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Author Biography

Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, Ph.D., is a Professor of Education at Kent State University, in Kent, Ohio.  Her research interests include Black women and education, video production in qualitative research, and arts based literacy instruction.  Email:  jkilgour@kent.edu.

Niagara University, New York

In an attempt to identify and examine the most essential concepts in teacher education, the authors of this piece provide an extensive list of terms that form the basis for effective Constructivist teaching and learning. In this text, the authors synthesize these major concepts and then through their application, provide the reader with a context by which they can use them in their own teaching practices. This piece also explores a powerful concept-attainment technique that teacher educators and practitioners can use to facilitate students’ conceptual understanding.

It is 4:20 p.m. and 30 preservice teachers have just settled down as their Methods of Secondary Education class is about to begin. “Good afternoon class,” their professor says, “Today we are going to learn the key concepts necessary for effective instruction at the middle and high school level.” The students shuffle papers as their teacher moves to a small wooden podium at the front of the lecture hall. “In order to foster deep student understanding,” he begins, “a teacher must use a child’s pre-existing schema coupled with the necessary scaffolding to enable the transfer of material. Schemata theory was the work of famous cognitive psychologist Jean Piaget, who believed that one understands the world by organizing new information in a network of elaborate abstract mental structures. You have a responsibility as future teachers to reject the behaviorist model that positions students as passive receptacles of knowledge and instead you can utilize a constructivist pedagogical approach that includes dialogic and cooperative-learning-based practices to facilitate concept attainment. It is essential that you use authentic assessments to allow your students to demonstrate the skills and competencies of the subject you are teaching.” The future teachers stare blankly at the professor as he begins passing out a stapled packet to each student. “Right now, I am passing out a list of 34 concepts you must know before student teaching. Memorize them because you will have a multiple choice test on them next class.”
Key Concepts for Teacher Education

In teacher education, as in any course of study, there is a set of essential concepts that students must develop a deep understanding of before they are ready to embark upon future careers. These key ideas are at the heart of their teacher education courses, and students should be intimately aware of these concepts by the time they leave the university’s doors. At our institution, as part of on-going curriculum development, a small group of students and teachers closely linked to the Niagara University secondary program has identified 34 key concepts at a series of regional meetings. These concepts are based upon the educational theories that all teachers should be familiar with and are the concepts that we expect our students to be able to “think with” before student teaching. As you browse these essential concepts listed in alphabetical order (Figure 1) and then by theorist associated with the concept’s public understanding (Figure 2), try to identify their role within your teacher education program and evaluate their importance in preparing future educators. Please keep in mind that this list of terms is by no means inclusive but is apart of our living curriculum, subject to change and continuous revision.

Key Concepts for Teacher Education

As is consistent with Schemata theory, as you read the list of key concepts, you most likely attempted to make sense of these words by developing informal relationships between them. For example, when you came across the word interventions in the list of key concepts, it is likely you began thinking about types of interventions, perhaps what interventions look like in the classroom. From there it is likely you formed a mental linkage between the concept intervention and the concepts of scaffolding and differentiation, noting each is an example of a planned intervention. While this is a very powerful way of developing deep understanding, such practices are even more useful when they are recorded and analyzed. One means by which we can document these relationships is through concept mapping. The authors have created a concept map outline for the 34 key concepts in Figure 3. You will notice, however, that this concept map is missing the linking phrases that show the relationships between these words. Please use this map to record your thoughts by showing the linkage between these ideas as it best makes sense to you.

While there are an infinite number of linking phrases that could connect these concepts, the authors have chosen to associate these ideas in the manner displayed in Figure 4. As you look at this sample response, evaluate any differences between the concept map you created and the one provided by the authors. Analyze why such differences may have occurred, noting any linking words with which you particularly agree or disagree. Also, as you consider the concept map, please identify any additional concepts you think should be added to this concept map to better meet the needs of your teacher education program.

The exercise you just completed epitomizes the sort of student-centered-learning practices necessary in all areas of education. Please note that unlike the situation in the vignette presented at the beginning of this article, at no time did you receive the definitions of these words with the intent of memorizing and retelling them. Even though there is clear evidence as to your current level of understanding of the 34 concepts, there is no multiple-choice test at the end of this paper or prolonged lecture preparing you to demonstrate your understanding.

