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Volume XXVI • Number 1 • Fall 2003 i

Volume XXVI C Number 1 C Fall 2003

Table of Contents

Editorial Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Editor’s Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miles DeMott iii

About the Publishers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

Reliability of Student Literacy Attitude Carolyn Reeves, Dana Thames, Richard Kazelskis,Inventory (SLAI) Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pattie Smith, Thea Hayes & Yu-Hsing Chang 1

Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Teacher Effectiveness:Implications for Professional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nikki Bray-Clark & Reid Bates 13

Using Cooperative Learning inElementary Science Classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Ransdell 23

Instructions for Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Teacher and Student Cognitions Alice M. Buchanan,During Team Building Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Frances Agnello & Ron E. McBride 37

The CLASS Professional Development SchoolInitiative: Redesigning Teacher EducationThrough Effective Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W. Bumper White & Robert Schaible 47

Cabell Inclusion Announcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Extending the Learning Community: The Birth of aNew Teacher Support Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donna R. Sanderson 63

Web Site Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Organizing Instructional Practice Around theAssessment Portfolio: The Gains and Losses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Min Zou 73

ERIC Announcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Call for Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Subscription Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

ii The Professional Educator

Published by

Truman Pierce Institute C College of Education C Auburn University

Volume XXVI, Number 1

Executive Editor: Frances K. Kochan, Auburn University

Editor: Miles L. DeMott, Auburn University

Assistant Editor: Altamese Stroud-Hill, Auburn University

Graphics Editor: Robert M. DeMent, Auburn University

Production Associate: Gloria O. Taylor, Auburn University

National Advisory Board

Nancy Ares, University of Utah

Ralph Fessler, Johns Hopkins University

Jim Flaitz, University of Southwestern Louisiana

Elaine Liftin, Executive Director, South Florida Annenberg Challenge

Rhonda C. Porter, Florida A&M University

Larry Rosen, Stetson University

Dale Schunk, Purdue University

Ellen Weissinger, University of Nebraska

ISSN: 0196-786X

Volume XXVI • Number 1 • Fall 2003 iii

From Your Editor

Academic discourse is alive and well, and The Professional Educator has reviewed arecord number of manuscripts in preparation for this issue. While we can’t publish themall, we have assembled a collection of articles that we hope will inform your ownresearch and practice. As with our last issue, the absence of a formal theme allows thearticles in this issue to coalesce into a natural, metaphorical representation of theeducational enterprise, moving backwards from the student-focused center to the largerseries of events that lead to the teaching moment.

We begin with a look at individual students and teachers, examining the reliabilityof inventory scores and the impact of self-efficacy beliefs on teacher effectiveness. Ourperspective then shifts to the classroom where we explore both cooperative learning aswell as teacher and student cognitions during team-building activities. Our third pairof articles considers the role of collaboration in teacher education and describes amethod for extending and perpetuation that support base for new teachers. Our finalauthor makes suggestions as to how we might use portfolios to guide and assess ourinstructional practice.

It has been a pleasure working with the authors and reviewers in bringing you thiscollection. I hope you find them informative and, perhaps, provocative. As always, wewelcome your thoughts, ideas, and comments, submissions, and subscriptions at TheProfessional Educator, and we look forward to reviewing and publishing your scholarlywork in the near future. Thanks for your continued support.

Miles L. DeMottEditor

iv The Professional Educator

About the PublishersAUBURN UNIVERSITY’S

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

AND TRUMAN PIERCE INSTITUTE

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Auburn University, a fully accredited land-grant institution, is located in Auburn, Alabama.The institution was established in 1856 as a small Methodist liberal arts college with 80 students.It is the second oldest, four-year coeducational school in the southeast.

The College of Education was established in 1915. It is accredited by the National Councilfor the Accreditation of Teacher Education and other accrediting agencies and has an excellentreputation for its professional preparation programs, from bachelor’s through the doctorate.Within the College are five departments: Counseling and Counseling Psychology; Curriculum andTeaching; Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Technology; Health and Human Perfor-mance; and, Rehabilitation and Special Education. The College of Education emphasizes highquality in the preparation of professionals for schools and for other educational agencies throughinnovative programs built on a strong research base. The College has always responded to thechanging demands of the profession, maintaining program relevance to the field through constantexamination of new program options. This emphasis has enabled the College to develop one ofthe most comprehensive professional preparation programs in the southeast.

TRUMAN PIERCE INSTITUTE

The Truman Pierce Institute is named in honor of Dr. Truman M. Pierce, an educationvisionary, who served as Dean of Auburn University’s College of Education for two decades andmade regional and national contributions to educational arenas. Born and reared in a town calledEquality, Alabama in 1906, he developed outstanding characteristics and attributes that guidedhis efforts for improving society and the lives of people across the nation.

The Institute functions under the auspices of Auburn University in keeping with its historiccommitment as a land grant university to advance the welfare of humanity through education.Located within the College of Education, the Institute works with private and public institutionsto achieve its mission—improving preservice teachers’s preparation and K–12 education—andits purposes which are vividly expressed in the projects of the Truman Pierce Institute. Theprojects include participating in a learning coalition with local education agencies, developing theWest Alabama Learning Coalition, facilitating the Center for Professional Development Schools,designing and coordinating surveys of educational interest for Alabama, and co-publishing TheProfessional Educator.

The research reported herein was partially funded by Grant Number H326L000001 from the U. S. Department of1

Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

Volume XXVI • Number 1 • Fall 2003 1

Reliability of Student Literacy AttitudeInventory (SLAI) Scores1

Carolyn Reeves, Dana Thames, Richard Kazelskis,Patti Smith, Thea Hayes, and Yu-Hsing Chang

The University of Southern Mississippi

AbstractThe study examined the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the Student Literacy Attitude Inventory

(SLAI) scores. A total of 367 students in grades four, five, and six responded to the SLAI. The data were analyzed bygender, ethnicity, and grade level for each of the SLAI subareas (Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Self-Perceptions as learners) and for SLAI total scores. The alphas associated with the total SLAI scores ranged from .91 to.94 across gender, ethnicity, and grade level. The test-retest coefficients were not as high as the alphas but were in the.70s for all groups except the male subgroup. These results suggest that the test-retest and alpha reliabilities for the totalscores of the SLAI are at an acceptable level and may be useful in assessing the extent to which students respondpositively to integrated language arts programs that include multiple strategies for developing literacy. Although thealphas for the Reading, Speaking, and Listening subarea scores tended to be in the .70s, the alphas for the Self-Perceptionand Writing scores were lower. In particular, the alphas for the Writing subarea were all below .70. Very few of the test-retest coefficients exceeded .70 for the subarea scores across the various subgroups. Several of the test-retest coefficientsfor the subareas of listening and writing were in the .40s and .50s for some of the subgroups, suggesting littleconsistency in these subgroups’ responses across the seven-day interval of time.

