Learning to Teach Diverse Learners Together: Results from ...€¦ · Learning to Teach Diverse Learners Together: Results from an Innovative Placement Structure We explore the ways

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E n g l i s h E d u c a t i o n , V 5 2 N 2 , J a n u a r y 2 0 2 0

E n g l i s h E d u c a t i o n , J a n u a r y 2 0 2 0

Yunjeong Choi, Joyce Meier, and Ellen Cushman

Learning to Teach Diverse Learners Together: Results from an Innovative Placement Structure

We explore the ways in which preservice teachers (PSTs) develop a practice in practice (Darling-

Hammond, 2010) with diverse learners when placed in classrooms with college writing mentor

teachers. Analyzing survey data and instances of stated confidence in PSTs’ activity logs, we share

results that reveal a significant increase in the novice teachers’ perceived ability to teach diverse

learners when placed in this context. Results also demonstrate a model of Teacherly Reflective In-

quiry Practice (TRIP). These results suggest that placements with college writing instructors acting

as mentor teachers can facilitate the development of collective efforts to teach diverse learners.

As Darling-Hammond (2010) argues, “One thing that is clear from current studies of strong programs is that learning to practice in practice, with

expert guidance, is essential to becoming a great teacher of students with a wide range of needs” (p. 40). Yet, creating this space for learning to practice in practice is often hard won. Training preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach any subject area requires that teacher candidates be given ample opportu-nity to bridge theory into practice alongside expert teachers; in this article, we focus on this opportunity within the context of teaching diverse learn-ers. When field placements and content classes converge, as they might in university-sponsored professional development schools, for instance, PSTs have more opportunities to bridge theory into practice with expert teachers and diverse learners.

As is more often the case, though, the scene of teacher education un-folds in divergent settings across campus, in schools, and in communities (McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013, p. 395), which often means that the pedagogy, placement, and content classes have seemingly unrelated learning goals for the PSTs (Newell & Connors, 2011, p. 226). Such divergent scenes of teacher preparation can translate to missed opportunities for student

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Copyright © 2020 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

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C h o i , M e i e r , a n d C u s h m a n > L e a r n i n g t o Te a c h

teachers to learn to teach diverse learners and to develop confidence in their teaching (Valencia, Martin, Place, & Grossman, 2009). With divergent settings, PSTs can carry the burden of integrating their classroom practices, content course work, and pedagogical theories across separate sites of their teacher preparation experience.

This article reports the results of a mixed-method study of the effects on PSTs’ confidence and their reflective inquiry practices that developed when PSTs were placed in classrooms of diverse learners with experienced college writing instructors acting as mentor teachers. At the same time, and benefitting from an internal university grant that supported their professional development, the college teachers engaged in discussions and workshops on the teaching of diverse learners that paralleled what the PSTs were learning in their education classes. Research questions included the following: In what ways, if at all, might a shared, integrated, guided, and reflective practice influence the PSTs’ confidence in their future abilities to teach diverse learners reading and writing? Was their confidence in teach-ing diverse learners reading and writing significantly different from the confidence of those placed in secondary (i.e., middle school and high school) classrooms? What reflective practices emerged within this innovative place-ment structure that explicitly linked specific pedagogical perspectives of the English education instructor with those of the mentor teachers?

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

In their survey of the last 20 years of scholarship in the field of teacher education, McDonald et al. (2013) found that teacher candidate training should include a set of four core practices. The four practices they identified involve the teacher candidate working with mentor teachers and content area instructors: learning about a lesson or activity; preparing or rehearsing to teach; enacting a planned activity or lesson with students; and reflecting on the outcomes (p. 382). As for reflective practice, PSTs are best served when given opportunities to reflect on their field placements and teaching practices across sites and contexts (Barnes, 2006; Hiebert, Morris, Berk, & Jansen, 2007; Smagorinsky, Cook, & Johnson, 2003; Spalding, Wilson, & Mewborn, 2002). Incorporating guided experiences with lessons developed with (including feedback from) mentor teachers (Athanases et al., 2008; Stanulis & Brondyk, 2013) also proves key to engaging PSTs in a cycle of learning through reflective practice.

In addition, when working with culturally diverse students, PSTs need knowledge of culturally responsive teaching (Gay, 2002). But knowledge is

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only one part of the equation, as PSTs also require practical assistance and reflective opportunities as they work to develop the skills needed to teach diverse students (Milner, 2009). For example, PSTs may encounter Paris’s (2012) call for a culturally sustaining pedagogy in an education course, but what does such a pedagogy look like in actual practice? What kinds of as-signments, classroom activities, and assessments can be enacted that sustain languages alongside English?

In her review of the literature on practice in teacher education, Lam-pert (2009) found a difference in how researchers conceptualize practice. Some understand professional practice for teacher candidates as something learned and done individually, while others consider it as something best done and maintained by a collective of reflective teachers and learned through participation in that group. Rather than an individual practice, could practice as something done through participation in a collective make a difference in how PSTs might come to develop confidence as teachers of diverse learners (see Lampert, 2009, p. 32)? We saw this question of how best to achieve a practice in practice as a structural challenge—as one linked to what we had experienced within our own teacher education program.

In our program, the preservice training program began in the stu-dents’ senior year of the undergraduate major in English. During that year, PSTs took two courses in English—one in reading theory and research and one in writing theory and research—concurrently with two courses in teacher education—one in reading pedagogy and one in writing pedagogy. Also during their senior year, the PSTs were placed with mentor teach-ers in secondary schools. These placements had always been arranged by placement coordinators within the teacher education program. In short, it was a “challenge to ensure that all students in education programs [have] comparable experiences in ELA curricula with a diverse range of learners” (Caughlan & Cushman, 2013, p. 20). In other words, the local placements could be “hit-and-miss” concerning opportunities for the PSTs to work with diverse learners and mentor teachers who had been trained in the reading and writing research that PSTs themselves were learning.

