Jl. of Technology and Teacher Education (2008) 16(4), 411-433
Exploring the Effectiveness of a Field Experience Program in a Pedagogical Laboratory: The Experience of Teacher Candidates Yuxin Ma, Guolin Lai, Doug Williams, Louise Prejean, and Mary Jane Ford University of Louisiana at Lafayette USA
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Researchers argue that teachers’ beliefs are the final barrier that prevents technology integration. To affect change in teacher candidates’ beliefs of technology integration, we created a pedagogical laboratory as well as a field experience program that operates within the pedagogical laboratory. This article presents a qualitative study of teacher candidates’ field experience in the pedagogical laboratory. It describes the challenges teacher candidates have encountered, the impact of the experience on their learning and beliefs, the support and resources needed by the candidates, as well as the factors that might have contributed to differing experiences and perceptions in the pedagogical laboratory. Findings from this study may inform the design of similar field experience programs.
In recent years, infusing technology into K -12 education is at the forefront of teacher education in the United States (Earle, 2002; Mims, Polly, Shepherd, & Inan, 2006). This is reflected in the strong emphasis placed by the federal government in expanding computer use in K-12 classrooms (United States Department of Education, 2001). The Preparing Tomorrow’s
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Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) program, an initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Education, has provided million of dollars to teacher education programs nationwide to target technology integration (United States Department of Education, 2004). These efforts have achieved much success in increasing technology use in schools (United States Department of Education, 2003), but surprisingly, current use of technology is still limited to the application of basic computer tools to support traditional approaches to teaching (Ertmer, 2005). Researchers’ vision of using technology to facilitate constructivist, student-centered learning is still a distant and daunting goal (Ertmer; Mims et al.). Researchers have attempted to address this issue. In a review of 24 PT3 projects, Mims et al. (2006) found that some projects have employed strategies to help teacher candidates and teacher educators to go beyond skill acquisition to facilitate technology integration (Bullock, 2004; Mims et al.). The strategies include providing personal or vicarious experience with technology-rich lessons, modeling best practice of technology integration, and mentoring. Other commentators (Bullock; Ertmer, 2005) shared similar ideas after reviewing teacher education research. These strategies have shown potential to transform teachers’ thinking and the use of technology in the classroom, but limited research exists in this area to inform practice. This article presents a qualitative study exploring teacher candidates’ field experience in a pedagogical laboratory designed to challenge teacher candidates’ beliefs of teaching and learning. The article describes the challenges teacher candidates encountered, the impact that the program had on their learning and beliefs, the support and resources needed to support their growth, and various factors that might have contributed to their different experiences and perceptions in the pedagogical laboratory. Findings from this study may inform the design of similar field experience programs and contribute to the understanding of how student-centered, innovative instructional activities may impact teacher candidates’ pedagogical beliefs and what support mechanism should be provided to teacher candidates to facilitate their learning. Review of the Literature Two areas of literature informed the current study. In this section, we first present why it is important to change teachers’ beliefs in technology integration and the strategies that may be used to facilitate these changes. We then describe the model pedagogical laboratory and argue that it has the po-
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tential to serve as an appropriate environment to enable a change of beliefs in teacher candidates. Affecting Change in Teachers’ Beliefs Ertmer (2005) argued that many of the conditions for technology integration already exist; the final barrier to technology integration is teacher beliefs. Similarly, Becker (2001) believed that for technology integration, “the final and critical piece may yet turn out to be teachers’ philosophies of learning and teaching and whether they can be brought around to be supportive of constructivist applications of computer technology” (¶3). Teacher candidates have already developed a stable system of beliefs on teaching and learning upon entering college (Pajares, 1992). They view teaching as a process in which teachers pass on knowledge for students to memorize (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). This belief prevents them from adopting a constructivist view of technology integration. Reviewers state that teacher education programs typically had little impact on teacher candidates’ beliefs (Wideen et al., 1998). This might be caused by the didactic nature of teacher education programs; even programs that advocate progressive education do not teach teacher candidates the way they preach. New approaches to teacher education are needed to transform teachers’ beliefs. Theory and research on teacher learning suggests various strategies to promote teachers’ belief changes. Three key components are common to these strategies: experience, reflection, and support. The first component includes providing both personal and vicarious experiences (Ertmer, 2005) in which teacher candidates either practice the use of technology to facilitate student-centered learning or observe other teachers’ technology integration experiences. Teacher candidates should be given the opportunities to practice teaching with technology in all teacher education courses, field experiences, and the induction phase (Mims et al., 2006; Moursund & Bielefeldt, 1999). Vicarious experiences are also important. Teacher candidates should observe how other teachers, especially experts, teach with technology. The observation can be in person or through electronic means such as text- or multimedia-based scenarios (Ertmer, 2005; Krueger, Boboc, & Cornish, 2003; Wang, Means, & Wedman, 2003). Educational theorists have long recognized the importance of reflection in teacher education (Shulman, 1987). Reflection is a key process during which a teacher “looks back at the teaching and learning that has occurred,