One of the major factors related to readingachievement is the student’s attitude toward reading(Alexander & Filler, 1976; Diamond & Onwuegbu-zie, 2001; Groff, 1962; Purves & Beach, 1972; Roett-ger, Szymczuk, & Millard, 1979; Russ, 1989; Walberg& Tsai, 1985). In general, students who can read onor above-grade-level texts exhibit more positiveattitudes toward reading than do students whostruggle to read grade-level texts (Lipsky, 1983;McKenna & Kear, 1990; McKenna, Kear, & Ells-worth, 1995; Roettger, 1980). Researchers do notagree, however, on the direction of a possible causalrelationship between reading attitude and achieve-ment; some believe that positive reading attitudesproduce higher reading achievement (Bettelheim &Zelan, 1981), while others argue that higher readingachievement contributes to positive reading atti-tudes (Quinn & Jadav, 1987).

Definitions of reading attitude imply directconnections between attitude and various reading

behaviors. Alexander and Filler (1976) defined read-ing attitude as “a system of feelings related to read-ing which causes the learner to approach or avoid areading situation” (p. 1). Smith (1988) definedattitude toward reading as “a state of mind, accom-panied by feelings and emotions, that make readingmore or less probable” (p. 215). McKenna, Kear, andEllsworth (1995) point out, however, that a positiveglobal attitude toward reading does not imply apositive attitude toward all kinds of reading becausedegree of interest in the topic affects one’s attitude.More research is needed to clarify the nature of theroles that individual interest and situational interestmay play, both separately and interactively on (a)the acquisition of reading attitudes, (b) maintenanceof acquired attitudes, and (c) changes in acquiredreading attitudes over time (Hidi, 1990; Hidi &Harackiewicz, 2000). Although a number of re-searchers have proposed models of reading attitudeacquisition and the influence of attitude on reading

Carolyn Reeves, Dana Thames, Richard Kazelskis, Patti Smith, Thea Hayes, and Yu-Hsing Chang

2 The Professional Educator

behaviors (e.g., Henk & Holmes, 1988; Mathewson,1976, 1985, 1994; McKenna, 1994; Ruddell & Speaker,1985; Ruddell & Unrau, 1994), research designed toinvestigate the efficacy of theoretical reading atti-tude models is needed to increase our understand-ing of the nature of the relationship between readingattitude and reading behaviors.

A variety of instruments and assessment ap-proaches have been designed by researchers tomeasure reading attitude, including questionnairesand surveys (Estes, 1971; Guthrie & Greaney, 1991;Henk & Melnick, 1995; Lewis & Teale, 1980; McKen-na & Kear, 1990; McKenna, Kear, & Ellsworth, 1995;Wigfield, Guthrie, & McGough, 1996), guided inter-views (Gambrell, Palmer, Codling & Mazzoni, 1995;Guthrie & Seifert, 1983; Mikulecky, 1982), diarytechniques, daily-activity records, and reading logs(Allen, Cipielewski, & Stanovich, 1992; Anderson,Wilson, & Fielding, 1988; Greany, 1980; Guthrie,McGough & Wigfield, 1994), and literature recogni-tion (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990, 1991; Stano-vich & Cunningham, 1992; Stanovich & West, 1989).While reliability and validity of scores derived fromsome of these instruments have been reported in theliterature (e.g., Allen, Cipielewski, & Stanovich,1992; Estes, 1971; McKenna & Kear, 1990), additionalstudy of the reliability and validity of scores derivedfrom these instruments and procedures is needed.

Our interest in assessment of reading attitudefocuses on both intrinsic and extrinsic factors whichwe believe are integral aspects of a student’s literacyattitudes. The Student Literacy Attitude Inventory(SLAI), a revised version of the Student AttitudeInventory (Thames & Reeves, 1993, 1994), wasdeveloped to provide assessment information relat-ed to the learner’s: (a) attitudes toward literacyactivities which may occur in classroom and/orhome environments involving the language artsareas of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and (b)his/her self-perceptions as a learner.

Complicating the study of reading (literacy)attitudes are findings that reading attitudes may berelated to gender (Anderson, Tollefeson, & Gilbert,1985; Barnett & Irwin, 1994; Danielson & Tighe,1994; Kush & Watkins, 1996; McKenna, Kear, &Ellsworth, 1995; Parker & Paradis, 1986; Shapiro1980, 1990; Stevenson & Newman, 1986; Wallbrown,

Levine, & Engin, 1981), ethnicity (McKenna, Kear, &Ellsworth, 1995; Saracho & Dayton, 1991), and gradelevel (Anderson, Tollefson, & Gilbert, 1985; Dia-mond & Onwuegbuzie, 2001; Kush & Watkins,1996; McKenna & Kear, 1990; McKenna, Kear, &Ellsworth, 1995; Thames & Reeves, 1994). Thepresence of such relationships suggests the possibil-ity of reliability and validity differences in suchgroups as well. This study of the reliability of theSLAI scores is the first in a series of planned studiesdesigned to explore the reliability and validity ofSLAI scores across a variety of subgroups. Specifi-cally, the purpose of this study was to examine thetest-retest and alpha reliability of scores on the SLAIfor a sample of students by gender, ethnicity, andgrade level.

MethodParticipants

The participants included 367 students in gradesfour, five, and six representing four districts and 11schools in the southern region of Mississippi. Thedistribution across grades was: 101 in grade four,102 in grade five, and 134 in grade six. Grade leveldesignation was not available for 30 students. Therewere 228 African American students and 137 Euro-pean American students. Ethnicity information wasnot available for two students. The number of malestudents was 172 and the number of female studentswas 195. The reading abilities of the students rangedfrom very poor to very good. The reading programin 10 of the 11 schools was a basal reading programwith some direct instruction, and in the remainingschool the reading program was a structured, direct-instruction reading program. Fourth-, fifth-, andsixth-grade classes from one of the schools com-posed the sample for the test-retest portion of thestudy, being almost half of the total number ofparticipants.

InstrumentThe initial version of the Student Literacy Atti-

tude Inventory (SLAI) was titled the Student Atti-tude Inventory (SAI), and it contained 33 itemsdistributed across five subareas: Listening (7 items),Speaking (7 items), Reading (8 items), Writing (6items), and Self-Perceptions as Learners (5 items).