To address this structural problem, we sought “field placements in classrooms wherein diverse learners are being taught using a shared cur-ricular focus on asset-based reading and writing assignments” (Caughlan & Cushman, 2013, p. 21). As it happened, the university’s Preparation for Col-lege Writing (PCW) classroom provided such a placement opportunity with experienced mentor teachers who shared similar philosophies of teaching their diverse students. In addition, the PCW class itself consists of diverse

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learners whose writing samples or ACT, SAT, or TESOL scores warrant they spend extra time learning to write for college contexts.

We speculated that good English education programs could optimize curricular control and mentoring expertise by creating structural changes in placements to build collectively a practice in practice of teaching diverse learners. We wanted to better understand the effects such a structural revi-sion in placements might have on PSTs’ self-efficacy when teaching diverse learners, and what effects such a structural revision might have on their reflective and integrative practice across sites of learning. We wanted to suss out the impact these shared pedagogical frameworks and practices in practice might have on teacher candidates’ confidence when learning to teach diverse learners. While we acknowledge that the university level (as opposed to middle school and high school placements) may have had an impact on the success of our project, results from our study suggest that placement structures that emphasize learning about and actually teaching of diverse learners alongside similarly trained mentor teachers may enhance PSTs’ development of practices in practice.

Mixed Methods

To increase the reliability of the empirical result (Creswell, 2003), we de-signed a mixed method study where data were collected through a survey questionnaire on PSTs’ self-efficacy and PSTs’ written activity logs, with each data source analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. In this method section, we focus first on the study context with the detailed descriptions of different groups of participants, followed by the data sources and analysis.

Study Context and Participants

This study centered around the participation of two distinct groups involved in preparatory writing courses at a large, public university in the Midwestern United States for a semester: experienced PCW instructors and the PSTs. Yunjeong was a graduate student researcher embedded in Joyce’s PCW class for the first semester of this project, as discussed in this article. Joyce was one of the PCW instructors, and in her role as assistant director of the First-Year Writing Program, she helped coordinate placements with Ellen and the PCW instructors. As an English teacher educator, Ellen taught theories and research courses in reading and writing to the PSTs, with a particular emphasis on inclusive pedagogies.

A group of seven experienced PCW instructors participated in this project, including Joyce. Agreeing to receive PSTs in their classes, most of

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the PCW instructors were affiliated with the College of Arts and Letters as professors or full-time instructors who specialized in teaching English read-ing and writing and had many years of teaching experience. Viewing this project as professional development, they recognized that Ellen’s workshops on inclusive teaching provided an opportunity for them to retool their PCW pedagogies to emphasize students’ cultural and linguistic assets, a focus that drew on the same reading and writing research that the PSTs were discussing in their English education classes with Ellen. Thus, both the PCW instructors and PSTs connected with the PCW class read and discussed parallel work in inclusive pedagogies (e.g., García, Arias, Harris Murri, & Serna, 2010; Kinloch, 2011; Paris, 2012).

At the same time, the PCW instructors agreed to meet monthly with Ellen to discuss and explore both the pedagogical frameworks she was in-troducing in her English education class and how the PSTs placed in their sections were faring. The PCW instructors also agreed to meet at least every other week with their PSTs to talk with them about what they were observ-ing and experiencing in the PCW classroom. As we shall suggest later, these meetings were key in reinforcing a similar set of frameworks toward teach-ing diverse learners. Because the PCW instructors were familiar with the discussions taking place in Ellen’s class, they were able to reference these when mentoring their PSTs. We argue that these conversations-in-common created a shared vocabulary and framework in terms of teaching diverse learners that the PSTs were able to leverage when they reflected on their learning in their weekly logs. Such synergy might have also affected their demonstration of greater self-efficacy when compared with the PSTs in regular placements, as cited in our survey results below.

A total of 23 classes of PCW students (n = 495) were involved in this research study; 12 classes (n = 253) comprised the focal groups taught by the PCW instructors who chose to participate in this project and who had between one to three PSTs placed in each of their classrooms. The remain-ing 11 PCW classes (n = 242) served as comparison groups; these instructors taught their courses as they routinely did, without placement of PSTs, cur-ricular innovations by their PCW instructors, or participation in the monthly discussions with Ellen. Preceding the regular (and required) first-year writing course required of all college students, the PCW course consists of students who are placed there on the basis of ACT, TESOL, or SAT scores that suggest they might benefit from extra time learning to write for college contexts. While the PCW does “count” as three semester hours of college-bearing credit, it still is an extra course required of these students, who then must

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go on and complete the regular first-year writing course. The course consists primarily of students who are linguistically and culturally diverse: urban, first-generation college attending, and/or multilingual (indeed, in some PCW sections, as many as 80 percent of the students are from outside the US). Thus, the course served as a structured space for PSTs to learn effective strategies and methods to teach diverse learners with seasoned instructor-mentors.

In terms of the PSTs, a total of 38 enrolled in Ellen’s classes partici-pated in this study and were placed in two different settings: 18 placed in PCW classes as a focal group and 20 placed in secondary schools as a comparison group. The PSTs included those enrolled in the PCW place-ment classes (the treatment group) and those enrolled in local secondary placements (the control group). PSTs were required to complete four hours of classroom placement per week—whether that be in a local school or in the PCW class. Most importantly for the purposes of this study, the PST placements in the control group were often with secondary teachers who may or may not have been teaching with a focus on inclusive pedagogies that mirrored the readings and discussions they were encountering in their education classes.