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and reconstructs, reenacts, and/or recaptures the events, the emotions, and the accomplishments. It is that set of processes through which a professional learns from experiences” (Shulman, p. 19). Teacher educators have adopted various strategies to encourage and guide teacher reflection. Some common strategies include reflective journal writing (Kember et al., 1999; Loughran, 1996), portfolio (Ellsworth, 2002; Orland-Barak, 2005), and classroom discussions. Recently, electronic tools have been adopted to promote teachers’ reflective practice, including emails, e-journals, weblogs, bulletin/discussion boards, chatrooms, listservs, and digital video (Calandra, Dias, & Dias, 2006). Experience and reflection alone are inadequate to facilitate the change of beliefs; various support mechanisms should be in place to provide teacher candidates with information and materials, as well as social-cultural support to facilitate reflection and belief change. First, new materials, methods, and strategies should be made available to provide the new information and knowledge that teachers need to change their way of thinking and teaching (Orrill, 2001). Second, social-cultural support is critical to shaping teachers’ beliefs and practice. Social-cultural support can be provided by developing communities of teachers who share values and opinions, discuss new methods and strategies, and support each other in taking the risk of changing their practice (Ertmer, 2005). In these communities, there is collaboration and support at the group level and one-on-one support among peers and between experts and novices (Orrill). Social-cultural support is also important within teacher education programs. Moursund and Bielefeldt (1999) advocate that in these programs, faculty should model technology integrated teaching and mentor teachers should be made available to support and encourage teacher candidates as they practice teaching with technology in field experiences. Model Pedagogical Laboratory The model pedagogical laboratory is a concept advocated in a National Academy of Sciences report that synthesizes new findings on learning and presents a research agenda to improve teaching and learning (Brandsford, Pellegrino, & Donovan, 1999). One of the research and development areas recommended for teacher education is to develop model pedagogical laboratories, in which teacher candidates experiment with the latest findings in learning and instructional theories by trying them out with students recruited from local schools. The laboratory provides teacher candidates with an opportunity to work like scientists who try out new strategies, observe student
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learning, and reflect on the strategies. The laboratory has a repository of model lessons and units as well as protocols for teaching the lessons. Expert teachers staff the laboratory to offer guidance and feedback to new teachers to encourage reflection and improvement. The report from National Academy of Sciences (Brandsford et al., 1999) provided a rationale for developing pedagogical laboratories to support teacher education. It argued that when graduates of teacher preparation programs start to teach in schools, their beginning experience in a classroom is usually overwhelming. To survive the experience these new teachers frequently adopt the norms of operation in a school and discard effective teaching methods learned from teacher education programs. This is problematic because the prevailing practice in schools falls short of the best practices taught in teacher education programs. The pedagogical laboratory may enable new teachers to see how an instructional approach plays out in a classroom, what problems may arise and what solutions may be effective. Such experiences may ease their transition to the school environment and help them better apply learning theories to their teaching practice. The model pedagogical laboratory has the potential to serve as an appropriate environment to facilitate teacher candidates’ belief changes. The three key components that we found important in the teacher education literature, including experience, reflection, and support, are present in the pedagogical laboratory. First, experience is an essential element in the pedagogical laboratory. Teacher candidates may gain personal experience in practicing research-based instructional strategies and acquire vicarious experience by observing the teaching practice of their peers and expert teachers. Second, teacher candidates are encouraged to reflect on their experiences. They are guided to think of themselves as scientists, who conduct experiments and reflect on the results and changes needed. This mentality may help them become reflective practitioners. Third, instructional materials and expert teachers are available in the pedagogical laboratory to provide support to teacher candidates. The pedagogical laboratory is a “locus of information” (Brandsford et al., 1999) that stores materials important in teaching, including model lessons, units, and facilitation protocols. Expert teachers work with teacher candidates to support their practice teaching and belief change. The literature review shows that effecting change in teachers’ beliefs is the last barrier to technology integration. To facilitate the change, programs should be developed to include three important components: experience, reflection, and support. We argue that the model pedagogical laboratory can serve as an appropriate approach to change teachers’ beliefs, because the three components are emphasized in the pedagogical laboratory.
