is inherently conservative and embodies an outmoded view of professional knowledge in teaching. • Most programs adopt the “go with what works” motto of student teaching. • Student teacher are guided primarily by tradition, circumstance, and external authority.

3. The Four Orienting Perspectives in Teacher Education • Behavioristic Perspective • Personalistic Perspective • Traditional/Craft Perspective • Critical Inquiry Perspective

4. Behavioristic Perspective • Founded in the positivistic epistemology. • Focuses on developing specific, observable teaching skills which are assumed to be related to pupil learning. • “The criteria by which success is to be measured are made explicit and performance as a prespecified level of mastery is assumed to be the most valid measure of teacher competence.” • Teacher is regarded as a passive recipient of knowledge.

5. Personalistic Perspective • Rest upon the foundations of a phenomenological epistemology. • In other terms, program content is based upon such things as student’s self perceived needs in a development sequence, application of cognitive development theories, or application of the ideals of humanistic psychology. • Less focused on results that can be measured and more focused on what the student needs to feel successful. • Teacher education is considered a process of becoming rather than the mastery of a set of competencies. • Rooted in a positivist approach.

6. Traditional/Craft Perspective • Learning to be a teacher involves modeling cooperating teachers. • Field experiences are the quintessential(very important) element of this perspective. • It is a student apprenticeship model, students receive information from master teacher. • The student teacher have little input into shaping their own professional development. • Creates the “same old-same old”.

7. Critical Inquiry Perspective • Actions of teachers and student teachers are seen to carry ideological meanings that relate to particular views of the social world in general and the world of schooling in particular. • “All teacher is a form of ideology”. • Important to develop discourse about teaching that creates analysis that are critical and reflective. • Question everything is the only way to make progress. • Have to accept all teachers are indoctrinated and therefore to get new ideas all way must be looked at carefully.

8. Professionalization and Teachers’ Practical Knowledge • Teachers face pressures for increased efficiency in the context of contracting budgets and increased expectations • Teaching is very different than it was 40 years ago

9. Schon (1982) • Professional knowledge is [now] mismatched to the changing character of the situations of practice • The root of the professional problem lies in the history of professions themselves and in the dominate model of professional knowledge that they embrace

10. Locke (1984) • An academic elite burst upon us [in the 60’s] waving the Research Quarterly and proclaiming themselves the prophets of truth about preparing teachers and coaches • Today others are heard speaking the powerful, universalistic tongue of science to legitimize their vision of teacher education

11. Positivist Epistemology • Craft and artistry have no lasting place in rigorous practical knowledge • Practical Knowledge is construed as knowledge of the relationship between means and ends. • Defined in instrumental terms and practical problems as technical ones

12. Technical rationality • Argued by some that Technical Rationality has proved unsuccessful in improving the practice of the education profession. • Conceives of professional practice as a process of problem solving

13. Hierarchical Bases • Universities are supposed to create knowledge that professionals and technicians put into practice • Teachers’ practical knowledge is devalued by intellectuals, particularly academics. They suggest the “the academics” vies of practical knowledge are transmitted to teachers during their professional education

14. Teacher Views on Hierarchical Bases • Teachers view themselves as inferior professionals by insisting that the knowledge of non-teachers in the fields of psychology and social science is a greater source of wisdom with the respect to teaching than is the critical inquiry and practical knowledge gained form the experience of teachers themselves • Teachers hold a complex practically-oriented set of understandings which they use actively to shape and direct the work of teaching. This practical knowledge is the conceptual structures and visions that provide the reasons why teachers choose the activities, curriculum materials, and other things in order to be effective.

15. In Conclusion • Persons are both the products and the creators of their own history (Berlak & Berlak 1981) • Jennings (1984)The knowledge of teachers derives form the need to comprehend the complexities of given contexts and to act effectively in them. Their knowledge becomes intuitive and is validated pragmatically; that is, it becomes valid when their action works