In contrast, for the treatment group, this study brought the discussions taking place in the education classroom with Ellen into direct conversation with the placements that the PSTs experienced through their PCW class. The PSTs practiced pedagogical innovations in this class as part of their discussion-led assignments of the readings. As we have shown elsewhere in discussions of these curricular and pedagogical innovations, both in the PST classes (Meier, Choi, & Cushman, 2014) and in the PCW workshops and classrooms (Meier, Choi, & Cushman, 2017), the PSTs were thus invited to join in a wide range of activities about teaching diverse students. At the same time, they were integrated as instructional assistants into the PCW courses consisting of diverse learners, facilitating small-group discussions, helping to design class activities, and responding to student papers. PCW classes taught writing with assignments, lessons, and activities that included significant amounts and types of reading, including close reading of other students’ writing. By the semester’s end—with input and support from the PCW instructor—the PSTs were running entire PCW class sessions.

This study brought the discussions taking place in the education classroom with Ellen into direct conversation with the placements that the PSTs experienced through their PCW class. The PSTs practiced pedagogical innovations in this class as part of their discussion-led assignments of the readings.

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Data Sources

To understand the extent to which PSTs felt able to teach diverse learners before and after their placement experiences, and to compare how the two different placements—PCW vs. secondary schools—influenced such efficacy, we conducted a survey for both groups of PSTs. The survey was adapted using models developed and validated by prior researchers studying self-efficacy of reading teachers (Haverback & Parault, 2011) and in teaching diverse learners (Siwatu, 2011).

The survey, administered at the beginning and end of the semester, was comprised of two sections of 15 questions. PSTs’ responses to each ques-tion were rated on a nine-point Likert scale on a continuum of 1 (Not at all) to 9 (A great deal).

The first section dealt specifically with the teaching of reading, while the second section was directed at the teaching of writing. Since the PCW classes included significant amounts of reading and writing, PSTs had ample opportunity to focus on one or the other English language art as their English education course demanded. Questions that focused on the teaching of read-ing asked about PSTs’ self-efficacy in teaching reading in general (e.g., When you teach reading, to what extent do you feel able to: Get students to believe they can do well in reading? Model genre-specific reading strategies to enhance all students’ understanding? Provide alternative explanations when students are confused about reading?). It also included some questions directly tapping PSTs’ confidence in teaching and supporting diverse learners (e.g., When you teach reading, to what extent do you feel able to: Support your students’ multiculturalism with readings? Help your students maintain their heritage language(s)? Adjust your reading lessons to the linguistic knowledge/cultural understandings of your individual students?). The writing questions featured nearly identical questions, with the focus shifted to writing instead of read-ing. Both writing- and reading-centered questions required PSTs to not only consider their perceived strengths as ELA teachers but also to consider how effective their culturally sustaining pedagogical practices were in a classroom of diverse, and often multilingual, learners.

To collect the survey data, Yunjeong, as a research assistant, went to the English education classes and administered the survey together with the consent forms. All the PSTs, regardless of their placements, completed the survey at the beginning and the end of the semester. The course instructor was not present in the classroom at the time the survey was taken to mini-mize possible confounding factors.

In addition to the surveys, which would allow us to compare PSTs’

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self-efficacy within each placement group and between groups, we also collected weekly activity logs for both groups of PSTs placed in PCW and in school placements. The logs sought to unpack what the PSTs were experienc-ing in their placements and how the curricular innovations affected their teaching and learning to teach. Some of the more explicit log prompts asked students to write a paragraph in response to a statement such as, What I did and learned; Skills and methods I was able to use in teaching; ELA readings and ideas I was able to use in teaching or apply in observation. Other prompts were conceived of more broadly, but nonetheless provided PSTs with ample opportunity to reflect on the previous week’s classroom teaching and obser-vation in the PCW class. These types of prompts typically required PSTs to write a paragraph or two in response to statements such as, What went well; What went less well; Anything that surprised you or whose purpose you did not understand; How does the pedagogical approach in this class compare to your own; and My ideas for activities.

In addition to creating valuable reflective space for the evolving teacher-in-training, the logs were also used as formative assessment, as three times over the semester Ellen gathered themes from the logs and drew these into class discussions with the PSTs. Whatever concerns emerged from these discussions were then shared with the PCW instructors, who then addressed these in their class and in their ongoing work with the PSTs.

Data Analysis

Analysis of PSTs’ Self-Efficacy Survey

Two specific questions were addressed in the analysis of PSTs’ confidence measured by the pre- and post-surveys: (1) whether PSTs’ confidence in teach-ing reading and writing to diverse learners was enhanced by the end of the semester when compared to the beginning (i.e., within-group analysis), and (2) whether there is any difference in PSTs’ confidence in teaching read-ing and writing to diverse learners between the treatment group placed in PCW classes and the control group placed in secondary school classes (i.e., between-group analysis).

To examine the first question above, we conducted a paired-sample t-test using SPSS 19 to determine whether there was a difference in the mean scores of PSTs’ self-efficacy in teaching reading and writing to diverse learners between the beginning and the end of semester. Likewise, the same analysis was also performed with the control group to evaluate whether a difference exists in their self-efficacy measured at the beginning and the end of semester. However, since the paired-sample t-test only allows the

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comparison of the two mean scores within each group, we needed another analysis to compare the difference between the treatment and the control groups in PSTs’ self-efficacy, which led to the second question. For this, we carried out a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). PSTs’ self-efficacy score in the pre-survey was controlled as a covariate, which allowed us to examine the impact of our treatment on PSTs’ self-efficacy at the end of the semester between groups.