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To impact the beliefs of teacher candidates in our teacher education program, we created a model pedagogical laboratory that focuses on technology integration. The pedagogical laboratory is used for field experience by teacher candidates taking a technology integration course. In the past, the 10-hour field experience in this class required teacher candidates to go to public and private schools to observe how classroom teachers integrate technology into their classroom teaching. However, the observations generally had limited impact on teacher candidates’ learning of technology integration, because candidates usually did not observe exemplary use of technology. Moursund and Bielefeldt (1999) advocated that opportunities should be given to teacher candidates to practice teaching with technology in field experiences with the support of mentor teachers. The field experience program that we designed includes the following three phases: (a) teacher candidate preparation, (b) laboratory experience, and (c) video-based collaborative reflection (Figure 1). The first phase is teacher candidate preparation. The primary goal of this phase is to provide teacher candidates with content and pedagogical knowledge needed to facilitate student-centered, technology-enhanced activities. The second phase is laboratory experience; it aims to offer personal experience in facilitating technology-enhanced student-centered learning. The third phase is reflections; it is intended for the candidates to reflect on their facilitation experience and at the same time to practice their technological skills in creating digital videos.
Figure 1. Field experience in a pedagogical laboratory: A process We designed a robotics model lesson for use with elementary education majors. We chose this technology for the field experience, because it is not
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commonly used in the classroom, so teacher candidates are less likely to be influenced by their previous knowledge and beliefs in teaching when facilitating these activities. Figure 1 describes the details of the field experience program. The first phase included four sessions of three-hour teacher candidate training in a period of two weeks. There were three components in this phase. The first component focused on video case studies of technology-enhanced, studentcentered classrooms on the INTIME (2001) website. We discussed the differences between teacher-centered versus student-centered classrooms. In teacher-centered classrooms, lecture is the primary instructional strategy and students are passive learners; in student-centered classrooms, students are engaged in technology-enhanced, hands-on activities, and they construct knowledge mainly through guided inquiry, discussions, and reflection. Second, university instructors modeled the teaching of a robotics lesson and teacher candidates experienced the lesson as students. Candidates first explored and analyzed robotics toys to understand robotic sensors and evaluated various robotic designs. Then, they completed a programming design challenge, Boogie Woogie Dance. The last component in this phase involved viewing and practicing a list of facilitation strategies. University instructors modeled the use of these facilitation strategies and guided candidates to practice the strategies with each other. Video clips from the Design in the Classroom website (Crismond, 2003) served as case studies illustrating how teachers use various strategies to facilitate the scientific inquiry process. Candidates wrote a reflective journal entry after each three-hour training session. The second phase took place on two consecutive Saturdays for a total of six hours of facilitation. Two teacher candidates worked with two elementary level students to complete the Boogie Woogie Dance challenge. These elementary school students were recruited from a gifted class in a public school, a home schooling group, and children of teacher candidates and faculty. Candidates took turns to lead the team and to conduct peer observation. They recorded their partner’s use of facilitation strategies on a Facilitation Strategies Note Taking Guide and collected video footage to document the use of the strategies. They wrote a reflective journal entry after each facilitation session. In the third phase, candidates reviewed the video footage with their partner to discuss the facilitation strategies used on the two Saturdays. In teams of two, they created a reflective video that organizes and shares their reflection of the experience. They discussed how the field experience impacted their personal beliefs related to teaching and learning and what strategies they have used to facilitate the robotics activities.