Reliability of Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI) Scores


The SAI was constructed by Thames and Reeves(1993, 1994) in response to the need for an instru-ment that could serve as a measure of elementarystudents’ attitudes toward language arts activitiesand their self-perceptions as learners, with resultsfrom the instrument to be used by preservice teach-ers enrolled in a reading practicum course thatfocused on reading assessment and instruction ofelementary students with reading difficulties. Thepracticum course required each preservice teacher touse the results of an interest inventory and otherdiagnostic information to select trade books andarticles from newspapers and magazines that wouldinterest her/his assigned elementary student and toplan lessons that included listening, speaking, read-ing, and writing activities related to the content ofthe selected texts. The items in the SAI were gener-ated from a compilation of statements made byelementary students over a period of four years,who were responding to learning activities pre-sented by preservice teachers during language artspracticum assignments. As the result of field testingover time, some items on the SAI were revisedslightly to improve clarity in wording, and oneadditional item was added to the subarea of self-perceptions as learners; these changes were madebased on feedback from elementary students andpreservice teachers who were administering theinstrument. The authors also decided to insert theword literacy into the title of the instrument to indi-cate that its focus was on the assessment of literacyattitude, thus the name of the instrument becamethe Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI).

The SLAI contains 34 items distributed acrossfive subareas: Listening (7 items), Speaking (7 items),Reading (8 items), Writing (6 items), and Self-Per-ceptions as Learners (6 items). The items on the SLAIare presented as questions, such as “How do youfeel when someone reads a story to you?” (Listen-ing), “How do you feel when someone asks you totell about something that has happened to you orsomething that you have done?” (Speaking), “Howdo you feel when you are asked to read writtendirections and the teacher does not explain them?”(Reading), “How do you feel when you are writinga note to a friend or parent and you do not knowhow to spell a word?” (Writing) , and “How do you

feel when you are asked to complete an assignmentalone?” (Self-Perceptions as Learners). A series offive face illustrations (ranging from a big smile to abig frown) follow each question, so that a respon-dent may mark the face that best represents his orher feelings. A complete list of the SLAI items islisted in the Appendix.

The SLAI may be group- or individually-admin-istered, with the teacher or proctor reading aloudeach item. Students are told that the face illustra-tions, which are located below each question, repre-sent the following moods: “very happy,” “a littlehappy,” “neither happy nor sad,” “sad,” and “verysad.” After hearing each question, the student circles(or marks) the face that most closely represents hisor her feelings about the question. The SLAI isscored using a Likert scale: “very happy” face = 5points, “happy” face = 4 points, “neither happy norsad” face = 3 points, “sad” face = 2 points, and “verysad” face = 1 point. Subarea and total SLAI scoresare obtained by first summing item responses foreach subarea and then summing subarea scores toobtain a total score. Maximum possible subareascores are 35 (Listening), 35 (Speaking), 40 (Read-ing), 30 (Writing), and 30 (Self-Perceptions as Learn-ers), with a maximum possible total score of 170.

Thames and Reeves (1994) reported alpha co-efficients for the five subareas of the SAI as follows:.74 (Listening), .74 (Speaking), .82 (Reading), .77(Writing), and .74 (Self-Perceptions as Learners),with .93 being the alpha coefficient for the overall(total) score. The validity of the SAI was examinedby correlating the total SAI scores obtained on asample of 47 elementary students with their totalscores on the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey(ERAS), authored by McKenna and Kear (1990), andthe obtained Pearson product moment correlationcoefficient was .44 (p < .002), which was consideredadequate since the two instruments were measuringdifferent aspects of attitude. Recently, Hayes (2003)reported that significant Pearson product momentcorrelations (p < .01) were obtained between SLAItotal scores and several measures, based on a sampleof 62 second-grade students: the ERAS/recreationalscores (r = . 55), the ERAS/academic scores (r = .67),the Motivational Reading Profile Reading Survey(MRPRS, by Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni,



1996) total scores (r = .54), the MRPRS scores fromthe reading survey component (r = .44), and theMRPRS conversational interview scores from thegeneral reading component (r = .45).

ProceduresPermission was granted through the participat-

ing school districts’ central offices to administer theSLAI to students in grades four, five, and six. TheSLAI was administered to classes of students as agroup by university faculty and graduate students inthe field of literacy education who had been trainedto administer the instrument. For test-retest pur-poses the SLAI was administered on two occasionswith a seven-day interval between administrations.Anonymity of student responses was achieved bypre-assigning numbers to students on class rostersand distributing the SLAI instruments to studentsusing the class roster, so that absent students’ formswere not distributed; students were instructed not towrite their names on the instrument. Prior to admin-istering the SLAI, the proctor explained that thepurpose of the inventory was to study students’thoughts and feelings about reading and in no waywas this a test with correct or incorrect responses.The meanings of the face illustrations that appearedbelow each question were explained. The studentswere instructed to mark an “X” on the face thatcorresponded to their feelings when consideringeach question. A sample question was read aloudand the meanings of the face choices were reviewed.After answering students’ questions related to theprocedures they were to follow, the proctor beganadministering the inventory by reading aloud eachquestion, pausing after each question to allow timefor each student to mark a response. The same pro-cedures were followed for the retest administrationof the inventory with the proctor first explaining thepurpose for obtaining their responses to the SLAIand then reminding students that it was very impor-tant for them to answer the questions based on theirpresent feelings rather than attempting to matchtheir previous responses.

Analysis of DataInternal consistency reliability was estimated

using Cronbach’s (1951) coefficient alpha, and test-

retest reliability was estimated using the Pearsonproduct-moment correlation between scores obtain-ed from the first and second administrations of theSLAI. The interval between administrations wasseven days. Coefficient alpha was calculated usingscores from the first administration of the SLAI.Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest coefficients wereobtained by gender, ethnicity, and grade level.

ResultsMeans and standard deviations by gender,

ethnicity, and grade level for SLAI total scores andsubarea scores (i.e., Listening, Speaking, Reading,Writing, Self-Perceptions as Learners) for the initialadministration are presented in Table 1. The alphacoefficients associated with these scores are pre-sented in Table 2. The alpha coefficients for the totalSLAI scores were high ranging from .91 and .94 forvarious groups of students. In general, the alphas forthe Listening, Speaking, and Reading subarea scoreswere in the .70s across subgroups. The alphas for theSelf-Perceptions as Learners subarea scores weresomewhat lower with three of the seven coefficientsin the .60s. None of the alphas for the Writing sub-area scores exceeded .70. Alphas for the total groupwere in the .70s for all subareas except for Writing(.638). The total-group alpha for the total score washigh, being .93.

Means and standard deviations for those re-sponding to both administrations of the SLAI arepresented in Table 3. Little change in mean scoreswas observed over the seven-day interval for any ofthe subgroups.

