+A Vygotskian

Model of Leveled Success for Candidates

and Students

Dr. Patricia Pinciotti, Dr. Gina Scala & Dr. Alison Rutter

East Stroudsburg University of PennsylvaniaNAPDS National Conference, Friday, March 6,

2015

+Who We Are

Eastern Pennsylvania One of 14 State System Universities

Student Profile Many first generation college students Mid-career students and transfer from CC Often need to work while going to school Gaps from K-12 education Care about children Belief they can become teachers

East Stroudsburg University

+Fieldwork Requirements in PA

ELED & Integrated ELED/SPED PDS Established in 1999 Full scale implementation by 2003

New Program Requirements Pre K-4 and Pre K-4/SpEd Pre K-8: PreK-4 & PreK-4/SPED – 2012 Inclusion of Pre K Experience Multiple Field Sites

Current Leveled Model of PDS Fieldwork - 2013

Ahead of the Curve ~ Collaborative Response to Mandates ~

+Vygotskian Model: Zones of Proximal Development

Becoming a Teacher is a Creating Activity.

ESU PDS model highlights ZPD aspects:

An integrated theory of learning: meta-cognitive strategies, organized around motivations of

the learner, dependent on social interactions.

Experiential, embodied, and holistic: ways of learning negotiating meaning.

Respect for individual interactions with others contribute to their negotiation of meaning. Negotiating meaning demands

mutual efforts.

Fredrickson, 2011

PDS is a leading – learning – environment involving

PDS Mentor

Teach

er C

andid

ate

s

ESU Faculty

+

Zones: Within SettingsFieldwork ExperiencePDS SiteESU University

ESU’s PDS offers an environment where meaning is shared and socially constructed with individuals mutually influencing each other’s processes of understanding.

+ESU Pre K-4/SpEd Pre K-8 Fieldwork Model

+Overlapping ZPD’s: Engagement Within Fieldwork

• Differentiated roles & responsibilities at each Fieldwork level• Advancing and layering Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions in the PDS/ESU contexts

Pre K: Head Start – Half day/wk - Project Approach

PDS Primary I – One day/wk - 10 weeks

PDS Primary II – Two days/wk - 12 weeks

Student Teaching – One Half of 15 weeks

+

Overlapping ZPD’s: Interaction and Support

Mediated Support at Each Fieldwork/Cohort Level

Contexts, Challenges, Reflections and Conversations

AT ESU and PDS Sites

Roles ~

Choices ~

Responsibilities ~

Collaboration ~

+

PDS + ZPD Learning, Leading Environment

• Home - School Connections Competence View of Learners Advocacy for Students and

Families

• PDS Learning Community Integrative, Differentiated

Teaching Co-Teaching Professionalism

• Inquiry – Digging Deeper Comprehensive Assessment

Model Making Teaching and

Learning Visible

1. Freedom from Knowing

2. Socially Imitative

3. Completion Activity

+Blurring the Lines Between Home & School: Pre-K Semester ½ day/Week with ECE Teachers - Two weeks

with ESU Faculty and ECE Teachers

Focus on Typical and Atypical Development and Learning

Building Concepts of Family & Community

Laying the foundation of Professionalism, Multiple Literacies, Integration, Documentation, and Inquiry

+Becoming Part of PDS Community: Primary 1 Semester 1 Day/Week in the Field with a Mentor Teacher

& Building Liaison with Supporting University Faculty

Layering Concepts of Community with a Wider Social Conscience

Multi-Literacy Discoveries and Understanding: Becoming a Reader in School & at Home Infusing the Arts to Integrate Experience

Managing and Assessment in the Classroom

+Learning to Advocate in the Primary II Semester

2 Days/Week with Mentor Teacher, Building Liaison & University Liaison Supporting Faculty

Professionalism: School-Community Relations

Honing School Knowledge and Content in Math, Science & Language Arts

Including and Differentiating for All Learners

Advocating for Children and Families in a PDS Community

+Visible Meaning in Student Teaching 15 weeks with Co-operating Teacher,

University Supervision with Supporting Faculty

2 Placements -- Return to Primary I/II placement plus a new second site (Special Ed or Another PDS/grade level)

Co-Teacher: Planning Differentiated Teaching with multiple Adults for student success

Teacher as Researcher Course – Advancing Inquiry Skills to Support Student Learning

+

PDS Relationships are creative and transformational for ALL

#NAPDSinDC

Development based on collaboration and

imitation is the source of all specifically

human characteristics of consciousness that

develop in an individual (child).

Vygotsky, 1987, p. 210