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The design of the field experience program was informed by the literature related to teacher belief change and our previous research. For more details on the design of the field experience program, please refer to the work by Prejean, Williams, Ma, & Ford (2008). Methods The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of a field experience program in a pedagogical laboratory by examining teacher candidates’ experience in the program. Qualitative inquiry methods were chosen to guide data gathering and analysis because of the exploratory nature of the research. The following research questions guided the study: 1. What experiences do teacher candidates have in the pedagogical laboratory? 2. What have teacher candidates learned in the pedagogical laboratory? 3. What support do teacher candidates need in the pedagogical laboratory? 4. What factors contribute to the different experiences and perceptions that teacher candidates have in the field experience? Participants Thirty-two teacher candidates served as the facilitators for the Saturday robotics program. They were enrolled in two sections of a technology integration course for elementary education majors. They were all females. Elementary education majors are required to participate in blocks of classes. The technology integration course is part of Block 1, which also includes a language arts methods course and a classroom management course. Prior to Block 1, teacher candidates had little or no experience with lesson planning or teaching. Most of the teacher candidates were in their junior year of college. Data Sources There were two data sources in this study: (a) reflective journal entries written after field experiences on two consecutive Saturdays, and (b) follow-
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up interviews with selected teacher candidates. Prior to the field experience teacher candidates were provided question prompts to guide their reflection writing. We asked them to describe the activities they facilitated, the challenges they encountered and the solutions attempted, their feelings during the field experience, the things they have learned, and their perceptions of the support that we provided. We analyzed the journals and found that teacher candidates had different experiences in the pedagogical laboratory. Some had positive perceptions of the experience and they were confident in facilitating the robotics activities, whereas, others were apprehensive about the experience and they did not believe that they would adopt the robotics activities in their future classrooms. To understand what factors might have contributed to the differences, we raised the fourth research question and conducted follow-up interviews with selected candidates to ask for clarification and elaboration in their reflective journals and to explore their previous beliefs and experiences that might have impacted their experiences in the pedagogical laboratory. These four interviews, the second data source, served as mini case studies to address question four. Since the purpose of qualitative research focuses on in-depth exploration rather than statistical generalization to a population, we used a purposeful sampling technique to select information-rich cases. Based on teacher candidates’ reflective journals and our observation of their performance during the field experience, we identified interviewees who differed in their perceptions of the field experience. Four of the identified interviewees agreed to participate in the study. Three of them had positive perceptions and one had negative perceptions. We did not include teacher candidate produced video-based reflections as a data source, because we found that similar reflections were already included in the reflective journals. Data Analysis Miles and Huberman’s (1994) data analysis procedures guided data analysis. First, in the data reduction step, we transcribed the interviews and imported interview transcripts and the reflective journals into NVivo 7, a software package that helps manage and analyze qualitative data. We coded the transcripts and reflective journals into conceptual chunks and grouped them into categories. Next, in the data display step, we ran queries and wrote memos to make sense of the relationship among the categories. Finally, we wrote up answers to the research questions and verified them. To enhance
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the trustworthiness and rigor of this study, we adopted techniques such as triangulation, peer debriefing, discrepant evidence or negative case analysis, thick descriptions, and member checking (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Findings Question 1: What experiences do teacher candidates have in the pedagogical laboratory? Teacher candidates thought their field experience in the pedagogical laboratory was an eye-opening experience for them. It provided hands-on opportunities for them to work with children. A candidate wrote: I wish all field experiences could be like this. I felt like I was a real teacher, not just some odd person in some classroom…My Saturdays are very precious to me because I work every Saturday night. These experiences made a long day for me, but it was all worth it. I would definitely do it again. Although it was challenging for teacher candidates to facilitate the robotics activity, they found it rewarding to witness student learning. Another candidate stated: It was a very rewarding experience getting to work with the students. They kept telling us how much fun they were having, and they could not wait to come back next week. It was rewarding to see what they have accomplished at the end of the day and to see their smiles as their robots performed for everyone. Teacher candidates generally expressed positive perceptions of their experience in the pedagogical laboratory. The majority of them explicitly stated that they would incorporate student-centered learning activities such as robotics into their future teaching and they had confidence in guiding such activities. Candidates in this study had more positive perceptions than those involved in the previous implementation of this field experience program (Prejean, Williams, Ma, Lai, & Ford, 2007). This might be explained by the enhanced candidate training prior to the field experience, which focused on the benefits of student-centered learning. In the previous implementation, no discussions were dedicated to student-centered versus teacher-centered learning, and facilitators did not have an opportunity to learn and practice facilitation strategies prior to the field experience. Despite the positive perceptions revealed in this study, careful analysis of the reflection journals and follow-up interviews indicated that candidates still experienced many challenges in the field experience. Some candidates