Instead, with this activity you were able to create your own connections, play with different relationships, and then organize the information in a way that is personally meaningful and makes sense to you. Not only was the learning experience differentiated to fit your needs and your current level of understanding, but it was also far more thought provoking than was the lecture at the beginning of this article. This is just one example of the sort of learning experiences we seek to foster in our teacher education programs, and this activity provides an example of an effective Constructivist instructional practice one could utilize at any level.
Why Would One Utilize Such a Task in a Teacher Education Program?

It is by the very nature of Constructivist learning experiences that the same benefits you experienced while completing this task would be true for any teacher education student. Since it is impossible to record the linking phrases without thinking deeply about each concept and drawing conclusions, constructing one’s own meaning is an innate component of this task. While these benefits may seem like common sense, these claims are consistent with the latest research on cognitive benefits of concept mapping. The ability to articulate the interconnections between concepts has been shown to enhance student focus on salient rather than irrelevant aspects of a discipline (Novak & Canas, 2000) as well as increase students’ ability to transfer fundamental concepts learned in school to various real-life situations (Jonassen, Reeves, Hong, Harvey, & Peters, 1997). Please note that this is no small benefit when one considers that in the realm of teacher education, students who are able to transfer educational theory into practice are those who will begin teaching with a clearer understanding of their personal teaching philosophies.

It is also worth noting that students of all ages develop a great sense of ownership and a feeling of power when allowed to demonstrate their own unique understanding of important material (Glasser, 1998). Unlike the multiple-choice test that the professor in the opening vignette planned to give his students, this activity does not demand one right answer but rather it allows learners the opportunity to provide meaningful application of their understanding. As Flynn and colleagues (2007) explain, concept maps can be powerful discussion starters, encouraging learners to debate and justify their rationale to others. Not only will the future teachers who participate in this discussion be actively involved in the learning process, but they will also be able to examine different points of view, evaluate the different evidences supporting various viewpoints, and make judgments using various criteria in the academic field. Additionally, meaningful academic discussions can help students develop important personal and social competencies, such as listening to others, making clear statements of personal opinion, and respecting and understanding diverse beliefs (Goleman, 2006).

Lastly, as is the case with other authentic assessments, the creation of this concept map can serve as a powerful tool educators can use to guide instruction and make curriculum adjustments (Novak, 1990). Given these are the most essential concepts that all future secondary teachers at our institution need to deeply understand before student teaching, if a teacher educator were to notice his or her students lack a flexible understanding of several of the items or an inability to relate several concepts, those should be the focus of future instruction. In this way, the completion of this concept map is not only an assessment tool for the students but also means for evaluating both teaching and learning.

As is stated in the title of this article, it is crucial that we, as teacher educators, begin to think about student thinking. The preceding activity is only one way we can glimpse into our students’ thoughts, but it is through Constructivist-based activities such as these that we can better identify and meet the needs of our students. By thinking about our students’ thinking and working to develop these essential concepts in a student- centered, personally meaningful way, we will ensure that our students have a deep understanding of the key ideas, thereby creating effective future teachers.

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Author Biographies

Karrie A. Jones is a high-school mathematics teacher in Buffalo, New York and a graduate student at Niagara University. Email: kajones_00@yahoo.com.

Email: jljones_00@yahoo.com.

SUNY College at Oneonta

This nonfiction book is based on an in-depth multi-year qualitative research study that took place in Nova Scotia’s rural Digby Neck region, which had been a dominant fishing province for centuries. According to Corbett,

this book is an account of education in one of [the] rural communities that persists in a reliance on a single resource industry…and attempts to understand how it is that certain people remain in Atlantic Canadian coastal communities while others leave. In other words, how do some rural youth “learn to leave” while others “learn to stay”? (p. 31)

To answer this question, Corbett interviewed a cadre of high-school graduates and drop-outs from three cohorts: those who attended Digby Neck Consolidated High School between 1963 and 1974, between 1975 and 1986, and between 1987 and 1998. In addition, he interviewed a variety of teachers, families, and community members. In general, he found that in comparison to their female counterparts in all three cohorts who left to pursue higher education, males tended to stay in Digby Neck. Whether it was because fishing in the earlier years was more lucrative or whether in later years they were inheriting a less open fishery and potential economic decline, young men of Digby Neck tended to follow in their fathers’ footsteps because they firmly believed fishing to be their “birthright.”