SLAI total score test-retest coefficients exceeded.70 for all subgroups except for males (.67) with thehighest coefficient being .80 for the grade five re-spondents (Table 4). Nearly all test-retest coefficientsfor the subarea scores across subgroups were below.70. The coefficients ranged from .44 for the Listen-ing subarea scores for males to a high of .74 for theSpeaking subarea scores of the respondents of gradefive. Subarea test-retest coefficients for the totalsample ranged from .52 for the Listening sub-area to.67 for the Speaking subarea. The total SLAI coeffi-cient for the total sample was .74.



Table 1Means and Standard Deviations for the Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI)

by Ethnic Group, Gender, and Grade Level: Initial Administration

Group

SLAI SubareaSLAI Total

Listening Speaking Reading Writing Self-Perception

M S M S M S M S M S M S

African American 24.97 4.82 26.48 5.80 30.09 6.12 21.51 5.54 23.04 5.17 126.09 23.12a

European American 26.95 4.74 27.49 5.19 30.18 5.73 21.53 4.46 24.17 3.93 130.31 20.61b

Females 26.18 4.71 27.30 5.21 30.87 5.60 21.65 4.28 23.92 4.32 129.92 20.37c

Males 25.09 5.09 26.32 6.01 29.29 6.25 21.33 4.78 22.88 5.26 124.06 23.58d

Grade Four 25.51 4.82 25.41 5.85 28.88 6.45 21.37 4.82 22.90 5.41 124.06 23.58e

Grade Five 25.88 5.17 27.59 5.22 31.37 5.79 22.06 4.49 23.83 4.48 130.74 22.18f

Grade Six 24.79 4.74 26.99 5.50 30.30 5.61 21.04 4.24 23.34 4.79 126.46 21.67g

n = 228; n = 137; n = 195; n = 172; n = 101; n = 102; n = 134a b c d e f g

Table 2Cronbach’s Alphas for the Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI)

by Ethnic Group, Gender, and Grade Level

GroupSLAI Subarea SLAI Total


African American .658 .774 .740 .624 .739 .925a

European American .784 .753 .766 .662 .613 .923b

Females .705 .739 .717 .603 .652 .911c

Males .727 .791 .771 .670 .755 .935d

Grade Four .663 .748 .748 .651 .728 .935e

Grade Five .743 .727 .735 .619 .666 .924f

Grade Six .721 .785 .746 .598 .736 .927g

Total Group .720 .767 .749 .638 .708 .925

n = 228; n = 137; n = 195; n = 172; n = 101; n = 102; n = 134a b c d e f g



Table 3Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI) Means and Standard Deviations by Ethnic Group, Gender,

and Grade Level: Initial and Retest Administrations

Group Adm.

SLAI SubareaSLAI Total


M S M S M S M S M S M S

Afri. Am. Initial 26.11 3.73 27.88 4.04 31.88 4.02 22.48 3.68 24.67 3.43 133.02 13.91 a

Retest 25.24 4.42 27.16 4.74 30.25 5.67 22.23 4.09 24.28 3.84 129.43 18.70

Euro. Am. Initial b

Retest

Females Initial 26.44 3.74 27.70 4.04 32.15 3.99 21.97 3.71 24.70 3.18 132.95 13.91c

Retest 25.37 4.12 26.86 4.81 30.51 5.32 22.18 4.12 23.95 4.07 128.87 18.69

Males Initial 25.78 3.73 27.99 4.21 31.49 4.09 22.83 3.80 24.74 3.77 132.83 14.62d

Retest 25.37 4.12 27.28 4.95 30.35 6.15 22.07 4.17 24.42 3.86 129.25 19.90

Grade 4 Initial 27.04 3.90 27.40 4.35 32.00 4.25 23.17 3.75 24.98 3.84 134.58 14.69e

Retest 24.74 5.09 25.36 5.93 28.17 6.58 21.43 4.44 23.45 4.49 123.15 22.87

Grade 5 Initial 25.88 4.04 27.70 4.23 32.78 4.50 22.74 3.87 24.82 2.97 133.92 15.09f

Retest 25.62 4.76 27.86 4.58 32.74 5.14 23.32 4.17 24.82 3.98 134.36 18.24

Grade 6 Initial 25.78 3.42 28.33 3.79 31.22 3.61 21.62 3.74 24.60 3.48 131.55 13.94g

Retest 25.67 3.56 27.90 3.83 30.82 4.36 21.85 3.81 24.17 3.58 130.40 15.74

n = 147; group size too small for meaningful results; n = 87; n = 69; n = 53; n = 50; n = 60a b c d e f g



Table 4Test-Retest Coefficient for the Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI)

by Ethnic Group, Gender, and Grade Level

GroupSLAI Subarea

SLAI TotalListening Speaking Reading Writing Self-Perception

African American .461 .643 .557 .527 .613 .701

European American Insufficient data for calculation

Females .541 .713 .662 .609 .676 .771

Males .444 .591 .477 .495 .562 .672

Grade Four .481 .642 .601 .550 .625 .763

Grade Five .592 .735 .654 .591 .625 .801

Grade Six .561 .661 .615 .639 .665 .788

Total Group .515 .665 .605 .578 .616 .743

DiscussionThe alpha coefficients for the total scores from the

SLAI were found to be consistently high across thesubgroups studied. All alphas were in the .90s. Thetotal score test-retest reliabilities, though not as highas the alphas, were in the .70s for all but the malesubgroup. The total score test-retest coefficient forthe total group was .74. The reliability of the totalscores, therefore, appears to be quite good.

The reliability estimates for the subarea scoreswere not as high as those found for the total scores.Although the alphas for the Reading, Speaking, andListening subarea scores tended to be in the .70s, thealphas for the Self-Perceptions as Learners subareaand the Writing subarea scores were notably lower.In particular, the alphas for the Writing subareawere all below .70. Very few of the test-retest coeffi-cients exceeded .70 for the subarea scores across thevarious subgroups. Nearly one-half of the test-retestcoefficients were in the .40s and .50s, suggestinglittle consistency in responses across the seven-daytime period.

Although the SLAI was developed to encompassthe breadth of literacy, via the components of listen-ing, speaking, reading, writing, speaking, andlearner self-perceptions, total SLAI scores have

resulted in higher alpha coefficients and higher test-retest coefficients than were found for the totalreading attitude scores on the popular ElementaryReading Attitude Survey (Flynn, Taylor, Beard,Turnbo, & Kazelskis, 2001). Flynn et al., found ERAStotal score alphas in the upper .80s, and seven-daytest-retest coefficients that were generally in the .50sand .60s across subgroups comparable to those usedin the present study.

