discursive practice among teachers co-learning during field-based elementary science teacher...

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This article was downloaded by: [Ams/Girona*barri Lib] On: 17 October 2014, At: 05:24 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Action in Teacher Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uate20 Discursive Practice among Teachers Co- Learning during Field-based Elementary Science Teacher Preparation Sharon E. Nichols a & Kenneth Tobin b a East Carolina University , USA b University of Pennsylvania , USA Published online: 10 Feb 2012. To cite this article: Sharon E. Nichols & Kenneth Tobin (2000) Discursive Practice among Teachers Co- Learning during Field-based Elementary Science Teacher Preparation, Action in Teacher Education, 22:2A, 45-54, DOI: 10.1080/01626620.2000.10463038 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2000.10463038 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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This article was downloaded by: [Ams/Girona*barri Lib]On: 17 October 2014, At: 05:24Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Action in Teacher EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uate20

Discursive Practice among Teachers Co-Learning during Field-based ElementaryScience Teacher PreparationSharon E. Nichols a & Kenneth Tobin ba East Carolina University , USAb University of Pennsylvania , USAPublished online: 10 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: Sharon E. Nichols & Kenneth Tobin (2000) Discursive Practice among Teachers Co-Learning during Field-based Elementary Science Teacher Preparation, Action in Teacher Education,22:2A, 45-54, DOI: 10.1080/01626620.2000.10463038

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2000.10463038

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Discursive Practice among Teachers Co-Learning During Field-based Elementary Science Teacher Preparation

Sharon E. Nichols East Carolina University

Kenneth Tobin University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Over the past decade, there has been increasing emphasis for the development of collaborative approaches in teacher education (Carnegie, 1986; Holmes, 1986, 1990, 1995; Levine, 1992; National Research Council, 1996; Raizen & Michelsohn, 1994). While tremendous strides have been made toward bridging the proverbial “theory and practice” gap, more work is needed to examine the nature of learning experienced by educators as they participate in these collaborative situations. In this study, we focus on how and why prospective and classroom teachers appropriate their thoughts and actions during co-learning situations, and the implications this might have for design of field-based teacher-learning.

Referents and Learning to Teach Science

Understanding what teachers do, and what they consider necessary to be done in classrooms, can be examined by looking at “referents” underpinning teachers’ knowledge and classroom practices. In a series of studies, Tobin and colleagues have identified several central referents that influence teaching practice: beliefs about knowing and learning, power and control, and restraints as forces that shape the enacted cumculum (Tobin & LaMaster, 1995; Tobin & McRobbie, 1996; Tobin, Tippins & Hook, 1994). For the most part, this aspect of teachers’ knowledge (i.e., referents of teaching practice) is intuitive and, although it constrains the actions of teachers, most teachers do not often articulate explicit reasons for doing what they are doing. A tendency not to assign language to their teaching actions is compounded by the fact that most teachers are isolated from other teachers when they are teaching. Accordingly, teaching is practiced without using available language resources that can assist in reflection on teachers’ referents for action. In addition, there is a lack of a social milieu to encourage teachers’ communicative activity.

One significant exception to this situation of isolation in teaching occurs when student teachers are placed in teachers’ classrooms. Teaching, when regarded as a community of practice, poses an opportunity for prospective and practicing teachers to utilize and develop their discursive resources such as talking, writing, cognition, argumentation, and representation (Fairclough, 1992). In this context of student teachers wanting to learn to teach, numerous discursive resources can be accessed during field-based teacher preparation experiences. These include experiences such as observing and engaging in discussions about teaching and learning. It is possible for practicing and prospective teachers to communicate and to learn ways that enhance their teaching through observations of one another teaching and through discussions of the reasons for teaching in particular ways.

Student teaching situations, however, might not provide optimal environments for learning to teach. Teacher educators have emphasized difficulties faced by student teachers as they try to learn about teaching while being caught between the divergent philosophies and practices of university and classroom teachers (Cochran-Smith, 1991 ; Wiseman & Cooner, 1996). Additionally, there are obstacles to establishing meaningful collaboration when supervising and prospective teachers differ significantly in how they think about teaching and learning and how they teach. Whereas a close fit between the beliefs of a classroom teacher, student teacher, and university educator might seem optimal, theoretical reasons do not require such a fit. However, when sharp differences in epistemological perspectives between prospective and practicing teachers are manifest, prospective

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teachers are more likely to conform to the practices of their supervising teachers (Chie, 1975; Copeland, 1979; Friebus, 1977; Karmos & Jacko, 1977). Usually this represents a deference to authority rather than a position that is argued and rational. Thus, the potential for prospective teachers to learn through the discourse of field experiences is undermined as power inequities assign pre-eminence of one voice over others. Ideas about the roles each should play in the student-teacher and supervising teacher relationship are complicated by the diverse referents they bring to teaching and learning in classroom contexts.

