This webbooklet offers students in colleges of education a look at the development of some strongly, but rationally, contested, interrelated disagreements about teaching, about assessment, and about assessing the quality of prospective teachers. The discussion presented here took place from November 18, 1993, to January 14, 1994, on EDPOLYAN, a professional listserv for education (and the predecessor of EDPOLICY), based at Arizona State University. It is hoped that presenting the issues this way will help make them more meaningful to students than essays, articles, or typical textbook material on them normally do. It is my view that until one sees, and appreciates a problem, "answers" to that problem are not often very meaningful. Some problems are definitely displayed here.

Other purposes of this site are also to show:
1) how extremely difficult communication can be without persistent discussion that tries to clarify and resolve differences, some of which are based on, often at first unrecognized, mutual misunderstanding and some of which are based on focusing on different evidence, and
2) how complex (though not necessarily difficult) seemingly simple issues can be.
If you contrast this discussion with a typical journal article or book, I think the difference will be clear.  It is my contention that a discussion of this sort goes much deeper than a typical journal article. I think that too often (education) journal articles are considered definitive when they should instead be discussed and scrutinized.

This particular discussion sprang from questioning what is necessary (and sufficient?) for good teacher training, given that some states were starting to offer alternative progams for teacher certification. This led to the question of quality of teacher education in traditional programs and to questions about how to assess the quality of newly certified teachers. That, in turn, evolved into the issue of evaluating students in the classroom in general.
Rick Garlikov

The "****" symbol in front of a line signifies the line is quoted from a previous post.

The following participated in the discussion:

I bring to the attention of this list certain changes in West Virginia policy that strike me as troubling. I am aware that similar policies have been adopted elsewhere as well. In West Virginia these policies seem, however, to be directed toward the systematic destruction of teacher education. Interestingly, these policies spell out a sort of legislated deregulation of the teacher education process. In this state, policy makers seem to believe that teacher education programs are totally useless and that teacher education ought to take place after people are employed. These policy makers view colleges and departments of education as something worse than wasteful--sort of as parasites on the educational system, draining it of its vitality.

From this sentiment derive policies directed toward downsizing teacher education programs, providing various options for alternative certification, and linking salary increments to in-service rather than college credit. The rationale is that better teachers will be produced for less money if counties are permitted to take people with liberal arts degrees and give them on-the-job training. Moreover, the state has made a serious effort to destroy administrator-training programs, offering the option for anyone with an MA and administrative experience (including all teachers) to receive a 5-dollar certificate that permits them to serve as principals (all levels), supervisors, vocational administrators, or superintendents.

So my questions to the list are these:

1. Where else is this happening and why?

2. Are the policymakers correct in their judgment of teacher education programs?

3. How should colleges and departments of education respond to these policy initiatives?

--Aimee Howley; College of Education; Marshall University

Aimee Howley asked a question that seems interesting to me, though no one has responded yet --about the effort of West Virginia to diminish or eradicate teacher education programs. I consider it to be primarily an empirical question as to whether graduates of teacher education programs make better teachers in general than people with other college training who have become teachers through various alternative means.

Since I believe some people with degrees outside of education make excellent teachers and that some education graduates don't make very good teachers, and that many education graduates do not know enough subject matter content to be able to teach as well as they should, I tend to be partial toward alternative teacher certification, based on demonstrable ability to teach, not on degree earned or knowledge of subject matter. With inservice or extra coursework as needed to learn or polish any missing skills.

I know many knowledgeable people cannot teach their knowledge to others very well, so I do not think a degree in chemistry will automatically make one a good chemistry teacher or that anyone with a degree can teach first grade, etc. But surely there must be some better way than what we have been doing to get knowledgeable, good teachers in more classrooms. Is there any research about any of this, or anecdotal evidence, or any theories..... Will the children of West Virginia end up in ignorance?

Rick Garlikov (DEMS042@UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU)

The teacher education question is one that is very troubling to me. As Rick Garlikov said, I too believe that some people with little training can be very good teachers. I went to a Catholic school which did not require certification, and I had some very good teachers, who often didn't even have M.A.'s in their subject areas.

However, I think in general that teacher education is extremely important, especially considering the problems found in public schools today. Someone going into teaching without proper instruction and preparation may be simply over-whelmed.

More personally, I am concerned about my future. I have wanted to become a teacher for as long as I remember. So, I planned my education to get the best preparation as possible. At the end of it all, I should have M.A.'s in education and my subject area. Now I fear that, in light of all the alternative certification routes, I may be seen as over-qualified and too expensive.

Any thoughts on this? Will people who seek advanced teacher education be squeezed out of teaching? Will it knock wages down so that people with any college debt cannot afford to become teachers?

Greg Kirschner yl361c@gwuvm.gwu.edu

I tend to share Rick's uncertainties about the best ways to attract (or perhaps cultivate) teachers who are both intellectually attentive and committed to the work. Coming to West Virginia twenty years ago with an East Coast liberal arts degree and the conviction that I could teach, I was convinced that any school system would want to hire me. But whether they wanted to or not was immaterial. I had two years of undergraduate work still ahead of me if I was to meet WV certification standards. Now--having found a way to be certified at the graduate level, having taught for a considerable time, I find myself deep in the midst of teacher education, mostly committed to a belief in its worth.

But it frustrates me that colleges of education haven't or can't find ways to accelerate or telescope instruction in pedagogy for those who have a good understanding of subject matter and good teaching "instincts." This type of alternative certification is far different from what our state department of education has in mind--but it is not an approach that I've seen advocated by teacher educators either. Are teacher educators simply protecting their turf? Or are they wedded to a socialization process that discourages certain sorts of talent? Or are they correctly upholding the benefits of an educational process that serves all prospective teachers well?

