Summary of the Articles

The aim of this thesis was to contribute to research on practice-based teacher education, specifically on teacher candidates’ opportunities to learn that are grounded in practice within their coursework at campus. The overall research question asked: To what extent and how is the coursework within these six teacher education programs grounded in practice? This topic was investigated through three research topics, resulting in three articles, summarized in the following.

5.1.1 Article I The first article is:

Jenset, I. S., Klette, K., & Hammerness, K. (accepted for publication). Grounding teacher education in practice around the world: An examination of teacher education

coursework in teacher education programs in Finland, Norway, and the United States.

Journal of Teacher Education.

Due to the continued criticism that teacher education is not connected to real classroom teaching, this first article aimed to get an overview across teacher education programs of the extensiveness and characteristics of the instructional practices that provide opportunities grounded in practice in teacher education coursework. We focused on the research question:

In what ways is candidates’ coursework grounded in practice across programs in different national settings?

The article relied on a multi-site design with a sample of six teacher education programs from Norway, Finland, and California (US)—all interesting sites for teacher education, as highlighted in the methods section in this extended abstract. To unpack the instructional practices of teacher education, we analyzed observation data (N = 104 hours) from the methods courses of language arts and mathematics within these programs, due to a belief that these were the courses where one could expect opportunities to enact practice to occur.

Trained research assistants and I conducted the observations and took typed, running notes at each site.

63 Relying on the analytical framework developed within the CATE study, the analysis in this article focused on all eight dimensions of opportunities grounded in practice included in this framework: plan for teaching and teacher role(s); practice and rehearse teaching and teacher role(s); analyze pupils’ learning; include teaching materials, artifacts, and resources; talk about field placement; take the pupils’ perspective; see models of teaching; and see connection to national or state curriculum. The opportunities to learn across these dimensions were further analyzed through a coding book developed within the CATE study. The coding book captured the overall frequency and duration of the dimensions, as well as their quality, based on scores on a scale from 1 to 4.

We found a tendency for candidates across these programs to have quite extensive opportunities to engage in certain practices, such as to include teaching materials or to take the pupils’ perspective. However, they had far fewer opportunities to engage in practices such as to analyze pupils’ learning, to see models of teaching, or to practice and rehearse teaching.

In the article, we pointed to this pattern of opportunities across the programs, and we also gave illustrative examples of what these different opportunities grounded in practice looked like.

Based on these findings, we argued that this pattern illustrates aspects of grounding teacher education coursework in practice that are more established while others are less developed.

We pointed specifically to analysis of pupils’ learning as one area that was less developed and in need of attention. Finally, we emphasized differences across the programs and areas for development across contexts.

5.1.2 Article II

The second article is under review at Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research:

Jenset, I. S., Hammerness, K., & Klette, K. (2016). Talk about field placement within

coursework at campus: Grounding teacher education in practice. Manuscript submitted for publication.

This article highlighted research arguing that field placement experiences are critical and valued experiences in teacher education, but that these experiences should be scaffolded and elaborated more systematically. In the first article, we found that the teacher candidates had relatively frequent opportunities to talk about their field placement experiences when returning to their coursework, which was one of the eight dimensions examined in Article I. The aim of this second article was therefore to focus on this dimension explicitly, by examining how the coursework at campus functioned as a site for scaffolding the talk about field placement. The research questions were as follows: (a) What characterizes the opportunities teacher

64 candidates have to talk about field placement within their coursework at campus? and (b) How do candidates perceive these opportunities across and between programs?

In this article, the sample was three of the six programs in the overall sample, one from each of the three countries. The article reported on observation data (n = 52 hours), as well as survey data tapping specific items related to talk about field placement and opportunities to connect coursework and fieldwork (n = 269 candidates). We used Levene’s test (Field, 2009) to investigate the extent to which candidates perceived to have the opportunity to talk about field placement across the three programs. Levene’s test showed that variances were not equally distributed in one of the items. We therefore used Welch F for the overall comparison across the three programs, and Games-Howell as a post-hoc test. The observation data were analyzed using an analytical framework developed for capturing teachers’ talk at the

workplace (Little & Horn, 2007), also relevant for analyzing teacher candidates’ talk within coursework. This framework included the categories normalization (with sub-categories (a) emotional support and (b) superficial and simplified talk), specification (with sub-categories (a) detailed, (b) sustained, and (c) complex talk), and generalization (with sub-categories (a) making connections from practice to theory and (b) making connections from theory to

practice), which allowed us to analyze the characteristics of this talk and the extent to which it connected fieldwork and coursework.

The results from the survey data in this article showed that the teacher candidates in these three programs reported that they had quite similar opportunities to talk about field placement, but that the programs differed regarding how closely this talk was related to theory. The candidates from Stanford reported they had more opportunities to connect their talk to theory than those at the two other programs. This suggested we should examine more closely what characterized the talk at the different sites. Our findings from the observation data confirmed the findings from the survey data. Overall, we found many instances of talk about field placement; however, in two of the programs, this talk was mainly categorized by

normalization, or superficial and simplified talk about teaching and learning. We therefore pointed to the huge differences between the programs and argued that the talk at Stanford was more detailed, sustained, and complex (specification) than that at the others. At Stanford, the talk was also more often linked to theoretical concepts (generalization).

In the article, we discussed the critical role of all categories of talk about field placement (i.e., normalization, specification, and generalization). However, we concluded that there is a need for a more targeted pedagogy of teacher education, where conscious choices are being made as to when and how experiences from field placement should be talked about and

65 processed. We also discussed relevant differences in program size and organization of practice, and how this might influence the quality of the talk about field experiences. We emphasized that the concurrent versus interval based organization of field placement seemed to have huge implications for the quality of the conversation when candidates talk about their field

experience.

5.1.3 Article III

The third and last article is in review at European Journal of Teacher Education:

Jenset, I. S., Canrinus, E. T., Klette, K., & Hammerness, K. (2016). From a focus on teaching to a focus on learning in teacher education: Opportunities to analyze pupils’ learning within coursework at campus. Manuscript submitted for publication.

In this article, we argued that pupils’ learning is at the core of what teaching and thus teacher education is about, and that this should be highlighted during coursework at campus. In Article I, we found that the teacher candidates had scarce opportunities to analyze pupils’

learning. In Article III, we investigated this dimension explicitly, examining what

characterized the few instances that we found of these opportunities. The research questions in focus were: (a) What characterizes the opportunities the teacher candidates have to analyze pupils’ learning within their coursework at campus? and (b) How do candidates perceive these opportunities across and between programs?

This article reported on survey data tapping specific items related to analysis of pupils’

learning (n = 263 candidates) at three programs, as well as observation data on the same (N = 104 hours) at six programs. We used descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to investigate the extent to which candidates perceived they had the opportunity to analyze pupils’ learning and to compare the three programs. The observation data were analyzed using an inductive approach, open for the categories that emerged from the data, and corroborated by categories identified in existing research.

In this article, we found that the teacher candidates across the three programs reported in the survey data that they had few opportunities to look at pupils’ work, or to watch and analyze videos or transcripts of classroom interactions. This was confirmed in the observation data, where we found very few instances where the teacher candidates had opportunities to analyze pupils’ learning. We shared illustrative examples of different types of opportunities to analyze pupils’ learning that could initiate a discussion about the implications for teacher education instructional practices.

66 The article concluded that there is a need to focus more explicitly and more in depth on pupils’ learning in teacher education. We argued that a pedagogy of teacher education might profit from existing research on elicitation of pupils’ learning (Windschitl et al., 2012) and carefully model and scaffold this work for the teacher candidates.