We maintain that field experiences should provide opportunities for prospective teachers to gain awareness of, and test the viability of their beliefs about teaching; these experiences should take place in a co-learning teacher community. To create optimal learning situations we must examine the role of discursive practices and create of resources most conducive co-participatory learning. In this study, several questions served as central foci:

What informs prospective and practicing teachers about the roles they assume during collaborative learning experiences? What are the constraints to the development of co-participatory learning relationships among prospective and classroom teachers? What are the implications for the design of field experiences if the “field” is to serve as a shared learning experience for prospective and practicing teachers?

We explore these issues by drawing upon several theoretical frameworks, namely those of discursive practices and co-participatory learning, and through the construction of an instrumental case of teacher-learning in a field-based experience.

Discursive Practices in Co-Participatory Learning Environments

When learning is viewed as a process of shared meaning-making among individuals, it is essential to observe practices which specify ways members of a group engage in learning. The notion of “discursive practice” refers to the means by which practices are specified among group members and serves as a useful concept for framing how prospective teachers learn to teach. Discursive practices are communicated via “texts” which, in a broad sense, are manifest as written, spoken products, or deeds (Fairclough, 1992; Lemke, 1995). Various “texts” mediate the learning of prospective teachers including, for example, unit plans, student teaching evaluations, and modeled teaching practices. Such texts serve to specify and reinforce the practices of prospective teachers learning to teach. Choices are made in regard to the appropriateness of language, format or actions expressed through such texts. As Lemke (1995) points out, decisions about which texts can be utilized in communities, or the extent to which interpretive possibilities are permitted, are constrained within a larger social milieu which ideologically shapes these decisions:

Every text or event takes its meaning in part from being seen in the community.. . . They have systematic relations to one another, and those relations define and are defined by the larger social relationships of classes, genders, age groups, political constituencies, and significant social divisions of every kind. (p. 32)

Dialectical struggles are engaged as “members’ practices are shaped in ways which they usually are unaware by social structures and relations of power, and the nature of the social practice they are engaged in whose stakes go beyond producing meanings” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 72). Implications associated with discursive practices and concomitant struggles in learning to teach are of concern given our interest to reconstruct field-based experiences as potential co-learning experiences for prospective and practicing teachers.

Becoming co-learning teachers challenges traditional images of the student-teacher and teacher relationship- diverging from a novice/apprentice-like relationship toward a co-participatory status. The notion of “participation” implies that efforts are made to sustain parity in terms of who

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is empowered to negotiate activities of student teaching with an understanding of what is at stake in the negotiatory process (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Lemke, 1995). In other words, it is not sufficient to say that everyone has a voice in the decision-making process; those involved must have adequate resources to inform their decision-making and a personally vested interest in the outcomes. Prospective teachers are, for the most part, at a disadvantage in this arena as they are typically “placed” in classrooms for a limited amount of time with a teacher unlikely aware of what has been taught at the university and supervised by a third party, the university supervisor who likely has little more than a superficial understanding of the experiences of the prospective or practicing teachers. If co-participation is to occur, it is necessary for the prospective and practicing teachers to work together and maintain an on-going dialogue about the directions both teachers believe teaching and learning should take. Through co-participation, the teachers provide warrants for knowledge claims, elaborate understandings and practices, juxtapose differences, and examine the extent of the fit between their expressed positions and the perceived needs of learners in the classroom community.

Understanding the emergence of referents which constrain how our prospective and practicing teachers conceptualize and negotiate their learning during field experiences is essential to provide a basis for rethinking our approaches toward design of student teaching experiences. While diverse resources mediate learning among teachers, in this study we were particularly interested to focus on the nature of discursive practices among prospective and practicing teachers. We are aware that particular written resources (i.e., written lesson plans, journals) are typically used to support teacher-learning among prospective and practicing teachers, however information is lacking regarding referents associated with discursive resources based on the interactions among participants in professional practice settings. This study serves as a beginning point for us to learn about teachers’ discursive practices and the implications this has for developing co-participatory, learning environments in field-based, teacher preparation experiences.