--Aimee Howley

Rick Garlikov said:

****Aimee Howley asked a question that seems interesting to me, though no one
****has responded yet --about the effort of West Virginia to diminish or
****eradicate teacher education programs. I consider it to be primarily an
****empirical question as to whether graduates of teacher education programs
****make better teachers in general than people with other college training
****who have become teachers through various alternative means.

=======================

Yes and no. As Gene has recently said on this list, facts do not change beliefs (at least not very often), beliefs interpret facts. For a reasonably complete overview of the existing empirical evidence, see Linda Darling-Hammond's recent article in the Peabody Journal, I believe. (I don't have the exact citation here, but will post it later.) The major conclusion is that, on the whole, the evidence slightly favors graduates from approved teacher education programs over alternative route teachers (although it also depends on what the "alternate" route consists of).

However, other work shows that there is, as would be expected, a great deal of difference in quality among graduates of DIFFERENT teacher education programs. Shortly after A Nation at Risk some years ago, the "evidence" of SAT scores of high school students who indicated they INTENDED to go into teaching was that they were the worst and the dullest, not the best and the brightest. We did a study of the quality of actual teacher education students across the SUNY system. What we found was that by any measures we had, SAT scores, grade-point averages, grade point averages in general education, grade point averages in the major, graduation rates, etc., the teacher education majors were the equivalent of their counterparts IN THE SAME UNIVERSITY OR COLLEGE. There was, however, a great deal of difference across institutions. Similar studies, I was told, indicated the same thing in California and Washington. All of this is perfectly compatible with the initial low SAT scores when it is combined with Schlecty and Vance's work in the early 80s in North Carolina, I believe. They showed that what had happened over a period of time was that the more selective institutions in that state had largely gotten out of teacher education, leaving the field primarily to the third and fourth rate institutions of higher education, who, in turn, attracted the least qualified students across the board, and prepared proportionately more teachers.

=========================

****Since I believe some people with degrees outside of education make excellent
****teachers and that some education graduates don't make very good teachers,

=========================

Of course. There are even cases of some people without medical degrees making good doctors and fooling lots of people for a good long while, and lots of MDs who make lousy doctors. We also sometimes have shortages of doctors. I wonder why we never hear calls for alternative routes to medicine that could short-circuit all that irrelevant training in parts of medicine that I will never use as a dermatologist?

==========================

****and that many education graduates do not know enough subject matter content
****to be able to teach as well as they should, I tend to be partial toward
****alternative teacher certification, based on demonstrable ability to teach,
****not on degree earned or knowledge of subject matter. With inservice or
****extra coursework as needed to learn or polish any missing skills.

==========================

Given the abdication of responsibility by higher education noted above and the well-known unwillingness of state education departments to take seriously their responsibility for approving only high quality teacher education programs, and coupled with the only recently emerging willingness of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to impose meaningful standards, there just might be another policy alternative to alternative certification. PUT THE POORLY PERFORMING SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES OF EDUCATION OUT OF THE BUSINESS.

=========================

****I know many knowledgeable people cannot teach their knowledge to others
****very well, so I do not think a degree in chemistry will automatically make
****one a good chemistry teacher or that anyone with a degree can teach first
****grade, etc. But surely there must be some better way than what we have
****been doing to get knowledgeable, good teachers in more classrooms.

=========================

The traditional way that most professions try to solve this problem is by relying on a, roughly, four-fold approach so that people who ought not be in the profession get weeded out under one component or another. These are 1) strong standards for entry into the professional preparation program, 2) a preparation program which has to meet high standards, e.g., state or NCATE approval, 3) a serious internship, 4) an examination of ability to practice.

It will not be surprising that each of these components of professional preparation is less than satisfactory in teacher education, but is it really a wise policy choice to, therefore, throw over the entire system? Actually, what is happening in most states is that 4) is being relied upon to do nearly the whole quality assurance business, with any occasional gesture toward some mentoring by a senior teacher in the first year of a new teacher's job. The problem is that the kind of examination that could actually determine good practice is nowhere in sight. Furthermore, in no other field do we rely solely on an examination of ability to practice without the other checks and balances, no matter how good that examination is. We could, logically, put all the burden of quality assurance on examinations in medicine, the law, accounting, architecture, (and even cosmetology in New York), but we don't. Only in education is such a possibility seriously entertained. Why don't we, instead, get serious about improving all four of the traditional methods for assuring quality in the preparation of professionals? Is it, as Gene says, that the different policy positions reflect different very basic orientations which only allow some folks to see what they want to see?

=======================

****Is there any research about any of this, or anecdotal evidence, or any
****theories..... Will the children of West Virginia end up in ignorance?

=======================

It will depend, won't it, on whether or not they are lucky enough to get an alternatively certified teacher who just happens to take his or her responsibility seriously enough to try to pick up the missing parts of her or his preparation on her or his own. We do, indeed, learn from experience, but if it's lousy experience, it will be lousy learning.

Hugh G. Petrie 716-645-2491 367 Baldy Hall FAX: 716-645-2479 University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 USA prohugh@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu

Tom Mauhs-Pugh Cultural Foundations of Education Syracuse University

TJPUGH@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU TJPUGH@SUVM.BITNET

On Thu, 18 Nov 1993, Aimee Howley wrote:

**** of the teacher education process. In this state, policy
**** makers seem to believe that teacher education programs
****are totally useless and that teacher education ought
**** to take place after people are employed. These policy
**** makers view colleges and departments of education as
**** something worse than wasteful--sort of as parasites
**** on the educational system, draining it of its vitality.
****From this sentiment derive policies directed toward
****downsizing teacher education programs, providing
****various options for alternative certification, and
**** linking salary increments to in-service rather than
**** college credit. The rationale is that better teachers
**** will be produced for less money if counties are permitted
**** to take people with liberal arts degrees and give them
**** on-the-job training. Moreover, the state has made a
**** serious effort to destroy administrator-training programs,
**** offering the option for anyone with an MA and administrative
**** experience (including all teachers) to receive a 5-dollar
**** certificate that permits them to serve as principals (all
**** levels), supervisors, vocational administrators, or
**** superintendents.
**** So my questions to the list are these:
****1. Where else is this happening and why?