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were challenged by the lack of instructor control in the learning environment. For example, a candidate expressed her unease and frustration to deal with the crowded and chaotic learning environment in the field experience, which made her feel distracted and out of control. She admitted that she was used to the quiet classroom where the teacher had complete control of all activities occurring in the classroom. The facilitator’s role as a guide and mentor challenged some teacher candidates. Although the university instructor emphasized to candidates that in student-centered learning environments, facilitators may not have answers to all questions, the thought of not knowing everything about robotics ahead of time still frustrated some candidates. Quite a few candidates wished that they had acquired more knowledge and skills on robotics before the field experience. In addition to the main challenge of facilitating student-centered activities, candidates had other issues. The age of students was an issue for two groups of candidates, who worked with first grade children. The concern was that younger children tended to be distracted easily and they would have difficulty understanding programming concepts. Some members of both groups did not believe that children younger than the third grade should participate in the robotics activities. The length of the program on the first Saturday was another issue. All candidates stated that a three-hour session without a formal break was too long. A snack break on the second Saturday seemed to work well. The third issue noted was the difficulty in maintaining learner interest and focus. Decorating the robot was a task that was distracting for some students. Two candidates were disappointed that their students were more interested in decorating the robot than programming it. Another two candidates took advantage of robot decoration as an opportunity for their kindergarten-age students to have fairly unstructured play time. A third group of candidates commented on the need for balance between satisfying students’ need for fun activities and keeping students on task. One teacher candidate wrote, “At one point, on the first Saturday, all they wanted to do were decorating, so I said, ‘you have five more minutes for decorating, no more.’ That worked.” Another issue was team work among candidates. A candidate complained that her partner liked to take control and would not stop and explain things to her. She stated: “I was so frustrated with my partner that it ruined my day.” Technical issues with the robot were another set of problems that troubled some candidates. For example, the volume of the robot was too low to play music for some groups. In another group, the robot stopped working after a certain programming step. Although most candidates stated that they would incorporate studentcentered learning in their future teaching, they were aware that it may re-
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quire more experience for them to acquire knowledge, skills, and beliefs needed to facilitate student-centered activities: I think that I will be able to guide student learning but it will be difficult because that is not the way that I have been taught in my 13 years of school. The habit will be hard to break but if I am able to participate in more things like the camp, it will be easier for me to use them when I am teaching in my own classroom. At the beginning of the first Saturday, a candidate suddenly became “confused as to what I had to do, when I had to do it, and how I had to do it.” This uncertainty appeared to be common at the beginning of the facilitation. On the second Saturday however, candidates felt much more comfortable. For example, one of them stated: “I feel better about the upcoming Saturday because it is now a familiar territory and I know what is expected of me.” The challenges in the field experience are needed for candidates to grow. A candidate summarized it well: The field experience was both exciting and frustrating. This type of field experience was exciting because it was something different from the normal hours that we are required to do. It was frustrating, for me, because I was thrown into a situation where I felt uncomfortable and not very knowledgeable at times. I know that I have grown from this experience because I was placed in that uncomfortable situation. Teaching will not always be comfortable, and I should not become complacent with who I am as a teacher. Question 2: What have teacher candidates learned in the pedagogical laboratory? For teacher candidates, the field experience brought about new understanding of teaching. One candidate stated that she never “realized how exhausting teaching could be.” A second candidate stated that “a teacher has one of the most difficult jobs in the world” because of the responsibility. For several other candidates, this experience kindled new inspiration for teaching. One candidate wrote: “I learned that teaching is not just a job; it is fun.” Another candidate stated: “I am also very excited about teaching and having my own classroom. I would really like to have a lot of interesting activities to be able to engage students in their learning needs.” Candidates started to appreciate teacher’s different roles in student-centered classrooms. Quite a few candidates allowed students to choose their tasks. Moreover, candidates began to feel comfortable about learning from students:
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I think that teachers and students stick to their respective roles for the majority of the time. There are times, however, that the roles are reversed and the teachers learn things from their students that they never knew before. I definitely experienced that during the camp on Saturday. The robotics program allowed candidates to identify various issues that needed to be addressed in student-centered learning. They realized that students were different and activities should be customized for diverse needs of the learners. They saw the importance of addressing issues related to group work, including power struggles among students and the role of the group members. For example, in a group of three students, two had prior experience with robots but one did not have any. The two experienced ones were in control of the activity and unwilling to accept the suggestions of the less knowledgeable member. The two facilitators decided to let the inexperienced student take control to gain a better understanding of the task. However, this well-intended decision discouraged the two experienced students. This prompted the facilitators to wonder about