Preparing Teaching Candidates to Enact Transformative Teaching Practices
Project Name: Preparing Teaching Candidates to Enact Transformative Teaching Practices: A Program Level Design-Development Study
Project Leadership: UTRGV PI, Dr. Criselda Garcia
Funding Amount: $22,909 ($21,818 Direct Costs + $1,091 Indirect Costs)
Sponsor: Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation
Project Description: When teacher preparation programs have greater alignment across all points of contact within their network of support, teacher candidates leave the program better prepared to enact transformative teaching practices. Ten institutions in Texas that lead the state in excellence in teacher preparation have been working for one year, under the guidance of Raise Your Hand: Raising Texas Teachers (RYH), to develop understandings of the common problem of how we prepare teachers to be transformative teachers in Texas schools. RYH enlisted the support of the Carnegie Foundation to provide professional support for ten university-based teacher education programs to enact reforms in preservice teacher education. Together, we have worked to charter a project using improvement science to build a theory of reform for field experiences. We are part of one of two working groups, called Networked Improvement Communities (NIC) focusing on the field experience. A NIC works for one year to charter a project; for 1-3 years to learn together, and then also works on spreading the learning to other contexts.
In this study, researchers focus on Teacher Education Program (TEP) supports and the changes in how teacher candidates are prepared as teachers within field experiences. The individuals who participate in our TEP are (1) Teacher Education Committee (TEC) (n=16), (2) Liaison Graduate Student Group (n=16), (3) Teacher Candidate Cohort Coordinators (n=8), and University Field Supervisors (n=20). In this study, areas of focus to improve field experiences of teacher candidates (TCs) in teacher education programs are: (1) Vision/Program Elements and Alignment, (2) Candidate Support, (3) Field Supervisor and Mentor Support, (4) Reciprocal Professional Communities.