I don't know where else this is happening, but the why probably has to do with (1) a mistrust of program-specific, as opposed to examination-specific credentialling, (2) a concern with the expense of publicly supported ed. programs, (3) a decade of attacks on education focused on low teacher quality combined with a decade of increasing demands from teacher's unions, (4) a pervasive love affair in this country with anti-intellectualism, business model emphasis on performance over qualifications, and the entrepreneurial spirit, and (5) a clear lack of programmatic defense by schools of education exacerbated by continuous disagreement over core knowledge and commonly accepted practice of the profession.

**** 2. Are the policymakers correct in their judgment of
**** teacher education programs?

I certainly think we could do a lot better in preparing teachers to teach. From the standpoint of State educational policy needs and the staffing concerns of school districts, much of what the average (?) State college or university education program offers is inefficient at best, antagonistic to the State's interest at worst.

**** 3. How should colleges and departments of education respond
**** to these policy initiatives?

A good place to start might be to gain a coherent idea of State ed. policy and staffing concerns and address them explicitly and publicly.

Hugh Petrie has provided a very extensive and well-thought-out reply to the issue raised by Aimee Howley, in his response to my seconding of her question. There are some residual questions I have.

First, however, I thought his presentation about the four step approach to trying to ensure only quality teachers reach, and remain, in classrooms -- along with the analogy he gives in that regard to other professions-- was extremely impressive and accurate. The topic of the (too often ignored) responsibility of schools of education to turn out qualified teachers, as opposed to certified teachers, has arisen here briefly before, with no real response to it when it came up a month or two ago. Hugh's comments are detailed enough that I hope there will be a response to that issue this time, and perhaps even some important policy recommendations coming out of the discussion.

But I do want to respond to the claim that other professions, such as medicine, do not offer alternative certification routes, particularly truncated ones. And I want to talk a bit about the difference between teacher training and medical or architecture training. First, medicine --though not medical schools-- do offer different, often shorter routes to practicing health care delivery. Midwifery, psychology, nursing, EMT training, chiropractics, homeopathy, acupuncture, lab technology, physician assistants, etc. are various entry modes into health care delivery. They meet certain needs (or at least try to or purport to). Further, doctors are often taught by people without medical degrees. Biochemists teach medical biochemistry; anatomists teach anatomy; researchers of whatever sort may teach about their specialties; bioengineers and bioethicists have various roles in teaching medicine and assisting medical practitioners. I would think that teaching would offer a great many similar opportunities -- especially for bringing in specialists periodically to teach areas the teacher is not particularly good at teaching -- for example, many elementary teachers have difficulty teaching certain math concepts: place value, fractions, general sorts of math reasoning. Would it be wrong to have those math specialists who have some real "instincts" for teaching (Howlee's or someone's apt term) be responsible for teaching these kinds of things in those classrooms?

I also do not believe that most undergraduate degrees give enough training in content. A B.A. in math education or even in math, may be insufficient training to be able to really teach math well -- even elementary math. A good teacher is not simply generally just a step or two above their students, but is someone who understands both the subject matter, and students, well enough to be able to make the subject really meaningful and inspiring to them.

Finally, I would like to know what sorts of things you all think an education student with good teaching instincts, who wants to teach in, say grades 6-12, needs to know, and whether he/she could not be taught those in one or two or three courses, one term? A local college gives a "fifth year" certification program, but from what I have heard from students, it seems to be a worthless, self-study, more or less self-directed, literature research kind of program that seems to have little meaningful or practical help. Surely that year could be better spent learning real teaching skills or helpful practices, rationales, etc., no? The 5th year program is an alternative certification program for people with undergraduate degrees outside of education.

These are some of the questions I want to raise at this point. But I want to go back over Hugh's response some more. And I hope most of you will take another look at it and that it can be the genesis of some very useful educational policy recommendations. It is an excellent post that deserves further discussion and recognition, I think.

Rick Garlikov (DEMS042@UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU)

Rick asked about the things that a knowledgeable college student with good "instincts" for teaching might need to know about teaching in order to perform competently. I would suggest that foremost among them would be an understanding of what schooling is (has been and could be) all about coupled with an understanding (however imperfect) of what learning might encompass. Focus on the technical skills of teaching strikes me as a distinctly subordinate enterprise.

--Aimee Howley

I tend to agree with Rick Garlikov that alternative routes are important and that good teachers can come from inside or outside of schools of education. I like the graduate schools of ed that are concentrating on school development and teachers in classrooms. When I ran a private school, I always chose BA, BS and Masters degree holders in content areas - people who had those degrees plus the experience or makings of good teachers. In Vermont, there is some discussion about levels of licensure, where one needs the education school more (I think) between level one (just out of college) and level two.

Just a couple of questions on this topic.

I'm all for closing down "weak" schools of education. By what standards do we determine who is to be closed down? Since standards are shunned at both the secondary and college levels, where would we start?

What's wrong with "an emphasis on performance over qualifications?" I think part of the reason we are in the fix we are in is that we WORSHIP the flip-flopped arrangement of priorities.