A Case Study of Field-Based Teacher-Learning

Context of the Studv

Events of this study took place at an elementary school, Pinetree Elementary School, located in a middle-sized town in the southeastern United States. Pinetree Elementary had been working with a university, science teacher preparation program to establish a Professional Development School (PDS). Sharon, a graduate student from the science education program, was involved in establishing links between the university program and teachers from the emergent PDS site. Nicky was a prospective elementary teacher participating in a newly designed earth science content course taught during the summer. Sharon had the opportunity to meet Nicky as she occasionally visited in the earth science course. Aware that Nicky would be seeking a place to do her observations during the upcoming fall semester, Sharon offered to locate a placement at the Pinetree PDS. Diana, a fourth-grade teacher at Pinetree, indicated interest to Sharon to have a prospective teacher participate in her classroom. Thus, at the beginning of the fall semester, the two teachers were introduced to each other by Sharon, and upon their mutual agreement, Nicky was placed with Diana at the PDS. The interactions of these participants provided a context for us to examine issues relevant to teacher- learning among prospective and practicing teachers during a field experience.

Refram ine Our LRarnine as An Instrumental Case Stu dv

This case study is based upon data collected as part of a larger study undertaken by one of the authors, Sharon (Nichols, 1994). As an “instrumental case study” (Stake, 1994), our theoretical frames foreground situations we perceive as salient toward understanding teachers’ discursive practices in the context of a prospective teachers’ field experience. While it was not our original

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intent to focus on discursive practices, our subsequent introduction to notions of shared practices in learning communities (e.g., Lemke, 1995; Roth, 1995) provided a new context to learn from our experiences.

Sharon observed, interviewed, and to a small extent co-participated in planning and teaching with the study participants. Various qualitative data sources were accessed including: a teacher- learning environment questionnaire (Nichols, Tippins, & Crockett, 1996), field notes, transcripts of informal interviews, and journals kept by Nicky and Sharon. Initially, all 3 participants agreed to write in a collaborative journal and to meet at least weekly during lunch for informal discussions; however as various situations evolved, the dynamics of communication among participants changed. Although our situation fell short in terms of creating an “ideal” co-learning teacher experience, there are important lessons to be considered concerning the nature of discursive practices and co-participatory teacher learning. We reflect on these lessons through a narrative construction of this instrumental case study, followed by a discussion of what we have learned.

A Narrative Look at Nickv’s Field Experience

Nicky was completing her final year in the elementary teacher education program and was assigned a field experience with Diana and her fourth-grade class. The ‘assignment’ of student teachers to classroom teachers is typically a ‘blind’ process whereby willing teachers are matched up with prospective teachers who are enrolled in teacher education methods courses. In this case, however, Sharon facilitated the arrangement. Sharon was familiar with both participants and thought they would be an ideal pair to interact as co-learners. Upon Sharon’s suggestion, Nicky and Diana met and then agreed to collaborate in a student-teaching field experience. Early October, Nicky received her notice of student teacher placement from the Student Teaching Office. She was excited- not only did she now have permission to visit the classroom teacher, but she could also make arrangements with Diana to begin working on assignments she’d been given by her university, methods instructors.

According to the requirements of the university Student Teacher Office, Nicky needed to negotiate with Diana a schedule that would allow her to visit Diana’s classroom 2.5 days a week over a 10-week period and to complete two weeks of “total teaching” (i.e., assume full responsibility for the classroom) in November. On Nicky‘s first visit, she brought her lists of assignments and due dates. There were interviews to be carried out with teachers and students, math diagnostic tests to be performed with each individual student in Diana’s classroom, and planning and teaching of a two- week thematic unit in mid-November. Diana and Nicky worked out a schedule to accommodate Nicky’s completion of assignments.