the best grouping strategies in this situation. The robotics program gave candidates an opportunity to practice and reflect on facilitation strategies. They were surprised that they have used some strategies without noticing. Some of the common strategies used included open-ended questioning, providing motivational prompts, and modeling. They appreciated that these strategies helped guide their students in the student-centered activities. Question 3: What support do teacher candidates need in the pedagogical laboratory? The field experience program was designed based on the suggestion of the literature and candidates’ feedback in a previous study (Prejean et al., 2007). Candidate training on both student-centered pedagogy and robotics programming were added to better prepare candidates. Data from this study indicated that the training program was successful. Most candidates found the facilitation strategy training helpful although some thought the strategy guide was too long. Some of the strategies seemed to be common sense to some candidates, but they thought that the training made the strategies explicit for them. The strategy guide was particularly helpful when they were reflecting on their field experience, because it helped them identify what strategies they had used, what strategies worked and failed to work, and what they would do differently in the future. For example, one candidate thought: “I could’ve asked them in a different way so that he wouldn’t feel
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like he got the question wrong or gave him a little more time to answer the question.” In addition, experiencing the robotics challenges prior to the field experience seemed to have prepared most of the candidates with the content knowledge and skills needed for facilitating the robotics activities. A few candidates indicated that they might need more time and experience to have a better grasp of the robots before the field experience. Moreover, quite a few candidates discussed the need to have a better understanding of the lesson plan. For example, one candidate noticed that her students became disengaged and bored at times. She reflected that she needed to plan better and to have extended lessons available so that she could customize the lesson to meet the different needs of her students. Question 4: What factors contributed to the different experiences and perceptions teacher candidates had in the field experience? The following factors contributed to the different experiences and perceptions that teacher candidates had in the field experience: past experience as students, experience working with children, relationship with the students and partners they worked with, comfort levels with the robot, and their personality traits. These factors are illustrated in the following four mini case studies. Pseudonyms were used to refer to the candidates in the case studies. Sophia Sophia was comfortable and proficient in facilitating student-centered learning in the robotics program. She let her students think outside of the box and try out creative ideas when designing and programming their robot. To engage a team of three children, Sophia and her partner let the children each program a dance move that they wanted their robot to do and engaged them in observing and providing feedback when it was not their turn. She believes in student-centered learning in which students have a meaningful purpose. She stated, “Students want to have a role so that they can be proud of what they produce. It’s always helpful for the students to know that their work has a purpose, so their purpose for work was to impress their peers, their parents for the dance moves they made...” Her previous experience working with children and as a student in the gifted program might have contributed to her positive experience and perceptions in the field experience. Sophia has had extensive experience working with children. She began babysitting children at the age of 13. When she graduated from high school, she went on a mission trip to Arizona teaching in a church sponsored summer program on a Native American reservation. She was the head teacher
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for the second grade, with six or seven other teachers or assistants helping her. She organized and facilitated problem-solving, team-building activities. For example, in a log climbing activity, children pulled each other up to reach the top of a log. In the past summer, she served as a camp counselor at a five-week Christian camp for children. She lived with the children throughout the weeks. She learned a lot from the experience. She realized that she had to be prepared to answer children’s “crazy questions” and to deal with their high energy. The only formal teaching experience Sophia had was teaching a five-day dental health unit to second graders as part of the requirements for her health class field experience. It was an eye-opening experience for her, because she never had formal teaching experience with children in this age group. From this experience, she realized that some of the students in second grade couldn’t read yet. She also learned that as a teacher, she had to improvise and think on her feet. To prepare for the lesson, she created a game in which students would sort pictures of good food and bad food. She forgot to bring the pictures on the day of the class, so she had to change the plan and had students do a similar activity with the note cards and the poster she had with her. Sophia believed that her previous experience in a gifted program might explain why she was comfortable in the student-centered learning environment. From the sixth to the tenth grade, she was placed in a gifted program emphasizing group work, communication and problem-solving skills. She was engaged in team activities in which she designed bridges and solved other problems. She cherished that learning experience more than anything else that she had. She stated: “I absolutely loved it. That’s why I want to get a master’s degree in talented education. ‘Cause I remember everything from it, you know, all the projects stuck with me... I remember more from that than like the first history course I took from college.” Vicky Vicky was positive about the robotics program although she had little experience with student-centered learning in the past. She started to appreciate the value of this new pedagogy: All my life I was taught in the traditional manner. What I am learning (in the robotics model lesson) is sticking with me more than it would in a traditional setting. The math information I am learning is almost the same thing I didn’t understand when I was younger and now I am actually understanding what my teachers were trying to teach me. It’s actually kind of weird.