Analysis of PSTs’ Activity Logs

To analyze the PSTs’ activity logs, our research team (Yunjeong, Joyce, and Ellen) developed a coding procedure that was iterative and theory-oriented, following Cobb, Confrey, Lehrer, and Schauble (2003). We first read through about 30 percent of the logs and open-coded, focusing on PSTs’ reflections on teaching and learning to teach diverse learners in the placement. We sought to understand what PSTs’ intellectual work looked like as prospective teach-ers teaching diverse learners, and what they were paying attention to from their engagement and interaction with instructors and students. We also focused on how they reflected on their learning to teach in terms of making connections from what they had learned, experienced, and discussed across contexts. We wondered if the reflective practice represented in activity logs might give evidence to support students’ sense of self-efficacy with respect to teaching diverse learners.

The open coding allowed us to identify the emergence of several catego-ries related to PSTs’ reflective activities. After this initial coding, we met to discuss the scheme and to code additional sets of data logs, iteratively refin-ing each category that ultimately included monitoring, evaluating, applying, imagining, and identifying. Once the coding was completed, the reliability of the final coding scheme was calculated with Cohen’s Kappa statistic, a measure of inter-coder agreement that corrects for chance. When three research assistants independently coded 20 percent of randomly selected samples, Cohen’s Kappa was 0.73 on average, which indicated coders of the logs achieved a fairly high reliability for the overall model of practice.

Results

Based on the analyses on the PSTs’ self-efficacy survey and their written activity logs, the results are addressed in two stages. First, regarding the impact of our pedagogical and curricular innovation on PSTs’ self-efficacy to teach reading and writing to diverse learners, we report the results of quantitative analyses. Next, we examine the results of qualitative analysis

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of the activity logs, which allows us to understand PSTs’ specific practices in teaching diverse learners.

Difference of PSTs’ Self-Efficacy within and between Groups

To evaluate the effectiveness of the pedagogical and curricular innovation we developed and implemented, we analyzed PSTs’ self-efficacy in teach-ing reading and writing to diverse learners in two different ways. First, we analyzed PSTs’ efficacy within each group before and after the placement work to see whether each placement experience influenced PSTs’ efficacy when teaching diverse learners. Then, we further analyzed to compare PSTs’ efficacy between groups to understand whether there is a difference of PSTs’ efficacy between the two groups after the respective placement and whether the difference was statistically significant.

For the first analysis to examine whether PSTs’ confidence in teach-ing reading and writing to diverse learners was enhanced in each group between the beginning and end of the semester, a series of paired-sample t-tests were carried out in each group. As seen in Table 1, for PSTs in the treatment group who were placed in PCW classes, their efficacy measured at the end of the semester when they finished their placement work (Mean = 7.26, SD = .90 for reading; Mean = 7.30, SD = 1.00 for writing) was significantly higher than their ef-ficacy measured at the beginning of the semester before they were placed in both teaching reading and writing (M = 6.30, SD = .80 for reading; M = 6.43, SD = .86 for writing). This indicates that our pedagogical and curricular innovation played a posi-tive role in increasing PSTs’ efficacy when teaching reading and writing to diverse learners. Contrary to the treatment group, PSTs in the control group did not show significant increase in confidence in both teaching reading and writing at the end of the semester. In fact, their confidence decreased a little bit at the end of the semester, although that decrease was not statisti-cally significant. It seems that the placement experience within the PCW classrooms with similarly trained mentor instructors provided a collective practice supportive of learning to teach diverse learners and increasing the PSTs’ teaching efficacy.

Second, a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was carried out to determine a statistically significant difference between the treatment and control group on PSTs’ efficacy at the end of the semester, controlling for

Contrary to the treatment group, PSTs in the control group did not show significant increase in confidence in both teaching reading and writing at the end of the semester. In fact, their confidence decreased a little bit at the end of the semester.

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PSTs’ efficacy at the beginning as a covariate. In other words, we wanted to determine whether the difference of PSTs’ efficacy between the two groups, if any, was real or due to chance (i.e., a particular sample or sampling error). Here, ANCOVA allowed us to statistically reduce the potential confounding effect of PSTs’ efficacy before the intervention. To control such an effect is important because it allows us to examine the “true” effect of the interven-tion by ruling out the possibility that the enhanced efficacy at the exit was from PSTs who already came with high efficacy, not from the impact of the intervention. With the second analysis, we would be able to compare the two groups and figure out the effect of the intervention on PSTs’ efficacy to teach reading and writing to diverse learners regardless of the efficacy that they might have originally had before the intervention.

As indicated in Table 1, the mean value of PSTs’ efficacy after the placement work in the treatment group was higher than the one in the control group, and this was the same both in teaching reading and writ-ing. The result of ANCOVA indicated that there was an overall statistically significant difference in PSTs’ efficacy at the exit between the two groups once their means had been adjusted for their efficacy measured before the intervention, in both teaching reading and writing. Specifically, in teaching reading, the treatment group was significantly higher than the control group (for treatment group, M = 7.26, SD = .90; for control group M = 6.29, SD = 1.2; F[1, 32] = 7.302, p = .01). Partial eta squared (ηp2), a measure of strength of relationship, was .18, which is considered a large effect size according to the generally accepted criteria by Cohen (1988). Similar results were found in teaching writing (for treatment group, M = 7.30, SD = .96; for control group M = 6.25, SD = 1.16; F[1, 32] = 8.39, p = .007). The effect size (ηp2 = .208) is considered large (Cohen, 1988).