Diana cleared a table on the side of the classroom where Nicky could carry out her tasks and observe during her visits to the classroom. Sharon observed a routine where Nicky would: arrive, take out her assignments, prioritize which ones to work on, “pull students” to work with, and review what she was learning. Nicky later commented:

It was so sad that my first day and the weeks that followed were so busy with getting methods assignments done. I couldn’t get time to really talk with Diana or watch what was going in the classroom. I did get to watch her teach a little. That’s how I knew about their need to learn note-taking skills and how she organizes them by putting assignments up on the board, and the reward system she uses ... but I felt so pressured to get all those methods class assignments done.

After her initial orientation, Nicky began to assume more teaching responsibilities in the classroom to prepare for the two-week “total teach“. After 3 weeks, Diana became inaccessible to Nicky in the classroom; Diana had become preoccupied with school site-based management issues. During planning or lunch periods, Nicky found it difficult to talk with Diana as she was either on the phone or busy talking with other faculty members.

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Initially, Nicky was not troubled by Diana’s unavailability, as this gave her ‘a chance to really be in charge of the classroom’ and to complete her university course assignments. Over the next two weeks, Nicky assumed a more prominent role teaching the entire class group. Diana was beginning to see the situation as a mixed blessing as her resources for professional development were expanding due to Nicky ’s presence and her professional commitments at the school:

I really like having someone else to learn with. I get few opportunities like this to see someone else’s ideas. I just wish I could focus on teaching. We have all this school-based management stuff now, and I’m their token minority, so I feel pressured to deal with those issues.

While Diane dealt with her own expanding professional role and learning, Nicky increasingly felt a struggle to maintain a learning relationship with Diana:

I wish we [Diana and she] could talk more. She’s like a greased pig-- hard to catch! There are so many people always coming in and out of the room wanting to talk with her about their team things and getting the computer stuff organized. I know Diana was wanting me here so she could have a ‘critical friend [a reference we borrowed from Carr & Kemmis, 19861; she doesn’t feel there is anyone else at her stage [in career] and young here to talk with. But she is so preoccupied with the school and her own problems, we just don’t talk.

As Diana and Nicky experienced shifts in their responsibilities, they also changed their perceptions of the role of dialogue in their learning and teaching practice. Nicky found that she needed more time to talk with Diana as she became a more integral part of classroom instruction; whereas, Diana felt a greater need to talk with colleagues outside of her classroom as her responsibilities for school- wide, decision-making increased.

Nicky decided she would make the best of the situation. She immediately put into action teaching strategies she learned at the university and practices she believed would facilitate “better” learning in the classroom. Nicky implemented practices such as cooperative learning, learning centers, and hands-on science - approaches that were unfamiliar to the students. While she believed, foremost, that such practices were appropriate, as they would enhance children’s learning, she also believed she needed to implement such strategies in order to receive a passing grade on her university teaching evaluation.

Of all the teaching strategies Nicky learned at the university, cooperative group learning was one she believed would most effectively facilitate meaningful student learning. In private conversations with Sharon, Nicky criticized Diana for not using cooperative groups. Diana, later shared with Nicky and Sharon her perspective that co-operative learning had the potential to invite inequitable learning experiences and was cautious about using this approach:

Too much cooperative learning always leaves someone out. There’s always someone that’s the leader, always someone that’s a follower. I know I should go around and give everybody a job in their group. But I just don’t think that’s realistic. There are always going to be those people that do someone else’s job. In our lives there are those dominant people. Whether they work in groups of two, three or five, it puts people in positions.

Diana believed co-operative groups encouraged children to adopt dominant and subordinate positions in learning and that diverse teaching strategies needed to be used. At the time Nicky was assuming her “total teaching” role, Diana had only been using this strategy with the class a short time. Diana had experienced difficulty teaching her students to work together in groups larger than two. Simultaneous to Nicky’s arrival, she was in the process of teaching her students to learn in small and large groups. Nicky had not been present to understand the processes Diana had been negotiating to help her students learn to work together.

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Problems began to emerge for Nicky when her various teaching approaches did not fit the usual learning routine of this classroom. Children, who had been working well as partners while Diana was teaching, now seemed unable to coordinate their roles to function as cooperative learning groups. When Nicky directed students to work in their groups, fussing and fighting would immediately follow, as they struggled to share materials or organize themselves to work together. Disruptive behavior seemed to be escalating and Nicky was unsure of how to cope with the increasing noise levels and incidence of disruption. The students complained that they were unable to get their work done because Nicky was “making them move on.” One student commented to Sharon, “I don’t want her [Nicky] to tell me I have to finish. We know we’re supposed to get everything done by Friday. I can take it home if I’m not done.” Dissension became widespread as Nicky endeavored to change the class “reward system.” During her first week of “total teaching”, she discontinued the reward of ”Fun Friday,” a half-day of video watching, offering instead what she believed were fun science learning centers. The students complained that they- ‘...just wanted to get their work done so that they could have fun--like they did when Ms. Simmons was teaching.’ Toward the end of the semester, Nicky felt it was best to reinstate Diana’s reward system saying, “Things were just too hard to change; it would be easier on everyone just to keep things as they were.”