The findings of this study contribute to thereading attitude literature in some specific ways.First, there is evidence that SLAI total scores arereliable at an acceptable level for research purposes.Second, SLAI subarea scores may be useful toteachers who seek information about how individ-ual students may respond to specific kinds of liter-acy activities in each of the language arts areas.Third, the SLAI offers educators and researchers ameasure of literacy attitude that is based on asociocultural perspective of literacy development byincluding specific language arts activities that typic-ally occur in the contexts of classroom, home, and/or community.

Based on the reliability estimates obtained in thisstudy, it is recommended that total SLAI scores beused for group assessments and instructional plan-



ning purposes. While subarea scores may be usefulto classroom teachers in providing informationabout an individual student’s attitudes towardspecific kinds of literacy activities, further refine-ment of the subarea items is needed before theseparate subarea scores are used as the basis forchanges in instructional programs offered in ele-mentary schools.

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AppendixItems composing the Student Literacy Attitude Inventory (SLAI)*

(Subarea: Listening)

1. How do you feel when someone reads a story to you?2. How do you feel when someone offers to read to you a story you like?3. How do you feel when someone reads a story to you that you have heard before?4. How do you feel when you are asked to listen to someone tell a story?5. How do you feel when you are asked to predict the ending of a story before having the ending read to you?6. When you are listening to a conversation, or a story being read, and you hear a word that you do not know, how do

you feel?7. How do you feel when your teacher tells you the steps to follow in an activity rather than having you read the steps?

(Subarea: Speaking)

1. How do you feel when someone asks you to tell about something that has happened to you or something that youhave done?

2. How do you feel when you are asked to read aloud?3. How do you feel when you are encouraged to ask questions?4. How do you feel when you are asked to tell your teacher a story you have heard or read?5. How do you feel when someone asks you to describe how to do something or how to get somewhere?6. How do you feel when you are given the opportunity to tell someone about a story that you have read?7. How do you feel when you are given the opportunity to pretend to be a character in a story?

(Subarea: Reading)

1. How do you feel when you are given an opportunity to read the cartoons in the newspaper or comic books?2. How do you feel when you have the opportunity to read magazines?3. How do you feel when you are given the opportunity to read about something in the newspaper?4. How do you feel when you are asked to read written directions and follow them without the teacher’s help?5. How do you feel when are asked to read a grocery list?6. How do you feel when you are asked to locate a name and number in your phone book?7. How do you feel when you are asked to read a poem?8. How do you feel when you read a note that lists things you need to do, as a reminder for you? (If needed for clarity,

proctor may add: “For example, make you bed, play outside, call to let someone know you are home, etc.”)

(Subarea: Writing)

1. How do you feel when you are asked to take notes in class?2. How do you feel when someone at home asks you to make a list of things that are needed? (If needed for clarity,

proctor may add: “For example, make a list of foods that are needed from the grocery store, make a list of the clothesthat you will need to take on vacation, make a list of errands that you must do, etc.”)

3. How do you feel about drawing pictures and labeling them or writing a sentence about them?4. How do you feel when you do not know how to spell a word when you are writing?5. How do you feel about writing a note to a friend?6. How do you feel when your teacher asks you to write a story?



(Subarea: Self-Perceptions as Learners)

1. How do you feel when you are asked to work on an assignment with two or three other classmates?2. How do you feel when you are asked to complete an assignment alone?3. How do you feel when you are asked to be the leader of a group activity?4. How do you feel when your teacher asks you to draw or map-out, all by yourself, what you have learned about a

subject?5. How do you feel when your teacher asks you to work with two or three other classmates to create a map or activity

to show what you have learned?6. How do you feel about doing school assignments and activities?

*To request permission to use the SLAI, and a copy of it, please contact Dana G. Thames and Carolyn Reeves at:Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education, USM, Box 5057, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5057.


Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Teacher Effectiveness:Implications for Professional Development

Nikki Bray-Clark Reid BatesLouisiana Department of Education Louisiana Department of Education

AbstractIn an era of increasing accountability demands for teachers and students professional development will be the key

to success in school reform initiatives as administrators struggle with improving the current teaching force. Researchhas shown that teacher efficacy is an important variable in teacher effectiveness that is consistently related to teacherbehaviors and student outcomes. Furthermore, it has been shown that schools with high performance professionaldevelopment integrate key dimensions that support and reinforce skill development and efficacy beliefs. It is thecontention of this paper that the framework of professional development for teachers should include self-efficacy as atheoretically sound focus of training designs aimed at improving teacher competence and by extension improvingstudent outcomes.

The changes necessary to promote meaningfuland substantive educational improvement are bothfundamental and systemic. Because change and re-form in education continues to be at the politicalforefront, new challenges are emerging for policymakers and administrators across the country. Forexample, more challenging standards, high stakestesting, and school accountability are all pressuringadministrators to highlight the key linkage betweenteacher effectiveness and student achievement. Thishas led to a rekindled emphasis on a timeless cer-tainty: if students are to achieve high standards thenno less can be expected of their teachers (NationalCommission on Teaching & America’s Future, 1996).The result has been a renewed interest in the ongo-ing professional development of teachers, particu-larly high quality in-service training, and an accom-panying concern about how to design and deliverthis training in ways that improve teaching andlearning. Indeed, creating stable, high-quality pro-fessional development experiences for teachers hasbecome a major concern as communities, states, andthe nation struggle with ways to improve the qualityof education.

The substance and outcomes of many currentteacher professional development opportunitieshave been soundly criticized suggesting the transfor-ation of current patterns is a critical challenge (Feist-ritzer, 1999). This paper argues that the teacher self-efficacy is a key driver of teacher effectiveness and

should be explicitly included as a central focus in theprofessional development of teachers. We argue thatteacher in-service training should not only developand implement professional development activitiesaimed at building positive efficacy beliefs but shouldalso use such beliefs as an indicator of training suc-cess (i.e., a valuable outcome of training). Researchsubstantiating the link between self-efficacy and tea-cher effectiveness is briefly reviewed and sugges-tions are made about how teacher developmentactivities, particularly in-service training, can be re-oriented to include the development of teacher self-efficacy.