Cheers,

Kevin Drumm NOVA University 305-424-5758 drummk@Polaris.NOVA.edu

I have now found the reference to the Linda Darling-Hammond literature review article I mentioned in my post of November 20. It is "Teaching and Knowledge: Policy Issues Posed by Alternate Certification for Teachers." _Peabody Journal of Education_ vol. 67(3), pp. 123 - 154.

Rick Garlikov raises some additional questions.

=========================

**** But I do want to respond to the claim that other professions, such as
****medicine, do not offer alternative certification routes, particularly
****truncated ones. And I want to talk a bit about the difference between
****teacher training and medical or architecture training.
**** First, medicine --though not medical schools-- do offer different, often
****shorter routes to practicing health care delivery. Midwifery, psychology,
****nursing, EMT training, chiropractics, homeopathy, acupuncture, lab technology,
****physician assistants, etc. are various entry modes into health care delivery.
****They meet certain needs (or at least try to or purport to).

====================

You point to an extremely important area of policy reform in the system of teaching, not so much teacher education, although it could be used there as well. Other professions have any number of auxiliary roles and specialties defined so that the central practitioner can devote his or her time primarily to what she or he knows best. In education, we have one teacher, one classroom, with little use of teacher aides, interns, or specialists. The few places we do have specialists, they tend to be folks who "pull out" the kids for remedial reading or LD classes, instead of working as part of a team of professionals. The problem here is that this system would likely require more of a differentiated staffing pattern in schools than traditionally teacher unions would like to see.

Where all of this might impact on teacher preparation would be if we did less overall preparation of teachers and did more of it in "professional development schools", the teaching hospitals of the teaching profession. In this way you could get more of a seamless web of expertise, from university professors and graduate students to mentoring from experienced practitioners, all working as a team, which, since we teach as we were taught, might do more for encouraging team teaching than any amount of exhortation.

================ Rick further says

****Further, doctors are often taught by people without medical degrees. Biochemists teach
****medical biochemistry; anatomists teach anatomy; researchers of whatever
****sort may teach about their specialties; bioengineers and bioethicists have
****various roles in teaching medicine and assisting medical practitioners. I would
****think that teaching would offer a great many similar opportunities -- especially
****for bringing in specialists periodically to teach areas the teacher is not particularly
****good at teaching -- for example, many elementary teachers have difficulty
****teaching certain math concepts: place value, fractions, general sorts of math
****reasoning. Would it be wrong to have those math specialists who have some real
****"instincts" for teaching (Howlee's or someone's apt term) be responsible for
****teaching these kinds of things in those classrooms?

================

Again, this is a very plausible suggestion. If we had teams of teachers and teacher aides and instructors and specialists responsible for different aspects of the educational experience, we could, in principle, make better use of their individual talents. However, one needs to realize that this would represent a MAJOR cultural change in our current egg-crate organization of schools.

=================

Rick goes on,
****I also do not believe that most undergraduate degrees give enough training
****in content. A B.A. in math education or even in math, may be insufficient
****training to be able to really teach math well -- even elementary math. A
****good teacher is not simply generally just a step or two above their students,
****but is someone who understands both the subject matter, and students, well
****enough to be able to make the subject really meaningful and inspiring to them.

===================

I would say, ESPECIALLY elementary math. Think for just a moment about the typical collegiate math degree. What parts of it are at all useful for teaching elementary mathematics? The things that might be, e.g., number theory, geometry, and statistics, are often not even part of the collegiate curriculum. We have to have geometry taught at another college here at UB since our math department seldom does so. However, as Denise says, the usual response by state legislators is

==================

****Virginia is trying to remedy the problem of how to educate teachers by
****requiring college students to major in a discipline (content area) and
****get a certification to teach. This is true no matter what grade the
****individual wants to teach (NK-12). There is no longer a major in education.
****What are your thoughts on this approach to teacher education?

==================

Without a major change in the ways in which the non-professional education portions of the major are offered in the typical institution of higher education, this cure will be worse than the problem. I think it was David Berliner about 7-8 years ago who studied the effects of majors on teaching ability and, essentially, found that it made no difference except, perhaps, for those who teach at the advanced placement level. Here, too, I would predict that there would be major differences across the majors and institutions.

There is no question in my mind that a careful approach to offering the major with attention to what Shulman calls pedagogical content knowledge would help a great deal, but, again, this will require a MAJOR change in how, and even whether, our arts and sciences colleagues see themselves as part of teacher education. As Pam Grossman has suggested in a recent _Teachers College Record_ case study on several alternate route teachers, they teach as they were taught. They also learn from the experience of their first job. Those who were concerned that the seminar, abstract styles of their college courses weren't getting across somehow managed to hook up with some people who helped them out. Those who didn't blamed the students for not learning, even though it was painfully apparent that the kind of instruction these alternate route teachers offered was wholly inappropriate.

I would go so far as to predict that the major problems in teaching in secondary schools arise from teachers modeling the teaching they saw in their arts and sciences courses in college. The second major problem in secondary schools probably comes from inadequate content teaching in the arts and sciences. The problem is NOT that secondary teachers don't have a major in their field. Almost all do. The problem is more likely to be that the person who majored in chemistry will also have to teach a biology section and a mathematics section as well as chemistry. The one bright spot here is that the public is beginning to demand more accountability on teaching undergraduates from our institutions of higher education. Maybe that will help.

That brings me to some comments on the value of an "academic" major for elementary education. Implemented mindlessly, as the Virginia system appears to be, this, too, would be a disaster. Think for just a moment about the typical majors in college and their possible usefulness in elementary education, given what we currently ask our elementary teachers to do. If we REALLY want deep understanding of subject matter, combined with a knowledge of the development of kids, then we are, if we don't change our systems drastically, basically asking elementary teachers to attain the level of understanding of FOUR OR FIVE major fields which we don't think even very many of our bachelors or masters students achieve in one field. And just how long is the preparation period for elementary teachers to be?