Efficacy-Initial Efficacy-Exit Mean Difference (Exit-Initial)

t p

N Mean (SD) Mean (SD)

TreatmentReading 18 6.30(.80) 7.26(.90) .96 6.25 .000*

Writing 18 6.43(.86) 7.30(1.00) .87 6.28 .000*

ControlReading 18 6.34(1.11) 6.29(1.20) -.04 -.10 .92

Writing 17 6.33(1.40) 6.25(1.16) -.09 -.19 .86

Note. * p < .001. Efficacy-Initial = PSTs’ efficacy measured at the beginning of the semester before placement. Efficacy-Exit = PSTs’ efficacy measured at the end of the semester after placement.

Table 1. Results of Paired Samples t-test for Self-Efficacy in Teaching Reading and Writing by Group

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To summarize, the self-efficacy surveys were designed to ask PSTs about how efficacious and confident they felt in teaching reading and writ-ing to diverse learners. They were asked to indicate their efficacy not only in their abilities to improve students’ confidence, model reading/writing strategies, assess students, and work with struggling students, but also their ability to successfully work with diverse learners while appreciating stu-dents’ multiple cultures and languages. Overall, the survey results support the claim that PSTs who were placed in PCW classrooms developed their confidence in teaching reading and writing to diverse learners over time. In addition, PSTs placed in PCW classes showed higher confidence at the end of the semester when compared to PSTs who were placed in secondary schools. We believe the convergence of the inclusive pedagogies introduced in the English education course curriculum and PCW field placements that demonstrated similar asset-based philosophies helped PSTs feel more skillful and efficacious in teaching diverse learners. While the statistically significant growth in efficacy these PSTs gained is noteworthy, it confirms only that the practice in practice with mentor teachers and English educators across sites of learning might be impactful individually for PSTs. We wondered as well what specific practices happened across the PSTs’ convergent sites of learning that might illustrate particular ways in which a practice in practice unfolds, and how both groups of PSTs might talk about their experiences and observations in their weekly teaching logs.

PSTs’ Teaching Practice Unpacked in Activity Logs

Early in our study, we had analyzed the logs of the PSTs in both placement sites, inductively and iteratively coding them at the sentence level to establish five specific categories of reflective teaching. While we devised five categories through qualitative analysis (monitoring, evaluating, imagining, applying, and identifying—see Appendix A for definitions and examples from the data), we focus our discussion here on one reflective practice (identifying) as it was the most relevant to provide initial insight into students’ sense of self-efficacy from the practice in practice supported by this structural innovation to placements, especially with the teaching of diverse learners. It’s important to emphasize that though isolated from the other reflective practices we found, identifying should be understood as occurring alongside the other forms of reflective practice that we identify in the model of Teacherly Re-flective Inquiry Practice (TRIP) included in Appendix B. It should be noted that the relationship among these categories of reflective teaching deserves further research that was beyond the scope of our research questions. For the

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purposes of this article, given its focus on learning to teach diverse learners, we focus on the category of identifying as one to demonstrate a synergy that PSTs developed between Ellen’s course content and the PCW placements that may have contributed to PSTs’ self-efficacy.

As we came to define this reflective category, the one that is most relevant to the argument we make here, identifying represented the PSTs’ intellectual work of being reminded of the pedagogical or theoretical con-tent knowledge taught in their teacher certification or English education classes. We found differences in the ways PSTs in PCW and those placed in local schools connected course content to their placement observations and experiences. We are not suggesting a causal connection between reflective practice and students’ growing sense of self-efficacy, but we do find interest-ing differences in the two sets of PSTs in terms of how they conceptualized and responded to the diverse learners in each of their respective placements (i.e., PCW vs. the local middle schools and high schools).

In comparing the treatment to the control PST logs, we were struck by the extent to which the PSTs in the PCW sections specifically mapped the inclusive pedagogies read and discussed in Ellen’s class onto what they were observing and experiencing in their PCW classes. From the activity logs of the semester described in this study, all but two of the 20 participating PCW students specifically mentioned the ways in which their education instruc-tion in inclusive pedagogies overlapped with their placement experiences and observations in the PCW class. As one student put it: “I have visited my PCW site a total of five times [now], and in these sessions I saw teaching concepts that I have only studied put into practice. Dr. X from the very first session implemented a classroom community and an interest in the student’s names, languages, and cultures.” Another student wrote: “During my placement practices, I was able to see firsthand the utilization by students of different ‘Englishes’ in the classroom.” Still another wrote: “through observation, I saw Mary [the teacher] incorporate cultural diversity into her activities. She had the students bring in a cultural artifact that was important to them within their personal lives.” Another described how her PCW instructor “has never once implied in the slightest that any person’s story isn’t worth telling” in the context of diverse learners who might otherwise feel vulner-able sharing their experiences in class; this class session was also linked to a recent reading from Ellen’s class (Kirkland, 2010), which called for teachers to draw on students’ sources of whatever they deemed to be their languages for thinking of English in more “pluralistic ways” (p. 303).