Criticisms of Current In-Service Training PracticeAlthough conceptually the value of professional

development activities for overall improvements inteacher effectiveness has been recognized, in practicethe capacity of current professional developmentmodels, particularly in-service teacher training, toenhance teacher effectiveness has been limited. Thecontinuing professional development opportunitiesavailable to teachers have been criticized as generat-ing little or no improvement on subsequent studentlearning (U.S. Department of Education, 1998). Pro-fessional development and in-service training effortshave tended to lack continuity across time. For ex-ample, Senge (1990) notes that one serious deficiencyhas been school districts’ uncritical and fragmentedadoption of fads, fancies, and popular (but un-

Nikki Bray-Clark & Reid Bates


proven) innovations. This criticism is consistent withportrayals of in-service teacher training as mass-marketed, flavor-of-the-month experiences that aredisconnected from one another and fail to build onprevious learning (Darling-Hammond, 1999). In-deed, the state of professional development formany teachers consists of disconnected, packaged-prescription one-shot workshops conducted on “in-service days” in which teachers passively attend tooutside “experts” instructing them on topics that dolittle to deepen their subject matter knowledge orteaching skill (Garet, Birman, Porter, Desimone, Her-man, & Yoon, 1999). These efforts have offered littlecontinuity in building effective teaching practice,have not provided adequate opportunities for teach-ers to reflect on practice with knowledgeable col-leagues (WestEd, 2000), and have not been closelylinked to the content, activities, or challenges ofwhat teachers need to know and be able to do fortheir students (National Commission on Teaching &America’s Future, 1996). As Mathew Miles puts it,

A good deal of what passes for professionaldevelopment in schools is a joke—one that we’dlaugh at if we weren’t trying to keep from cry-ing…. In short, it’s pedagogically naïve, a de-meaning exercise that often leaves its partici-pants more cynical and no more knowledgeable,skilled, or committed than before. (1995, p. viii)

The bottom line is that teachers want and need prac-tical in-service activities that address their genuineneeds in the classroom, make them better teachers,and that improve student outcomes. This must in-clude coherent, relevant coursework that is tied toreal-world practice and that includes learning expe-riences that build both teacher competence and con-fidence (WestEd, 2000). We believe that using teach-er self-efficacy as an organizing concept aroundwhich teacher in-service training can be designedand evaluated presents a viable and promisingmeans for advancing toward this end.

Teacher Effectiveness and Self-Efficacy Teaching by its very nature involves solving ill-

defined problems that are complex, dynamic, andnon-linear. Consequently teacher effectiveness is

largely dependent on personal agency, or howteachers define tasks, employ strategies, view thepossibility of success, and ultimately solve the prob-lems and challenges they face. It is this concept ofpersonal agency—the capacity of teachers to be self-organizing, self-reflective, self-regulating and proac-tive in their behavior—that underlies the importanceof self-efficacy as a critical component in teachereffectiveness. The link between personal agency anda teacher’s efficacy beliefs lies in personal experienceand a teacher’s ability to reflect on that experienceand make decisions about future courses of action.

The Meaning of Self-EfficacyThe construct of self-efficacy refers to an individ-

ual’s belief in his or her capability “to organize andexecute the course of action required to manageprospective situations” (Bandura, 1997, p. 2). It is atask-specific belief that regulates choice, effort, andpersistence in the face of obstacles and in concertwith the emotional state of the individual. The task-specific focus of self-efficacy distinguishes it frommore global concepts such as self-esteem or confi-dence. An individual’s efficacy beliefs are built fromdiverse sources of information that can be conveyedvicariously through social evaluation as well asthrough direct experience (Bandura, 1986).

Personal efficacy judgements have been found tohave substantial predictive power for performanceacross a range of tasks and behaviors (Stajkovic &Luthans, 1998). In addition, self-efficacy beliefs areseen as important elements in many current views ofmotivation (Graham & Weiner, 1996). They have al-so been found to mediate a number of individualvariables relevant to teacher effectiveness such as jobsatisfaction, intention to quit the job, training and jobadjustment in newcomers (Saks, 1995), and the con-nection between conscientiousness and ongoinglearning (Martocchio & Judge, 1997). These andother characteristics of self-efficacy beliefs suggestthe construct holds considerable promise for theimprovement of teacher development efforts.

A Summary of Self-Efficacy ResearchTeacher self-efficacy studies began over twenty

years ago with the RAND researchers’ evaluation ofwhether teachers believed they could control the re-

Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Teacher Effectiveness


inforcement of their actions (Armor, Conry-Osegue-ra, Cox, King, McDonnell, Pascal, Pauly, & Zellman,1976). The study of teacher self-efficacy has evolvedover the years and has revealed a wealth of informa-tion indicating that self-efficacy may contribute toteacher effectiveness in a number of ways. First,evidence suggests that positive self-efficacy beliefscan increase the extent to which teachers are willingto transfer skills learned during in-service training tothe classroom. For example, research on employeetraining has demonstrated that interventions aimedat raising self-efficacy with regard to specific futurebehaviors significantly increased the likelihood indi-viduals will exhibit those behaviors on the job (Eden& Kinnar, 1991). Research with teachers has shownthat those high in teaching self-efficacy tend to ex-plore more alternative methods of instruction, seekimproved teaching methods, and experiment moreextensively with instructional materials (Allinder,1994).

Research also suggests that self-efficacy beliefscan enhance a teacher’s ability to respond effectivelyto stressful and challenging situations. For example,research has indicated that teachers with strong,positive efficacy beliefs about their teaching abilityare more likely to take risks and use new techniques(Guskey, 1988; Stein & Wang 1988), and to experi-ment and persist with challenging strategies thatmay have a positive effect on student achievement(Hani, Czerniak, & Lumpe, 1996; Ross, 1992). Thesefindings are consistent with research that has shownthat individuals who have high, positive efficacybeliefs feel more challenged but less threatened bystressful conditions than those with low self-efficacy(Jerusalem & Mittag, 1995). There are also indica-tions that efficacy beliefs can influence how hardand how long an individual will persevere at a par-ticular task, how resilient people will be when facedwith obstacles, and the amount of stress or anxietythey will experience in a given situation (Pintrich &Schunk, 1995).

There is evidence that self-efficacy beliefs caninfluence the extent to which a teacher in-servicetraining program is ultimately effective in terms ofthe acquisition of knowledge and skills. For exam-ple, increases in self-efficacy have been linked toimproved post-training performance for both cogni-

tive tasks and interpersonal skills (Gist, Bavetta, &Stevens, 1990), both critical factors in teacher effec-tiveness. Research has also shown that individualswith higher levels of self-efficacy perform better intraining (Gist, 1986) and that pre-training interven-tions aimed at raising task specific self-efficacy cansignificantly improve performance during training(Gist, Schwoerer, & Rosen, 1989). In addition, teach-ers high in self-efficacy have been found to exhibithigher levels of professional commitment (Coladar-ci, 1992), another factor suggesting they may bemore motivated to attend, participate in, and learnin in-service training.