I would fully grant that if the major problem in secondary education is probably inadequate pedagogy, the major problem in elementary education is probably inadequate content knowledge (and the major problem in middle schools is raging hormones). However, for reasons like those noted above, the answer is unlikely to be to require an academic major of elementary teachers, especially as we currently conceive of academic majors. One solution, compatible with the notion of changing to more team-oriented approaches to schooling outlined above, would be to require elementary teachers to take a seriously and carefully designed minor in one of several areas, e.g., math, reading and literacy, science, sociology. Then that person could be the "expert" on the team in his or her area of concentration.

Rick Garlikov goes on to say

==============

****Finally, I would like to know what sorts of things you all think an education
****student with good teaching instincts, who wants to teach in, say grades 6-12,
****needs to know, and whether he/she could not be taught those in one or two or
****three courses, one term? A local college gives a "fifth year" certification
****program, but from what I have heard from students, it seems to be a worthless,
****self-study, more or less self-directed, literature research kind of program
****that seems to have little meaningful or practical help. Surely that year could
****be better spent learning real teaching skills or helpful practices, rationales,
****etc., no? The 5th year program is an alternative certification program for
****people with undergraduate degrees outside of education.

and Aimee Howley echoes this concern

****But it frustrates me that colleges of education haven't or can't
****find ways to accelerate or telescope instruction in pedagogy
****for those who have a good understanding of subject matter and
****good teaching "instincts." This type of alternative certification
****is far different from what our state department of education has
****in mind--but it is not an approach that I've seen advocated by
****teacher educators either. Are teacher educators simply protecting
****their turf? Or are they wedded to a socialization process that
****discourages certain sorts of talent? Or are they correctly
****upholding the benefits of an educational process that serves
****all prospective teachers well?

====================

I'm not at all sure what "good teaching instincts" are nor how we would tell if someone has them, but the notion of a serious alternative ROUTE or multiple ENTRY POINTS to certification is a good one. The problem is that state departments of education seem to equate "alternate" with emergency and lower standards of certification and colleges of ed seem, for the most part, to believe in "one best way". The challenge is, I think, to design serious fifth year and MAT programs with highly interactive and collaborative clinical work in professional development schools along with significantly new and improved work with our arts and sciences colleagues. Again, however, the problem is a MAJOR cultural difference between what we in higher education value in arts and sciences, in schools of education, and what most schools value. Nevertheless, we must, in my judgment, begin to bridge these cultural divides and think about what the Education Commission of the States is beginning to call the SIMULTANEOUS RENEWAL of schools and higher education.

Sorry to have gone on so long, but maybe this will be helpful.

Hugh G. Petrie 716-645-2491 367 Baldy Hall FAX: 716-645-2479 University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 USA prohugh@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu

Hugh Petrie has a wealth of ideas for teacher education and I plan to look back at them from time to time. The ones that stood out on this reading had to do with differential staffing. Some years ago, I was involved in an evaluation of a Follow-Through program that made extensive, but rather mechanical, use of teacher aides. At the same time, I evaluated an innovative program in a wealthy suburban school that was making really interesting use of parent volunteers. Some of us here are now thinking about what we would want to include in a short course for volunteers or aides. Anyone had experience along this line?

bill hunter fax: (403) 282-0083 the university of calgary phone: (403) 220-5691 hunter@acs.ucalgary.ca

Having just finished a rather hectic term instructing prospective Social Studies teachers on the intricacies of methodology and classroom practice (they're now out in the schools for their first practicum round of four weeks before returning on campus for more classes), I believe that I can shed some light on why at least a one or two year program from a school of education is necessary for the development of superior beginning teachers.

The g.p.a. for my methods class was probably in the area of 3.7 to 3.8 out of 4. B.Ed. students are required to have an average of at least 3.5 to enter the program at the end of their first year of general studies at this university. Students who have a first degree are required to have at least a 3.7 average before being admitted into the secondary Social Studies program. Most of my students (19/35) had a first degree in one of the social sciences (primarily history, secondarily sociology); three had M.A.'s; many of the other students are working on simultaneous degrees in the faculties of Arts and Education. Several of these students had extensive experience teaching and instructing in other countries or in fields which did not require formal certification. Most of them are highly motivated, despite the fact that job prospects in our province are worse than dismal (the Alberta government proposes to cut 20 to 30% of the Education budget over the next three years). Yet regardless of their motivation and ability these students have at least one major flaw that was evident as they entered the program: their conception of teaching and learning was based entirely on their experience as successful students in a system that depended primarily on lecture, the replication of textbook answers and the taking of notes as the dominant instructional methodology (I think I see a cross-connection to the "Why Don't Teachers Incorporate Research on Learning" thread here).

So one of the prime tasks that the methods instructors in Social Studies set ourselves was to model a variety of more effective classroom approaches as we persuaded these students that there is more to teaching than "stand and deliver". It would be nice to believe that in their eleven weeks of practicum in the classrooms of this province our students would get that message from practicing teachers, but....as I hear more and more stories coming back from the classrooms I begin to understand the despair of those Curriculum Supervisors who have been trying to improve practice in our jurisdiction over the past ten years. I just ran into one of my students in the library as he was pouring over the microfilmed back issues of newspapers preparing his lesson-plans for tomorrow. As he told me that his students were just finishing studying the issue of NAFTA and he was looking for a concluding activity I blurted out the idea of holding an informal horseshoe debate--allowing students to make use of the concepts and arguments they have been researching for the past week. "Well...I don't know if my co-operating teacher would like it," he replied. "He usually has them sit in straight rows and I don't think they are ready for this kind of group work yet."