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Multiple factors might have contributed to Vicky’s positive perceptions. She had a patient partner and two motivated students. It took her longer to understand robotics programming, but her partner was very patient in helping her. She worked with two bright and motivated children, who learned to program quickly and worked very well with each other. There were instances when Vicky was amazed at how the children solved the problems faster than she did. Vicky’s extensive past experience working with children also impacted her experience and perceptions in the field experience. She was in teaching academy at her high school, and she has been working in an after school program since she graduated from high school. She was comfortable working with children and dealing with problems. Her personality also played a role. She is not afraid of adventure. She had no fear of being outsmarted by her students. Instead, she is open to working closely with students to figure out problems together. She said: “I have worked with kids all of my life, and they always teach me something. I know that I don’t know everything, and I know that I am not going to know everything.” This attitude made the robotics field experience less challenging for her. Melody Melody struggled in the robotics program. The chaotic and unconventional learning environment made her feel distracted and out of control. She said: “I find it hard to teach. Like I don’t understand what I am supposed to teach while I am doing robots.” Melody’s experience as a student in K-12 schools, her frustration with robotics programming and with her partner, the children she worked with in the field experience, as well as her personality contributed to her difficulties in the field experience. When she was growing up, Melody experienced few group or hands-on activities. She was used to quiet and orderly classroom where teachers had complete control. Teachers either lectured to the whole class or students completed their work independently. She did not even like group work as a student. The robotics field experience was unfamiliar, so she was not comfortable. In addition, she thought she did not understand the robot enough when she went through the design challenge as a student. She was aggravated that her partner was a quicker learner, who did not give her a chance to catch up. Feeling unprepared made the challenging field experience even more stressful. In the mean time, Melody worked with two very bright children, who already understood the math concepts that she planned to teach them and who had strong computer skills. Melody did not feel con-
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fident working with these bright children who were more comfortable with robotics than she was. Melody’s personality also explained her difficulty in the robotics program. She impressed the researchers as someone who was afraid of making mistakes. Although she struggled in the field experience, she told the researchers that her future classroom would mainly consist of hands-on and group activities; she would stay away from lecturing. The researchers had to keep probing to understand what she really thought about her experience. Hands-on, group learning was advocated in the technology integration course, so she perceived them as the “correct answer” to give to the researcher. Her fear of making mistakes might have made the field experience extremely challenging for her, because it is more open-ended and there is no one right answer in many instances. Jennifer Jennifer’s reflections on her experience in the robotics program were thoughtful. For example, she thought questioning was not enough in understanding student thinking: “If you want to get something out from somebody, you don’t just sit there asking them questions, you are having a conversation with them, you get more that way than just questioning.” She believed that in student-centered classrooms, although learners may choose their activities, the teacher should understand the individual needs of students. Her thoughtfulness might be explained by her experience with children and as a student. Jennifer has nine nephews and nieces, and some of them visited her daily. She is around children all the time every day. She believed that her experience with them may help her as a teacher, because that experience gave her the “parenting quality”; she really cares for the children and knows how to work with them. She stated, “when I go into a classroom, I will be comfortable being with kids. It will not scare me. If you don’t have experience, some people just run away from it.” Her inspiration to become a teacher originated from the influence of a math teacher, who allowed her the liberty to choose tasks that were at a higher level than those given to her classmates. The freedom to have these options allowed her to stay ahead of the class and even skip a grade level. She was also influenced by a Science class and an English class which provided many opportunities for hands-on activities. She was amazed that she still remembered her experience in these classes: “It’s 15 years, I still remember that. Other than that, I don’t remember much of elementary and junior high school.”
