Section archive - Programs & Practicum

This study examines preservice teacher coursework and interview data related to encountering student trauma, secondary trauma, and the role of self-care during clinical placement experiences. A thematic analysis of the data led to the identification of four main themes: the power of student stories, recognition of the many forms of trauma, preservice teacher burnout, and barriers to integrating self-care. Additionally, the authors’ analysis revealed the ways in which preservice teachers experienced secondary trauma as a consequence of forming relationships with students and listening to their stories. Some of the effects of this secondary trauma were mitigated by engaging in self-care, but those preservice teachers who felt they failed at supporting their personal wellness experienced burnout. More troubling, only one preservice teacher recognized self-care’s connection to trauma-informed teaching. The authors’ findings reveal the importance of infusing content on trauma, secondary trauma, and self-care in teacher education coursework and the need to provide professional development on trauma-informed teaching for clinical placement school sites.

This article explores the influence of chronotopes on pre-service teachers’ professional becoming in a school–university partnership model. It draws upon dialogue from professional conversations which included multiple stakeholders in the partnership. The results illustrate the complex process of becoming for pre-service teachers as they navigate voices across time and space. They provide an illustration of chronotopes interacting productively, providing support for pre-service growth, and chronotopes in tension, leading to the silencing of pre-service teacher voice. It is hoped this article encourages educators to reflect on the impact chronotopes can have on pre-service teachers’ professional growth, the kinds of conditions that support growth and increased agency, and the ways chronoptic interactions can impact the development of transformative hybrid models of Initial Teacher Education.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) holds considerable promise to create inclusive educational environments. Nevertheless, the most recent theoretical UDL model, which includes both teachers’ philosophy and praxis of teaching, has never been tested empirically. Therefore, this study aims to validate the UDL model as a “whole” among preservice teachers. Results show that the three philosophical constructs of UDL predict the performance of preservice teachers’ practices associated with UDL. These constructs are growth mindset about learning, self-efficacy to implement inclusion, and self-regulation and motivation for teaching. Results also show that preservice teachers think and reason about UDL not as three separate principles (i.e., engagement, representation, action, and expression) but in an interrelated way as the analysis shows them to be a unidimensional factor. Finally, this article discusses the implications of a validated model on UDL for teacher-educators, practitioners, and researchers.

In this case study, the authors explored how one college of education went about revising curricula across several programs; thereby disentangling multiple perspectives in order to address the needs of various external drivers as well as meeting faculty-driven needs. Informed by a conceptual framework undergirded by sociocultural theory and co/sense-making, findings from their study present a complicated view of the curricular revisioning process––offering evidence of both success and areas for continued improvement. Specifically, findings illustrate how faculty chose to mediate curricular revisioning tools; how faculty and college administration negotiated the aims and processes of curricular revisioning; and how (mis)communication among various participants intersected the work and shaped the perceptions of faculty and administration. Themes generated from their study provide lessons for others seeking to revise their teacher education curricula.