Voices of Student Teachers Cases from the Field

How do we develop student teachers who are reflective practitioners? Most teacher preparation programs recognize the importance of reflection and of creating experiences that help students reflect on their teaching experiences. This text provides a venue for students to step outside their practice and bridge the gap between the educational theory presented in college courses and the complex realities of today's classrooms. Student teachers occupy a unique position: although they are not yet real teachers, they also are no longer fully students; indeed, they shoulder a full array of responsibilities in the classroom. Caught in the middle of demands from their own students, their cooperating teachers, their college supervisors, and their education professors, these novice teachers often struggle to reconcile a host of particular issues and dilemmas. Student teachers need support to make sense of this busy, complicated, exhausting, but important period in their professional lives. This text, containing real-life teaching cases of student teachers' experiences, provides a way for them to reflect, reconsider, and rethink the events they experience. New to This Edition In this revised edition, new cases have been added covering current issues such as using the Internet in teaching, standards-based teaching and assessment, and the effect of traumatic events in students' lives. Discussion questions after each case and a chart on the inside covers that summarizes the issues covered in each case help instructors link the cases to topics covered in class. Many of the cases are set in urban schools and there is extended coverage of middle school and high school cases, but they still are generalized across all grades and settings. The sections of the book have been reorganized, with new sections added onChallenges of Ethical DilemmasandChallenges of Working with Families.In each section, cases are ordered by grade level so that locating specific age groups is easier. An updated, annotated bibliography provides suggestions for further reading to encourage students to explore issues more deeply and to develop the habit of finding resources to improve their teaching. The cases lend themselves to many topics and are best used in conjunction with other readings, experiences, and related activities. Since by their nature these cases focus on problems, it is important to provide readers with a balanced perspective on teaching. This book will be useful in seminar courses taken in conjunction with student teaching or in courses with earlier practicum experiences. These cases will also stimulate discussion and raise issues for introductory educational foundations courses and illustrate principles covered in educational psychology and philosophy. Case-Based Pedagogy Teaching cases have established themselves as an important pedagogical tool in teacher education. Cases offer the opportunity for students to construct their own understanding, work at their own level, have choice in the curriculum, and, most of all, be active participants in their own learning. Cases are an ideal bridge between theory and practice and support a constructivist view of learning. The real-life cases inVoices of Student Teachers: Cases from the Fieldreveal the unique problems and issues that student teachers face. These cases describe actual dilemmas students confronted during their internships and are an ideal mechanism to enable beginning teachers to analyze and reflect on their own practice. The Cases provide a repertoire of experiences from which students can draw to meet new challenges and explore possibilities in their own teaching. Discussing these dilemmas duplicates the process of professional growth described by Donaldv Schon, who explains, "A professional practitioner is a specialist who encounters certain types of situations again and again .... As a practitioner experiences many variations of a smalRand, Muriel K. is the author of 'Voices of Student Teachers Cases from the Field', published 2002 under ISBN 9780130941305 and ISBN 0130941301.