Unfortunately that kind of a classroom appears to be the rule rather than the exception as reported by the students who have been bringing back their classroom observations to their practicum and methods instructors. I know that there are different schools out there, I've taught in two over the past twelve years, but it seems clear that the impetus for change and improvement that I have seen owes a great deal to some of the people working within the faculties of Education in this province. I believe this is particularly so in those instances where the instructors or faculty have close or recent connections to the classroom (three of the four Social Studies methods instructors here are graduate students just out of the classroom).

If Faculties and Schools of Education are not the people to provide leadership in education then who are? Some practicing teachers are burned out, some are mired in unproductive teaching methods, some are just focusing on raising their average on the provincial exam and some are counting down the days to early retirement. Principals are kept busy on the rodent-wheel of system and department administrative meetings. The general public seems wedded to the idea of school as it was experienced in the good-old-days of reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and 25% graduation ratios. As for politicians....well this is a pg rated forum and I don't want to cross-post to alt.scatalogical.comments.

That's it for now, they're shutting down the microlab and I still have 25 unit plans to mark that my students left me before they went out to the schools.

--Noel Jantzie

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 17:49:56 CST Reply-To: Education Policy Analysis Forum <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET> Sender: Education Policy Analysis Forum <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET> From: Rick Garlikov <DEMS042@UABDPO.BITNET> Subject: the nature of good teaching

There was a question about the nature of teaching and learning (Aimee Howley asked it, I believe, or Cindy Cotter). And there has been much comment about teacher directed classes versus student centered courses, along with comments about the problems of teaching the way one was taught, especially the way one was taught in college. (Hugh Petrie, for example, said "I would go so far as to predict that the major problems in teaching in secondary schools arise from teachers modeling the teaching they saw in their arts and science courses.") If Hugh and others mean something other than "lecture, memorize, regurgitate on the exam", please say so. Many of my liberal arts courses were not of that type, so I am wondering if there is something besides that which is also considered NOT good teaching. Hugh also said he was not sure what "good teaching instincts" meant. All this goes together I believe, and I would like to make some general comments for your considerations; and ask some questions.

First, it looks as if the study about the quality of education graduates versus non-education graduates that Hugh reported on was about their quality as students, not their quality as teachers. What I wanted to know is whether there is a difference in TEACHING ABILITY, in general, between ed grads and non-ed grads. Can, for example, philosophy grads or liberal arts grads, teach a given high school topic, or whole subject, or teach elementary school, better than an ed grad? Can a non-ed grad with an MA in English or math teach English or math better than an ed grad, even an ed grad with major in math or English? Comparisons of SAT's and GPA's will not show that. Quite good students often make quite lousy teachers; and I have known some poor students who made excellent teachers in a particular area. Quite knowledgeable professors who are experts in their fields make some of the worst teachers. I have had a few of them. Many of you have also.

What I mean by a good teacher is someone who can get, or help, (1) a student to learn something, (2) to understand it in those cases where understanding is appropriate, (3) in the easiest, sometimes most efficient way (as long as efficiency does not sacrifice learning or understanding), AND (4) make it interesting enough for the student to want to learn more and/or to use what is taught in some meaningful way. The better teacher is not always the more knowledgeable person. I once served as a graduate teaching assistant to a man who knows fifty times more information about the history of philosophy than I will ever know, but his lectures and his topics of course study for philosophy 101 killed the interest of hundreds of students that unknowingly signed up for his course when he was the lecturer. Though I knew far less, I could turn out students who knew far more philosophy, understood it better, liked it better, and wanted to go on in it. He was by far the better scholar, but for introductory philosophy, I was the better teacher, I would argue.

I would argue that a teacher is to be judged by how well they teach a given student or group of students -- where the person doing the judging needs to have a good idea of the degree of difficulty of the subject matter for a given group of students. Judgment is a somewhat subjective enterprise but hardly just a matter of whim. There is some inter-subjectivity to it. If I can teach almost anyone to ride a bicycle in thirty minutes, and they enjoy learning and want to ride all day after they have learned, and if they are not afraid with me teaching them, and don't cry, etc., then I am a better bicycle riding teacher than someone who makes kids cry, makes kids not want to learn, takes weeks to teach them, and makes the experience so terrifying and unhappy that they really don't much care to learn or to ride their bike once they have learned. Something similar could be said for any two teachers in any given subject.

All this has some bearing on tracking, and on Hugh's comments about professional quality control. The rap against tracking, as I understand it, is that, besides taking good student role models away from students who might benefit from their example, generally the "lowest" kids are given the worst teachers, which perpetuates, sometimes forever, their inability and lack of learning, lack of knowledge, lack of understanding, lack of skill. But giving these kids bad teachers is not an essential ingredient in tracking. It might be that kids at different skill levels or different rates of learning a given subject need teachers who understand their needs best. And this might be a boon. I don't know exactly how research on tracking is done, but it sounds suspiciously like there are often factors, apart from merely grouping students of like ability, that have far more influence on the outcome than the grouping itself does. Of course, it is difficult to have proper "control groups" and to eliminate some of these other factors. I tend to suspect sometimes tracking is a wise way to proceed and sometimes it may not be. I am not sure there is sustainable evidence that it is never wise to track. However, I am against giving anyone bad teachers, i.e., teachers who cannot teach them the most they can learn in a way they can most readily learn it, and like it, and want to learn more. And I am particularly against giving kids bad teachers at a stage of development that pretty much makes it impossible for those kids to ever go on in the subject. A bad teacher who does not "ruin" it for a kid is one thing; a bad teacher who does is a far more reprehensible matter. Giving "at risk" kids bad teachers seems to me to be particularly unconscionable because you are virtually consigning them to their educational doom.