A number of studies have demonstrated thatteachers with high levels of self-efficacy regardingtheir ability to teach can produce superior studentachievement across a range of academic subjects. Forexample, Ross, Hogaboam-Gray, and Hanay (2001)demonstrated that students taking a computer skillscourse with a teacher who had high self-efficacy forcomputer skills instruction performed better aca-demically than students with a teacher who had lowself-efficacy for the same instruction. High self-effi-cacy teachers are also more apt to produce betterstudent outcomes because they are more persistentin helping students who are having difficulty (Po-dell & Soodak, 1993; Soodak, & Podell 1993) and areless likely to be critical of students that make errors(Ashton & Webb, 1986). Teachers with strong self-efficacy beliefs have also been shown to be betterorganized, to engage in more effective planning(Allinder, 1994), and are more likely to set high per-formance standards for themselves as well for theirstudents (Ross, 1995).

Finally, research suggests teacher self-efficacyhas important implications for overall school effec-tiveness. Not only do teachers with high self-efficacyappear be more prevalent in higher performingschools (Olivier, 2001) but there is evidence thatteacher self-efficacy may be a key mediating factorbetween a school’s climate and professional cultureand its educational effectiveness (Bobbett, 2001;Tshannan-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). This raisesinteresting questions about the possibility of impor-tant and substantial cross-level efficacy-performancerelationships in which individual self-efficacy levelsof teachers may both be affected by and influence



the collective efficacy of departments or schools as awhole.

Self-Efficacy and Implications for the Design ofIn-Service Teacher Training

This brief review of research indicates there is asubstantial body of evidence suggesting that self-efficacy can be an important predictor of teachersuccess in in-service training, a valuable processvariable to be considered during training, and adesirable outcome of in-service training. As we haveseen, the development of teacher self-efficacy canlead to a number of important outcomes. More im-portantly, the nature of self-efficacy further suggeststhe presence of a potentially valuable causal loop orreinforcing feedback cycle in which initial increasesin self-efficacy beliefs lead to increased teacher effec-tiveness that in turn enhances subsequent self-effi-cacy beliefs (Bandura, 1991). This positive, cyclicefficacy-performance spiral is important because itstrongly suggests that self-efficacy will be a criticalcomponent in the ongoing professional develop-ment of teachers, and that directing resources atenhancing teacher self-efficacy can initiate and sus-tain an ongoing process of individual improvement.We therefore believe the development of teacherself-efficacy through in-service training is importantnot only for immediate outcomes but also becausesuch an approach lays the foundation for continuousimprovements in teacher effectiveness.

Building Teacher Self-Efficacy Through In-ServiceTraining

Incorporating a focus on the development ofteacher self-efficacy represents an important evolu-tion in the design of teacher in-service training thatcan improve teacher effectiveness and ultimatelyenhance student achievement. However, little hasbeen written about how teacher professional devel-opment, particularly in-service training, can be re-oriented to include self-efficacy as an organizingconstruct or framework. The next section of thispaper examines the implications that a focus on self-efficacy has for the design of in-service teacher train-ing.

Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) outlinesfour sources of self-efficacy: enactive mastery (e.g.,

past performance accomplishments resulting fromprevious experiences or training), vicarious experi-ence, social/verbal persuasion such as that resultingfrom collaboration and performance-related correc-tive feedback, and physiological arousal includingchanges in emotional states such as anxiety, fear, orpositive anticipation (Bandura, 1982).

Enactive mastery is perhaps the most influentialsource of efficacy beliefs because it is experiential innature and is rooted in past performance accom-plishments (e.g., training or prior on-the-job experi-ences). The value of enactive mastery is that, whenfaced with similar situations, individuals rely onperceptions of past mastery to produce informationthat is used to make judgments about present capa-bilities. Thus, for example, prior teaching successes,particularly in the face of adversity, help establishand strengthen positive efficacy beliefs. Less success-ful past performance may create doubts about per-sonal ability and could undermine self-beliefs ofcurrent capability (Wood & Bandura, 1989b).

The implications of enactive mastery for teacherin-service are relatively straightforward: the goalshould be to design and implement in-service train-ing that assures teachers will get adequate opportu-nities to master new teaching techniques and con-tent before they are expected to implement them inthe classroom. Efficacy theory and research suggestsome ways of doing this may be more effective (interms of developing efficacy beliefs) than others. Forexample, we know that providing mastery experi-ences in training typically involves the use of skillpractice with a focus on how to best use practice togenerate both learning and subsequent skill applica-tions. The ‘practice’ component of many in-servicetraining programs has been criticized as either non-existent or of limited relevance (Garet et al., 1999). Afocus on efficacy development suggests this compo-nent needs to be strengthened significantly. We sug-gest the enactive mastery component of in-servicetraining is of critical importance and that the appli-cation of learning during training should be bothwell planned and challenging. When teachers arechallenged in using their learning during training(but can still do so successfully) they are likely todevelop stronger efficacy beliefs and are more likelyto use that learning when they return to the class-



room (Schmidt & Bjork, 1992). In addition, task vari-ety and ordering will be important elements in train-ing settings in which teachers are pushed to use newskills immediately. Varying the order in which tasksare practiced and increasing the variations (e.g.,form or context) of that task can create intentionalchallenges that deepen learning (through the in-creased information processing requirements associ-ated with these variations) and foster task-relatedself-efficacy. Suggestions such as these are generallyconsistent with the recognition that a fundamentalrequirement for effective teacher training is the ac-tive participation of learners in the learning processthrough interaction with peers and instructors, con-necting learning with past and current experience,and the active application of new learning (Sileo,Prater, & Luckner, 1998).

The use of simulations represents another poten-tial design element that focuses on providing mas-tery experiences as a means of learning that has thepotential to increase teacher self-efficacy. Simula-tions have been used in a wide variety of trainingprograms (Jacobs & Dempsey, 1993) including pre-service and in-service teacher training. For example,Strang and colleagues have developed and studiedcomputer-based simulations for nearly 20 years tohelp teachers develop a variety of knowledge andskills. These have ranged from simulations devel-oped to provide effective and timely lesson-relatedfeedback to students (Strang & Loper, 1983), pacinglesson activities (Strang, Badt, Loper, & Richards,1985), classroom management (Murphy, Kauffman,& Strang, 1987), to understanding ethnic and genderissues in the classroom (Strang & Yeh, 1995). Simula-tions such as these typically combine software, com-puter technology, and learning principles in waysthat are consistent with the development of positiveefficacy beliefs. They stress hands-on, realistic expe-riences that are coupled with clear and effectivefeedback. Both of these factors are central to thedevelopment of efficacy beliefs. The former becauseit provides relevant mastery experiences and thelatter because the cognitive processing of behavioralfeedback provides “confirmatory behavioral evi-dence” (Lindsley, Brass, & Thomas, 1995) that caninfluence subsequent task performance.