Nicky’s responsibilities for “total teaching” were coming to an end. Both teachers talked in terms of how Diana was going to “take back” her classroom. A party was given by the classroom, students to say farewell to Nicky. Nicky discontinued her visits to the classroom allowing her to work on completing assignments for her university methods course. Alone again in her classroom, Diana initiated plans- “to help her students catch up on work as having a student teacher got them behind in learning what they were supposed to learn.” Later, at the university, Nicky presented a portfolio to her university instructor to share what and how she had learned from her field experience.

Discussion

In retrospect, we see a fundamental need to examine more closely our assumptions associated with creating teacher-learning communities; communities wherein the discursive practices of co- participating prospective and practicing teachers can be displayed, negotiated, and enhanced.

Communities are complex social arrangements. Sergiovanni (1 994) describes a “community” as having 4 characteristics: kinship, place, mind, and a community memory. Looking back through the narrative case constructed about Nicky, we can examine issues associated with developing teacher-learning communities in field experiences. In a sense, we might see that several fragmented communities were operating in the context of Diana’s classroom.

First, we had a university community which virtually extended into Diana’s classroom, but which did not encompass the roles and goals of the 4th grade community. Although Nicky had physically left the university campus, her actions and language reflected practices of the university, teacher education community. We notice that Nicky came to the 4th grade classroom with universi- ty assignments in-hand. These assignments, rather than interactions of the classroom, served as the “texts” through which Nicky focused and articulated her perspectives of teaching. Her beliefs and teaching actions primarily reflected those learned through her university instruction, and only minimally those enacted by the classroom teacher. In the classroom, Diana provided Nicky a table area where she could conduct her work with students and maintain her personal belongings. In a more symbolic sense, the “clearing of a space” represented Diana’s physical admittance of Nicky in the classroom. Nicky’s actions were consistent with the discursive practices of the university community, and so too were those of Diana, who knew her role was to stay clear of Nicky as she enacted the goals and roles, valued by the university. Meanwhile, Diana was busy negotiating not

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only the community of her classroom, but also the emergence of a new school-based, governing community. Diana “slipped” out to carry out her committee tasks, while Nicky assumed teaching responsibilities in her classroom; likely, Diana felt it was appropriate for her to act in this manner for two reasons. One, there were signs to suggest that Nicky was self-sufficient, and that she could accomplish her goals independently of Diana. Nicky’s reference to “total teach” and “take over the classroom” signaled to Diana that Nicky expected to be in full control of the classroom. Second, Diana had reason to believe she should attend to responsibilities outside of her classroom, as this was increasingly becoming the practice of other teachers in her community. The professional boundaries of Diana’s classroom were unclear to Nicky as faculty freely entered the classroom throughout the day to interact with Diana, and even more so once Diana “slipped” away to attend to the committee responsibilities. Lacking a sense of professional community, there was little to support these two teachers for the purposes of meeting and sharing about their ideas and practices.

Nicky was a border-crosser into the classroom and needed to negotiate her place and role in this new community, along with Diana and her students. Problems arose, in that Diana’s classroom needed to accommodate the various goals and activities of all members of the classroom community. A central community was maintained in Diana’s classroom, which was comprised of one teacher and students. The boundaries of this community were not re-negotiated such that both teachers would be able to practice and learn alongside of each other. Instead, as one teacher became the 4th-grade teacher, the other was relegated to the side, to work towards the goals of yet another community. That Nicky was unsuccessful was no surprise since she was a marginal participant, without power and without the discursive resources to become a central participant from the start. Nicky tried to change the practices of the community in a unilateral way that ignored the goals of participants in that community and did not allow them a voice in deciding what their roles would be in the evolving community. Her failure to negotiate with students left her isolated from them and unable to learn by co-participating with them.