And, I am with Hugh, though I may say it more strongly than he does, in believing it is reprehensible for ed schools to turn out bad teachers and for administrators to keep them on and in some cases give them to the most vulnerable children. And I do not think it is that difficult to tell whether somebody can teach something or not. Unless, of course, the judge does not have a clue how to tell whether a student or group of students has learned something, and learned it enthusiastically or not. In terms of POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS, I would love to see school administrators and college faculty and departments able to be fined or sued for teaching bad courses and/or for graduating and certifying bad teachers -- not just inexperienced teachers, but teachers with little or no ability to teach anyone anything. A little personal or professional responsibility with some personal consequences might do wonders for instituting a real four-point quality control program of the sort Hugh has described.

Putting "bad" or inappropriate teachers in courses happens in college as much as anywhere else. I had a graduate course in logic one time taught by a Swedish logician who did not speak English well enough to be able to understand questions, or to answer them in any intelligible way. I had a course that was supposed to be an intermediate graduate level course in Aristotle. The teacher who was hired thought it was supposed to be an advanced level course, and because two of the twelve students in the seminar could read classical Greek, he taught them while the rest of us sat quietly. He would not change the course, nor would the department make him, even though it was not "teaching" ten of us anything much about Aristotle at all. Almost every graduate student has more than one such story about worthless courses they had to take that everyone knew was worthless.

In regard to "teaching instincts", there are a number of things involved that all relate to the above. Does a perspective teacher understand that more than one method may be necessary to teach a given person a given skill or some understanding or knowledge? Does he/she understand that the way things are organized and presented can make a big difference in how or whether it is learned? Does the teacher understand that the failure to teach is not necessarily, or likely, the students' fault, and that it means a different teaching approach is necessary, or a different attempt, or some "block" needs to be overcome somehow, or that some other thing needs to be taught first in order to make the current subject accessible to the student? Is the teacher motivated to keep trying? Is the teacher excited by success of the student's learning, and is the teacher really interested in general in getting or helping students learn things? Does the teacher think knowledge and ability is great to achieve, and to help others achieve? Do they care more about students' learning than about getting a bell-curve grade distribution? Does the teacher understand nothing is taught until a student has learned it; that presentation is not teaching unless the presentation is meaningful to the student in the right way? Does the teacher see the student as a human being or just an empty vessel? Does the teacher try to find out what the student already knows, or is learning as the "lesson" progresses? Is there any dialogue, or any curiosity on the teacher's part as to what sort of impact he/she is actually having on the child? Is the teacher able to appreciate ambiguities, mistakes, and misunderstandings, and treat them as natural occurrences without making the student feel the student must be somehow stupid or inept, or that it is their own fault they cannot understand? Etc., etc., etc.

Aren't these the kinds of things that good teaching is about?

Now, I surely do not understand the stuff about teacher directness versus student centered learning, or however it is called. I do not see these as mutually exclusive nor jointly exhaustive. When Louis Schmier took his camera equipment to the classroom he tells about, he was directing the lesson and controlling its content within certain boundaries; it is just that he is doing it by letting students do certain things actively instead of just taking notes or "listening" while sitting passively. He has set up the environment, and probably says enough things and steers just enough so that the students' explorations are productive. Had he not set any direction or taken any equipment in, or answered any questions at all, little would have happened. I assume that we don't want students having to reinvent by themselves the history of civilization and its achievements. Some sort of "telling", guiding, steering, directing, or whatever has to go on or it will take them thousands of years to learn thousands of years worth of accumulated knowledge. Isn't "teaching" supposed to be a more or less shorter way for students to gain knowledge than by mere exploration and re-invention. Otherwise why have teachers and schools at all! Aren't we interested in the most effective ways to transfer knowledge and ability to the next generation (or whoever comes to us for learning). If a way is the most effective, does it matter whether it is lecture or not? Perhaps some people can lecture very well, like a good story teller. If it is not effective, does it matter whether it is student "driven" or not?

From what has been said, and the examples given, I assume YOU mean by "teacher directed" either of the following two things: 1) teachers just lecturing, especially droning on in ways that stifle children's learning, and 2) teachers not letting students explore and attempt to figure things out, or do, things that would be good learning experiences for them, and which they could do successfully in some fashion or other. Having kids paint by the numbers would be teacher directed, I presume, even though the kids are doing the work. Using the Socratic method to question and challenge students, and make them figure things out for themselves, would, I presume, be child directed even though the teacher would be guiding the discussion to keep it logical and sensible in case a student happened to start going too far astray. Is this a fair description of the dichotomy you have in mind? If so, I think the words are misleading that you use to express the dichotomy; misleading to ed students and to others. I would rather see the emphasis put on when "telling" might be most appropriate, when exploration, when questioning, what sorts of questions are the most productive, how to guide exploration without "killing it" or oversteering it, yet without letting it turn into fruitless, wasted effort.