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Ma, Lai, Williams, Prejean and Ford Conclusion and Discussions
The purpose of the study was to explore the effectiveness of a field experience program in a pedagogical laboratory by investigating teacher candidates’ experiences in the program. The findings of the study provide implications for future design and implementation of this and similar field experience programs. Personal experience in facilitating the robotics activities was deemed extremely valuable by teacher candidates. They believed that they needed the experience and challenge to learn to facilitate student-centered activities. They asked for more similar experiences, because most of them were not accustomed to student-centered learning environments; it may take much more than one field experience or one semester for them to change their beliefs and acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for facilitating student-centered learning. Candidates who experienced student-centered learning from the perspective of students appeared to be more successful in this field experience. This is consistent with the finding in the literature that teachers tend to teach the way they were taught (Tobin, Tippins, & Gallard, 1994). This provides support for our belief that efforts should be made to design student-centered activities in university courses for teacher candidates. Candidates who had extensive prior experience working with children also seemed to be more successful in the field experience. It suggests that more formal and informal field experience is needed in which candidates interact with children instead of simply observing a classroom. Experiencing the robotics challenges prior to the field experience seemed to have prepared most of the candidates with the robotics knowledge and skills needed for facilitating the activities. A few candidates expressed the desire to have more experience with the robotics activities prior to the field experience. Few comments were made regarding the vicarious experiences, including video case studies and peer observation. Future studies are needed to examine these components in the field experience program. Although some candidates commented that the facilitation strategy guide was too long, they believed that it was helpful, especially when they looked back at their field experience to identify the strategies they used. Researchers have noted that teachers’ schemata of classroom decision makings are constructed through their daily experiences (Sparks-Langer & Colton, 1991). It is through the meaningful experiences that teachers’ pedagogical schema become more well developed so as to be able to achieve automaticity. Given this, more examples and practice may help teacher candidates become automatic in using these strategies rather than viewing them as a
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long laundry list of things to do during facilitation. Again, one field experience or one semester is probably not enough for them to acquire these skills. The strategy guide should be made available to support their future field experience. Some challenges that candidates encountered were not discussed in the facilitation strategies. For example, there were conflicts between the teacher’s roles versus the student’s roles, interest of the learner (e.g., decorating the robot) versus the instructional goal (e.g., programming the robot to learn inquiry and mathematics). These issues are critical to understanding student-centered learning. They should be addressed with abundance of practical examples. Several candidates discussed the need to have a better understanding of the lesson plan so that they could modify it or expand it depending on the needs of their students. More discussions of the rationale behind the lesson plan may be needed for the candidates to better understand the lesson plan. Moreover, candidates may need to be required to modify the lesson plan prior to the activity facilitation so that they may acquire a sense of ownership of the lesson plan. Relationship with students was another important factor that contributed to candidates’ experience in the pedagogical laboratory. Most of the children that we recruited were from gifted programs. They generally behaved well and had strong motivation. The teacher candidates taking the technology integration course generally had little or no teaching experience; working with gifted children may reduce the level of difficulty. As they gain more experience in the future, we may need to recruit children with various learning and behavioral issues, to provide candidates with more challenging experiences. Most candidates worked well with their partners, but there were situations when the partners had conflict with each other (e.g., in Melody’s case), which negatively impacted their experience in the pedagogical laboratory. We may need to provide guidance to candidates on how to work in teams. This may not only help them benefit from working with each other, but also improve their skills in facilitating team work. References Becker, H. J. (2001). How are teachers using computers in instruction? Retrieved May 18, 2007, from http://www.crito.uci.edu/tlc/FINDINGS/special3/page10.htm Brandsford, J. D., Pellegrino, J. W., & Donovan, S. (1999). How people learn: Bridging research and practice. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
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