Moreover, these discussions tended to be quite granular, in terms of the specific links the PSTs made between their PCW placement and the

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readings on diverse learners that they had discussed in Ellen’s class (e.g., Gutiérrez, 2008; Kinloch, 2011; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2010; Paris, 2012). In-deed, it seemed the readings and discussions in Ellen’s class helped provide the PSTs with a framework within which to understand and unpack what they were observing and experiencing in the PCW sections. In referencing Gutiérrez (2008), one PST observed that his PCW instructor had “created a third space in asking students to refer to actual dialogues and differences they have, allowing them to use their own language in writing the dialogues, and allowing them to contrast their cultures with the American cultures.” In a clear reference to Moll and Gonzalez (1994), another PST wrote, “This instance with that particular student relates to one of the readings from last week. . . . By talking to the Chinese student, I was able to really get a feel for his ‘fund of knowledge,’ and better understand the practices and skills he grew up with.” Still others applied Kinloch’s (2011) ideas on inclusive teaching practices with urban youth: for example, one PST spoke about how a PCW class peer review reflected Kinloch’s (2011) notions of student empowerment in the classroom, where both students and teacher shared in the creation of knowledge. Combined with ongoing discussions with their PCW mentor teachers about the teaching of diverse learners, the readings and discussions on diverse learners in Ellen’s class seemed to provide a valuable pedagogical framework that enhanced these PSTs’ understanding of their experiences in the PCW class.

While students in the control group also mentioned links between their education courses and their placements in their activity logs, their connections tended to be generalized. For example, one PST in the control group wrote: “My professor used reflection, modeling, and leading questions this week.” Another described how her teacher incorporated scaffolding as a method of teaching a poetry lesson to an individual student (“breaking it down into steps”), and still another student wrote, “The students were able to practice their writing skills. This is going to help them get ready for their paper #2.” While these connections to course content had value for the control group in terms of helping these PSTs connect teaching theory with practice, the more specific reflections generated by the PSTs in the PCW placements point to the uses of theory within practice that focused on the challenges of teaching of diverse learners specifically.

While the PSTs in the control group recognized these challenges, they did not discuss their experiences in light of a curricular framework related to teaching diverse learners. One (white male) student, for example, wrote that in arriving at his placement—a local (mostly African American) high school—he discovered that,

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In my fancy shoes, slacks and Ralph Lauren sweater, I quickly realized that I stuck out like a sore thumb. For the first time, I felt like the minority as I walked past slamming lockers and inquisitive eyes. I cannot read minds, but if I could, I would have read a mess of “who is this white boy and what is he trying to prove?”

While this young person seems to conflate race and class in describing his sense of separation from the students at the high school, he nonetheless learns over time to find what he called “common ground” with them (in this case, a discussion of martial arts) as did another, who uncovered a high school student’s love of art. In another instance, a PST’s placement in a local high school brought him to, as he put it, “one of the biggest ques-tions I have been wondering about: If the students have such an interest in basketball (or any other activity), how might we, as teachers, incorporate it into the classroom?” But in such cases, these connections were not linked to educational theories and approaches discussed in the PSTs’ education classes. Without regular debriefing meetings with their mentor teachers, the PSTs placed in area classrooms had fewer opportunities to recognize those theories in action, to name them, or to draw on them as resources as they worked through pedagogical challenges with diverse learners. This in turn may have contributed to the lower self-efficacy that the students in traditional placements experienced, as cited above.

Instead, the PSTs in the control group ended up criticizing the middle school or high school students’ seeming lack of participation, disruptive talk-ing, and/or nonchalant attitudes, which they construed as an unwillingness to learn. “Why don’t you care?” one of the PSTs in the control group even asked, rhetorically we presume, of one of her high school placement students: a quick but on-point question that would—if it were even answered (as it was not)—open up all kinds of complex answers. Even those control-group PSTs who raised these questions in their reflective logs tended to do so without context, without understanding or insight into who these high school or middle school students might be, or where they were from. For example, one PST at a local high school thoughtfully mentioned the challenges of grading student quizzes objectively, wondering how much her assessment was prejudiced by the correctness of the more objective quiz answers; how might she test her students fairly, and without penalizing those who lacked test-taking abilities? Still another control-group PST analyzed a high school class he had observed in terms of the instructor’s discussion of water rights, but neither instructor nor PST seemed to consider how water rights might have been informed by economic inequality and cultural difference. More

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importantly for the purposes of this study, none of these PSTs chose to make connections to the theories and pedagogical frameworks regarding diverse learners that they were encountering in Ellen’s class.

In contrast, the PSTs placed in PCW worked to understand and appre-ciate the languages and cultures of the students as assets and resources for the students’ learning. One wrote, for example, of how much he had learned from his conference with an international student: “I was so surprised to hear the certain pressures the students there are put under, and it made me have a new respect for my International peers.” Another commented: “I was very impressed by their [the PCW students’] bilingualism, and I can even say I was envious; I think it’s great that they are able to express themselves in two, very different languages.” A third spoke of how her discussion with an international student had enhanced her understanding of how much “Chi-nese symbols contain[ed] so much cultural meaning, and how he lost that when trying to translate his words into English.” In other words, the PSTs placed in PCW expressed appreciation for the rich cultures and languages of the PCW students, and a recognition of how much could thus be “lost in translation.” One PST wrote, “I now have a greater appreciation for other languages, having seen what our books describe, first hand. This fuels my desire to think of ways to embrace both languages so students and myself can become better speakers of both,” while another remarked:

I was able to put into perspective the Portes article my group read this week because a majority of the PCW class are international students. In seeing first hand the way they are expected to come into the classroom and write their papers only in standard English, it is clear that they are being asked to drop some of their own home culture to assimilate to the American way of writing.

Such students also recognized how much their teaching had adjusted for them to connect better with the experiences, languages, and cultures of the PCW students—both first-generation domestic and non-U.S. multilinguals. Connecting what she was learning in Ellen’s class to the specific students in the PCW class, for example, one PST commented, “It was interesting to be able to use so many of the things we have read and talked about in class in my lesson . . . I really thought about how the PCW students and their status as English language learners would change some of the ways I taught.” Such a quote suggests a transferability of what these students had learned through the convergence of Ellen’s class and their PCW placement: that is, an asset orientation toward English language learners that may help them view future ELLs and other diverse students more positively in their futures.