Corbett shows how some of the youth who have accrued mobility capital become disconnected with home, family, and community. Consequently, they then choose to leave and pursue work or higher education elsewhere. Whereas those who remain, perceive formal education as decontextualized, foreign, and of no use for what they will need in their daily lives of fishing. In this study, Corbett contests the not-so-subtle message rural schools give their students, pushing them to leave or to migrate outside their home communities in order to find “success” elsewhere. Those that stay are perceived as failures or as the ones who could not be “saved.” Corbett turns this notion on its head and challenges rural educators to look more closely at the role of formal education and at the ways in which its standardized context-impoverished curriculum has marginalized rural youth everywhere. According to Corbett,

definitions of “success” current among contemporary school promoters may be at odds with those found in traditional coastal communities. In rural and coastal places, community success stories are often simultaneously stories of school failure; dropouts typically stay and contribute to the community. The way these categories (success and failure) are constructed in terms of allegiance to place are seldom considered. (p. 31)

The reader cannot escape Corbett’s message that place and choosing to stay in one’s community has value, meaning, and fulfillment. He brings us through the experiences, the resistance, and the struggles faced by those who stay as well as those who leave. We are shown first hand why and how youth make choices, whether expected or predicted; we come to learn about their struggles and contemplations. As I read this book, I became more and more enthralled. I found myself becoming more and more critical of the assumptions that have been made over many years in rural education. As Corbett states,

in many coastal communities, the family “norm” is to stay, and leaving means moving to a foreign space, where outcomes are unknown, a space where the known habitus cannot map the future. In less economically privileged sectors of rural and coastal communities, the idea of choice is a cruel fiction, a form of symbolic violence perpetuated by educators and bureaucrats looking for a victim to blame. (p. 30)

What disservice have we done to our rural youth in our unwillingness to comprehend and value their choices? How have we “written them off” and when did that start? Corbett provokes us to probe deeper in understanding the value of context and place and the role it plays in rural youth making choices about their future lives. He clearly brings home the point that community, family or kin, place and home are often far more important than potential “success” elsewhere. This isn’t to say that those who choose to leave do so without agony and emotional distress in their decision-making. Clearly, they do struggle. Has this, too, gone without notice or regard? If so, what messages are we sending rural youth?

This book is a gift to those who value rural education as something other than an arms race to high-stakes testing—or as Theobald calls it—the “intellectual poverty of regnant educational policy” and curriculum that persists in the education systems of the United States and Canada (p. 1). Undoubtedly, it is one of the greatest contributions to research in this field during the past decade. I have been in rural education for 20 years and have witnessed the delegitimization of rural youth, particularly those in poverty and those who choose to stay in their communities and who choose not to pursue education or employment elsewhere. In fact, there has been a long history of marginalizing the rural knowledge that youth, families, and community members possess quickly discharging it calling it irrelevant or “backwater.” Formal education has been quick to claim that individuals’ notions of literacy, science, engineering, history, or mathematics is not what current educational policy claims as such. In so doing, we have missed the boat. We have discarded, overlooked, and dismissed the contribution of this rural population. And they in turn, as Corbett states, have resisted what formal education and corporate America offer. He goes on to say,

The prevailing idea of a standardized curriculum, standardized programs, programmatic pedagogies, standardized texts and standardized tests will continue to render school irrelevant for large numbers of students in rural, northern and coastal communities…. Furthermore, this education approach will reinforce the idea that education is fundamentally about learning things that someone, somewhere decides to be important. This ethereal somewhere is always, it seems, an urban place, and its abstract, standardized knowledge is necessarily divorced from the multiplicity of rural contexts. In the end, accountability will come to mean that children and teachers will be forced to render accounts to distant, powerful others, not to their parents, their communities and even to themselves. (p. 273)

As a solution, Corbett and other rural educators strongly advocate (as do I) that education move to a more place-based pedagogy—a critical pedagogy of place (Gruenweld, 2003)—that takes a contextualized approach to learning that according to Theobald (2007), “yields far greater insight into the human condition than that which students typically garner from teaching intended to produce success on tests.” Although Corbett recognizes the inherent complexity of rural education and recognizes that there isn’t one pedagogical remedy, he still insists that we rethink our current approach to education in order to address the needs of those who choose to remain close to home as well as those who choose to leave.

Although I believe including photographs documenting this story would bring a face to the voices we have heard, I don’t have any other criticisms of this work. For anyone in education, rural or otherwise, I highly recommend this book as work that challenges our assumptions about youth and schooling and a current policy that employs a contextually barren approach to learning and teaching.