Follow up Thoughts

In my last blog post, I alluded to some questions that I have about my future as a teacher. Reflecting on these questions, I have come to understand that they present the disconnect between my overall experiences in education as a student butting against the way in which I am currently experiencing education, and the new directions that education is currently moving in.

I wish that I had some answers to these questions, or ideas of how they might look in my practice, but for now, they remain questions, questions that I ask myself often. Hopefully time and experience will help generate answers. Or more likely, time and experience will alter the questions themselves, leaving me with just more questions...along with more experience, which is likely one of the most valuable things of all. 

I value discussing these questions with my peers, and hearing their own questions echo some of my own. But while such conversations may not necessarily generate answers, they often lead to additional resources. This has been the case, and a much more experienced person has led me to works by Kosnik & Beck. One article in particular examined the effectiveness of an elementary preservice program based on qualitative interviews with the teacher candidates (Beck & Kosnik, 2008). The findings: unsurprising. Teacher candidates craved  more program planning instruction, closer links between theory and practice and more direct instruction for developing a literacy program.

This study has led to thinking a lot about a concept that is new to me: preservice training versus in-service training.  After reading more into this topic, I have come across literature suggesting that on-the-job teacher training may be more effective than pre-service training. The idea here is that teachers have an invested interest to learn when faced with immediate, acute problems, and the course of action is learned best through application,. This is how the gap between theory and practice is diminished.  

Link

My thoughts: construction of knowledge. This is one of the reasons why such in-service training sounds so appealing. It echoes a constructivist model of learning because such problem solving is direct, applicable and meaningful! I would be very interested to research, and see a real-life in-service training model.

Until next time,

Ana

 

Reference

Beck, C., Kosnik, C. (2008). We taught them about literacy but what did they learn? The impact of A preservice teacher education program on the practices of beginning teachers. The Mofet Institute: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 4, Issue 2.