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The PSTs in the PCW placements also tended to question themselves, rather than the PCW students, if there was any connective failure between the two parties. One PST wrote, for example, “I’m weary [wary?] to really interact with a lot of them [PCW students] because of the cultural/language barriers that disengage some of these students. I’m not really sure what to say to them or ask them and it makes me nervous about teaching in the future.” This PST then went on to discuss how much more confident her fellow PST partner seemed to be in navigating the linguistic and cultural challenges of the course. The fact that this first PST tended to question her own seeming inability to connect with these students rather than blame the students themselves implies a nuanced recognition of the challenges entailed in teaching diverse learners.

Overall, then, with the combined emphasis on inclusive teaching expressed by both Ellen and the PCW teachers, the PSTs placed in PCW seemed especially sensitive to and interested in considerations of who the PCW students were, and where their students had come from. The PCW teachers wrote comments linked to specific ideas in specific readings and about their students in relationship to more generalized ELA skills (such as scaffolding, modeling, and the like), especially in terms of getting to know the backgrounds, cultures, and languages of PCW’s diverse learners. Such detail also informed their reflective logs across the five categories of TRIP; for example, in discussing the importance of modeling for the PCW students (which we coded under our “applying” TRIP category), one PST suggested the value of the cultural traditions that both PCW students and their teach-ers brought to the class:

Then, after students were given the rubric for the assignment, Cathy ex-plained it to them in detail. Afterwards, she and I each gave the class an example of a dish that we would use if we were doing the assignment. I talked about cinnamon rolls and the significance that they have in my fam-ily (the recipe has been passed down), how we only eat them at Christmas, and how I would have to do some research on the history of the dish as well as the cultural importance.

Creating an opening for the PCW students to in turn share aspects of their own cultural traditions, this PST expressed her willingness to see the PCW students’ experiences, languages, and cultures as potential assets that could be leveraged to support the PCW students’ learning.

The learning process demonstrated in the placement logs of the PSTs placed in PCW was iterative: what they encountered and discussed in Ellen’s class was reinforced by discussions with the PCW teachers as well as their

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experiences working in the PCW classroom, which we believe contributed in turn to the PSTs’ enhanced self-efficacy in teaching diverse learners. What happened in the case of the PSTs placed in PCW was a purposeful convergence of education theory (in this case, on the teaching of diverse learners) with related placements in classrooms of diverse learners, with mentor teachers who had read and discussed much of the same material, and were not hesitant to reference these theories in their biweekly debriefing sessions with their PSTs. The convergence seemed to offer PSTs a specific framing and integrative practice that the PSTs placed in PCW were able to express in their logs. They were able to frame their placement observations and practices around the theoretical constructs of inclusive pedagogy that they had encountered in Ellen’s class. They did so through the process of identifying ideas in key readings and authors, as well as other reflective prac-tices illustrated in Appendix B, such as monitoring, evaluating, descriptions of applying, and imagining. The activity logs suggest that PSTs engaged in the day-to-day pedagogical and intellectual work of teaching and frequently developed with their mentor teachers a shared language for teaching diverse learners intensive reading and writing assignments. Influenced both by El-len’s course and by their ongoing discussions with the PCW teachers, for example, PSTs imbedded in the PCW sections talked about how and when they saw examples of “culturally relevant pedagogy” and “third space” being enacted in the PCW course (Meier et al., 2017).

Discussion

To return to our original research question of how PSTs’ self-efficacy in teaching diverse learners might be affected when a pedagogical framework was intentionally shared across multiple sites, we found that indeed, there seemed to be a strong link. That is, PSTs placed in PCW expressed higher self-efficacy than those in the regular placements; the PSTs in Ellen’s class who experienced collective understandings of teaching and learning across sites of their English education, practice, and placement courses reported significantly more confidence than did those who were placed in middle school and high school settings. We also found corroborating evidence in the treatment PSTs’ logs, which tended to make deeper and more specific connections between the theories about teaching diverse learners that they encountered in Ellen’s class and what they experienced in the PCW class-rooms. We believe the key here was the iterative, shared practice that deeply involved the PCW instructors in the mentoring of the teacher candidate. Side

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by side with their mentor professors, PSTs negotiated curriculum largely centered in students’ linguistic and cultural knowledge. The PSTs were thus able to see their successes and “failures” in incorporating third-space-focused (Gutiérrez, 2008) and culturally sustaining (Paris, 2012; Paris & Alim, 2014) lessons through practice in practice. These reflective practices allowed the PSTs the opportunity to express and elaborate on their experiences within the classroom with PCW mentor teachers including Joyce who shared their desire to learn to innovate ways to teach diverse learners. Together PSTs, Ellen, and the PCW instructors collectively shared a pedagogical platform to contemplate potential future changes in their lessons and practices with, and attitudes toward, diverse learners. In turn, such reflections, we contend, powerfully illustrate the ways in which PSTs’ confidence developed through their involvement in this strategic placement and in their engagement with and teaching of diverse learners. How such synergy might have also affected other aspects of the Teacherly Reflective Inquiry Practice that we identified in the PSTs’ logs (e.g., monitoring, evaluating, imagining, and applying) would be an area for further, more nuanced analysis. In other words, while our “identifying” category readily lent itself to this study, in enabling us to see how the control-group PSTs made multiple links between the material they encountered in Ellen’s class and their PCW placement experiences, to what extent might other teacher reflective practices be affected by such a synergistic arrangement?