Lave and Wenger’s (1995) notion of “peripheral legitimate participation” is a useful perspective to interject as it proposes a view of community in which there is no center or edge to support marginalizing or privileging; in their model, all participants are positioned on the periphery such that no singular view is more legitimate than another. Perhaps Nicky did not see herself as a legitimate participant in this classroom community. Did she see herself as having opportunity to participate as a learner among the others in the classroom? Did she ask Diana if they could team- teach? Did Diana volunteer to team-teach with Nicky? Clearly, the answer to these questions is no. They did not talk about such, nor did it occur to them that they should because they were participating in different communities enacting roles that they understood. The site of the school promised those with a vision of a Professional Practice School an opportunity to build a different type of community, but neither Nicky nor Diana had the idea of community and they were unaware of the need to negotiate goals and associated roles for creating one. They did not know the importance of negotiating a new language that is shared, in the effort to enable them to attain their goals of learning to teach better. Finally, it also seems to be the case that neither Nicky nor Diana was aware of the importance of their co-participation extending to the classroom and involving the students, as well as themselves, in the development of resources that could mutually benefit teacher and student learning.

Implications

In this study, we have looked at the prospective teacher field experience in terms of discursive practices and co-participation among teacher-learners. The notion of “discursive practice” emphasizes that teaching practice involves unique and socially-embedded ways of thinking and acting. In elementary science teaching we might see discursive practices represented through the use of particular curricular resources such as science kits, the display of a “tool” such as a K-W-L

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science chart to facilitate instruction and student involvement in learning, or teachers using the language of “hands-on, minds-on” to articulate their philosophy of science teaching. The initiation, display, and continued use of such practices have much to say about what the local community believes about their roles and goals in teaching and learning. Negotiation among members of the classroom community determines how (or if) they will participate in such practices. What we have seen in this case study is that newcomers, as in this case -- prospective teachers, may not be aware of, or perhaps in agreement with the negotiated practices of a classroom community as these may not reflect those represented through the university, teacher education program. If field experiences are to engage prospective and practicing teachers as co-participating learners, then it is important for them to have ways to make apparent their beliefs and practices about teaching and learning and to discuss these. This could be done through showing “tools” such as lesson plans they are using, or texts they have read for professional learning, or dialogue journaling to display what might otherwise remain as inaccessible ideas they have about teaching.

Another issue to be considered is the negotiation of border crossing. Depending upon the nature of the school-university relationship, several communities are in some way, involved in the field experience. Boundary crossing in the field experience poses a potentially precarious situation -- especially to newcomers in the educational profession. In the case of Nicky’s field experience, there was an overlap of boundaries of several communities -- the university, teacher education program, the professional teacher community of Pine Tree Elementary, and Diane’s 4th-grade classroom. Had Nicky and Diane taken the opportunity to first talk about their perceived roles and goals for science teaching, and then negotiated how these might fit in the current situations of Diane’s 4th-grade community, then perhaps a collaborative-constructed approach could have emerged to support a more productive learning experience for all involved. Dialogue among teachers about the nature of their discursive practices can serve as a means for facilitating entry into new environment, or better yet, support the development of teacher-learning communities with blurred boundaries. In this sense, the field experience can become an opportunity for co-learning teachers to explore the development of resources conducive to teaching and learning in the unique contexts of classroom communities.

Finally, framing this case in the perspectives of discursive practice and co-participatory teacher-learning calls our attention to the contextual and idiosyncratic nature of teaching which can challenge this process. It is inappropriate to relegate responsibilities of negotiation and community building to prospective and practicing teachers. In our case study, the PDS was an emergent site where the university and school had agreed to collaborate in teacher education. Our transition from a traditional “clinical” model to a collaborative endeavor is calling for ways to negotiate our philosophies and practices. Constructing instrumental case studies, such as we have done here, can serve as a tool to support our dialogue and to critically reflect on our practices. Ultimately, we are encouraged to see field-based, teacher-learning as an educational commitment and practice to be shared and developed among university and schoolteacher communities.

Sharon Nichols’ current research interests include: case-based teacher education pedagogy, sociocultural issues in elementary science teaching, and narrative inquiry research.

Kenneth Tobins’ current research interests include: teaching and learning of science in urban settings, focusing on equity issues, learning, change, reform, and policy issues.

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