Let me give two examples of what I consider bad teaching, though they emphasized student involvement, teams, etc. (1) Seventh graders were grouped in fours and were shown objects brought from the teacher's home: a Scotch tape dispenser, a small jewelry box, a melon "baller" (the thing with little "scoops" on each end to make melon balls with), a scissors, a small jar, etc. Each group was given an object and asked to "analyze" it, which, from the best I could judge, meant merely to describe it, since descriptions were what the teacher accepted as good answers. As luck would have it, a group of boys got the melon baller, and none of them had the foggiest notion what the devil it was. But that was the easy part. The difficult part was they were to use the object they were given as a metaphor for any one of a group of "abstract" nouns the teacher had put on the board: love, justice, prejudice, honor, honesty, truth, democracy, etc. One group of girls was able to do it with one item and one noun, but the rest of the kids all sat there essentially waiting for the bell to mercifully ring. The lesson was meant to teach metaphor. Wouldn't these kids have been better off with some artfully and interestingly presented neat examples of metaphor first that they might have been able to relate to?! (2) Another seventh grade teacher was introducing her social studies or English class to debate. She chose the topic and divided the students into two teams. Resolved: that euthanasia be made illegal. Or some such. Notice that the "pro" side was both the negative, in a sense, and the current state of affairs. That alone had half the kids unable to understand what it was they were supposed to be arguing for, since euthanasia already was illegal. Everyone was to do their own "research", meaning things like finding out what Time Magazine said, etc. They were to try to be as persuasive as they could using the "facts" they found. But neither sarcasm nor any other kind of pointed comments were permitted during the debate. The teacher admitted all this was very difficult for students "especially," she said, "when they have to argue for the side they don't believe in". She even KNEW she was making it harder and more confusing than it had to be.... This was their first debate. The students hated it; I am told most of the students each year hated debate at the end of the term, and "thought it was stupid". Yet, for the most part, it was not teacher lecturing. Yet still bad teaching, no?

Aren't there better ways to talk about good teaching than whether it is lecture or not, teacher directed or not, etc.?

Rick Garlikov (DEMS042@UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU)

On Tue, 30 Nov 1993 19:19:51 CST Rick Garlikov said:

****What I am really getting at is that it seems to me that schools of education
****should, above all, graduate or not graduate their own students on the basis of
****how well those students can teach. =================================================================
Rick: What would you think of the proposition that we should judge the performance of teachers of ethics by determining the moral qualities of their students? Tom Green

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 19:40:53 CST Reply-To: Education Policy Analysis Forum <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET> Sender: Education Policy Analysis Forum <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET> From: Rick Garlikov <DEMS042@UABDPO.BITNET> Subject: Re: On the Nature of Teaching In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 1 Dec 1993 09:48:40 LCL from <TFGREEN@SUVM>

Tom Green said:
****On Tue, 30 Nov 1993 19:19:51 CST Rick Garlikov said:
********What I am really getting at is that it seems to me that schools of education
********should, above all, graduate or not graduate their own students on the basis of
********how well those students can teach.
**** Rick: What would you think of the proposition that we should judge the performance of teachers of ****ethics by determining the moral qualities of their students?

I am not asking that education professors be judged on how well their students teach. I am asking that professors and schools of education not certify people to be teachers who cannot teach. Obviously not everyone learns what they are supposed to in various courses, and that is not always the fault of the teacher; but it is the fault of the teacher to pass students who do not learn what they are taught. By the way, an ethics course is not a socialization course, at least as I teach it. What I try to do in part is to help students be able to decide what is right or wrong, good or bad. I cannot make them choose the right, though I believe, as Socrates did, that people with any ethical understanding and sensitivity at all will choose the right. By passing a student I am in part certifying that he has learned to be reasonable about determining what is right or wrong, good or bad. I am not certifying he/she will always be right or will choose the socially acceptable or fashionable course. Nor am I certifying that he/she is a good person.

I don't hold schools of education accountable for teaching all their students how to be good teachers; I do hold them accountable for graduating those that are not good teachers and that the schools ought to know are not good teachers.

By the way, I had a student in one of my ethics classes pull a prank on the college by semi-hacking into their computer system and changing the password. After he did it, he realized they might not have known it was merely a prank and that no records or anything else had been tampered with. So he turned himself in and let them know that was all he had done. They were not amused, and expelled him with a much too harsh and rather stupid penance required for his reinstatement. I found out about it after the penalty had been meted out. He had not really had a fair hearing, and I wrote a long letter pleading his case (noting the irony that perhaps I should not be considered a good ethics teacher). The president of the college wrote back that my arguments had considerable merit but he would not change the punishment the faculty panel had recommended. I wrote him back asking if he would let the faculty panel read my recommendations for what I thought was a more just and helpful penance for re-instatement, to see whether they would change their recommendation. He never answered that letter. I pursued it to no avail, and gave the student a copy of my letter to use for seeking transfer to another college. I thought the kid was a good kid who had made a mistake for which he was being overzealously and irrationally punished. My letter stated that, and why. The student's grade was not all that good in the course because it was extremely difficult for him to articulate his ideas, but he had done enough to pass the course. My grade would not have certified him to be ethical. But my letter did. Education schools by their degrees are certifying people can teach, not just that they can state ed theory, etc. Rick

RICK GARLIKOV (DEMS042@UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU)

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 08:28:35 EST From: Aimee Howley <U176C@WVNVM.BITNET> Subject: Re: On the Nature of Teaching To: Multiple recipients of list EDPOLYAN <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET> In-Reply-To: Message of 12/01/93 at 19:40:53 from DEMS042@UABDPO.BITNET

Rick--

Teaching depends a great deal on context, which makes it difficult for teacher education programs to assure that their graduates can "actually" teach. Moreover, the climate of schools often discourages thoughtful teaching, so some of the very best candidates (by which I mean the ones who understand kids, subjects, and how to bring the two together meaningfully) have the worst time demonstrating their ability to teach (as that role is defined by the real schools in which they do their student teaching).

I worked with a number of student teachers whose performance in one setting was exemplary and whose performance in another was poor. Since we can't put student teachers in all the sorts of settings that they might actually find themselves, we have to rely on a few placements. Our judgments about teaching potential are, thus, quite speculative.

--Aimee Howley

bill hunter fax: (403) 282-0083 the university of calgary phone: (403) 220-5691 hunter@acs.ucalgary.ca