In saying this, we also acknowledge that there are limitations to this study. We suspect that age difference (between high school and college stu-dents) as well as implicit bias and stereotyping on the part of the PSTs (e.g., the perceived differences between the African American students in local middle school and high school settings and motivated Asian students in col-lege classrooms) were factors in the PSTs’ more thoughtful and culturally sympathetic readings of the PCW students. Besides, high school attendance is mandatory (as opposed to college, which is elective), and high school classrooms are generally larger—all circumstances that may have affected the more positive experience that the PSTs had in their PCW placement. Still, we cannot help but wonder if the experiences and responses of the PSTs to the diverse learners they encountered in local middle schools and high schools would have been different, more nuanced, and more asset-framed had there been stronger connections between the English education content teacher focusing on the pedagogy of teaching diverse learners (in this case, Ellen) and the area teachers involved.

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But when such shared conversations are not possible, it is likely that the PSTs working with motivated college students in a doubly supportive environment (with both Ellen and the PCW teachers) may come out of the experience with an asset orientation toward English language learners that may help them in their encounters with future ELLs—even those who may be less motivated; they may view these experiences more positively and with greater self-efficacy. Also, because the PCW classes also tended to contain at least 20 percent U.S. students, it is possible that attending carefully to the one set of diverse students (the Asians in these sections) might help the PSTs extend what they learned and practiced to another. Future studies examining these various configurations in more detail are thus warranted.

Conclusion

Offering teacher candidates intensive interaction with diverse learners in ways that bridge theory and practice with the help of mentor teachers is often hard won in institutional settings where content, method, and placement experiences are typically separate and developed from discrete philosophi-cal and disciplinary approaches. Helping PSTs learn a practice in practice requires coordination if teacher educators are to address the malingering problem of assuming that teacher candidates can and will connect these dots themselves. Addressing this problem by placing students in college writing courses that have a shared curriculum, philosophy, and dedicated faculty is clearly a unique laboratory enabling us to operationalize a set of core practices necessary for teaching and learning from diverse learners. What emerged from this purposeful alignment of institutional stars was a promising extension of previous scholarship on reflective teaching practice (Lee, 2005; McDonald et al., 2013). What remains to be seen is the extent to which this preparation extends beyond this time/space. Will the teacher candidates taught in this arrangement continue teaching diverse learners with asset-based intensive English reading and writing assignments and activities? Still, populating this complicated scene of learning with expert teachers of writing intensive preparatory college writing classrooms has revealed a promising solution for those teacher education programs that do not have university-sponsored professional development schools.

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Category Definition Examples

Monitoring PSTs’ intellectual work of overseeing the flow of events, students’ comprehension, or their own understanding and learning during a class session. Note: monitoring happens while they are observing their mentor teach-ers’ interactions with the diverse college writers or paying attention to the flow of class or their own teaching.

“In this end activity in particular, I learned the importance of students getting up and walking around the room. The class was the most ac-tive and engaged as they walked around and talked about their projects.”

Identifying PSTs’ intellectual work of being reminded of the pedagogical or theoretical content knowledge taught in their teacher certifica-tion or English education classes.

“This instance with that particular student relates to one of the readings from last week, [in] Alsup [that] talks about ‘Funds of Knowledge,’ which are Moll and Gonzalez define as ‘those historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household and individual functioning and well-being’ (1994, p. 443). By talking to the Chinese student, I was able to really get a feel for his ‘fund of knowledge,’ and better understand the practices and skills he grew up with.”

Imagining PSTs’ intellectual work of envisioning themselves doing differently in their future teaching or in their placements, and engag-ing in the invention or revision of teaching practices. Note: Often uses modals (e.g., could have, would have, should have) or hypothetical constructions (e.g., if, when I get my own class, or in the future, I will, or I wonder if).

“However, if we were to redo the activity again, I would make sure that all students were working with an article that would actually help them when it was time to start outlining/drafting their papers.”

Applying PSTs’ putting their content knowledge into action as time-bound, classroom activities situated within the larger assignment’s goals.

“Then, after students were given the rubric for the assignment, Cathy explained it to them in detail. Afterwards, she and I each gave the class an example of a dish that we would use if we were doing the assignment. I talked about cinnamon rolls and the significance that they have in my family (the recipe has been passed down), how we only eat them at Christmas, and how I would have to do some research on the history of the dish as well as the cultural importance.”

Evaluating PSTs’ judgment on their own and instructor’s teaching that occurred as they reflected on their placement experiences. Note: Often uses valuing language (e.g., helpful, useful, applicable) or assesses (e.g., good, better, best, awesome, well, not so good, could have been better).

“I used a chalk walk in order to run the classroom conduct activity. I think it went well because it encouraged the students to partici-pate by writing their ideas on the board.”

Note: Sentences in bold are the ones coded in Nvivo.

Appendix A: Definitions and Excerpted Examples of Teacherly Reflective Inquiry Process (TRIP)

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Appendix B: Teacherly Reflective Inquiry Process (TRIP) Model

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Yunjeong Choi is a research professor in the Center for English Language Education at Korea University in South Korea. Her research interests include second language literacy development and ESL/EFL teacher education. (Email: [email protected].)

Joyce Meier is the assistant director of the First-Year Writ-ing Program in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University where she has taught since 2010. Her research interests include translingualism, transcultural rhetorics, and community writing. (Email: [email protected].)

Ellen Cushman is Dean’s Professor of Civic Sustainability and the associate dean of Academic Affairs, Diversity, and Inclusion in the College of Social Sciences and Humani-ties at Northeastern University. (Email: [email protected].)

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