Other types of simulations also hold promise as

vehicles that may contribute to the development ofteacher efficacy beliefs. For example, there is increas-ing interest in helping pre-service and in-serviceteachers develop skills that will enable them to teachfrom a more global and multicultural perspective. Anumber of simulations have emerged from the fieldof cross-cultural training that could be used to de-velop teacher efficacy beliefs along these lines. Ex-amples include Bafa Bafa (Shirts, 1973), Barnga(Thiagarajan, 1984), the Albatross (Gouchenour,1977) and others that have enjoyed some applicationin teacher training contexts (e.g., see Cannella &Reif, 1994). These simulations typically involve role-plays that encourage participants to interact verballyor non-verbally to solve problems or achieve goals,followed by in-depth discussions that help partici-pants process what they observed, felt, and learned.Again, the active experience coupled with subse-quent cognitive processing of behavioral informa-tion lays a strong foundation for the development ofpositive efficacy beliefs.

In general, the computer-based and experientialsimulations such as the ones discussed here can beeffective in the development of teaching-relatedefficacy and transfer of the complex skills like thoseneeded for effective teaching. On both counts, theirvalue lies not in the extent to which they closelymimic the application environments, but their abilityto include the most important stimulus attributes,address job-relevant learning objectives, and involvespecific, positive feedback and processing of behav-ioral information during and after the experience.

A second source of self-efficacy information,vicarious experience, also suggests various optionsfor the design of teacher in-service training. Vicari-ous experience capitalizes on the notion that an indi-vidual’s efficacy beliefs can be enhanced through theobservation of a significant model engaged in anactivity that they perceive as being aligned withtheir needs and capabilities. Thus, part of one’s vi-carious experience involves the social comparisonsmade with other individuals. These comparisonsprovide powerful referents useful in the develop-ment of self-perceptions of competence (Schunk,1983). This suggests that efficacy-focused in-servicetraining should include activities that provide teach-ers with opportunities to observe other teachers



successfully and unsuccessfully engaging in teach-ing behaviors that they will be expected to adopt.This is important, first, because the cognitive pro-cessing of positive and negative performance infor-mation (i.e., observing both success and non-suc-cess) enhances an individual’s ability to engage inanalysis and self-correcting patterns of behavior.Second, recent interest has been focused on collabo-rative training techniques that draw on the featuresof small group interaction in ways that benefit thelearning process. Collaborative training protocols,such as the use of dyads or triads to maximize learn-ing through peer interaction, have been shown toprovide vicarious learning opportunities that cantake the place of hands-on mastery experiences(Shebilske, Gawlick, & Gluck, 1998). These ap-proaches not only represent a potentially importantsource of self-efficacy but also an avenue throughwhich the efficiency of teacher in-service trainingcould be improved. For example, there is evidencethat such techniques can reduce instructional timeand resources by as much as one-half (Shebilske,Regian, Arthur, & Jordan, 1992).

Although a relatively less robust source of effi-cacy information than mastery or vicarious experi-ences, verbal persuasion also represents a potentiallyvaluable tool for cultivating the efficacy beliefs ofteachers. The notion here is that the communicationof verbal judgements from respected or influentialothers can affect an individual’s self-efficacy beliefs.This kind of communication should not be confusedwith superficial, hollow praise for the sake of bol-stering self-beliefs. Bandura (1986), for example,cautions against the use of artificial praise and advo-cates only sincere and valid verbal appraisals. Infact, it is usually easier to weaken self-efficacy beliefsthrough negative appraisals than to strengthen suchbeliefs through positive encouragement. Verbalpersuasion can thus change self-efficacy beliefs forthe better only when the behavior-related informa-tion is both compelling and is delivered in a mannerthat disrupts the preexisting disbelief in one’s capa-bilities (Bandura, 1997).

Verbal persuasion as a source for building posi-tive efficacy beliefs is most easily seen in informalkinds of learning that are characteristic of manyschools recognized for their outstanding profes-

sional development activities. For example, Killion(1999) notes that the amount of informal learning inschools that have won national awards for modelprofessional development is outstanding. In theseschools, conversations, collaborative planning ses-sions, team meetings, peer observations, mentoringrelationships, and a variety of other unplanned col-legial encounters provide valuable avenues forlearning and for receiving and providing the kind ofverbal support and encouragement that can effec-tively build positive efficacy beliefs. Principles alsohave a role to play here as supporters and reinforc-ers of teacher learning. By setting high expectations,encouraging teachers, and fostering a helpful, colle-gial culture they can maximize the capacity of posi-tive verbal judgements to shape a teacher’s efficacybeliefs.

Because self-efficacy beliefs are intertwined withphysiological states (each are highly dependent onone another), physiological states such as anxiety,stress, and fatigue provide other potentially impor-tant sources of efficacy information. For example,strong emotional reactions to a task provide cuesabout the anticipated success or failure of the out-come (Pajares, 1996). The implication for in-servicetraining is the apparent need to provide a safe envi-ronment in which teachers feel they may learn in anon-threatening, cooperative manner. Providing asafe, non-threatening, supportive environment is assimple as allowing teachers time to interact andestablish rapport with each other and with theirtrainers that facilitates an environment that is riskfree, but still allows a free flow of ideas, opportuni-ties for success and feedback. Skilled efficacy build-ers—colleagues, staff, and administrators—do morethan convey positive and compelling feedback: theywork to structure learning and application activitiesthat bring about success. This type of environmentwill enhance self-efficacy if teachers feel that mis-takes they make in training will not reflect badlyupon them or result in punitive actions, and that thelearning experience will improve their professionalknowledge and skills.

Award-Winning Professional Development Schools

Model Professional Development Award-win-



ning schools (Killion, 1999) exhibit a number of fea-tures that are consistent with a focus on self-efficacyas it has been described here. One key element isthat they all have effective systems that support thedevelopment of teacher efficacy. This support isdemonstrated, first, through focused and clearlycommunicated school improvement goals. Schoolimprovement goals that are well defined and under-stood effectively focus professional developmentactivities while providing sources of motivation andcommitment for teachers. When teachers, adminis-trators, and support staff understand and share re-sponsibility for goals and share accountability forresults they are in an ideal position to provide re-sources, ideas, and suggestions and support oneanother in the accomplishment of those goals. Inshort, such goals provide a sound foundation uponwhich teaching-related efficacy can be built.

Second, most award-winning schools requireteachers to develop individual professional develop-ment plans. Such plans have a tremendous potentialto enhance efficacy beliefs because they require tea-chers to identify in specific terms what knowledge,skills or abilities they need to improve, how theywill do so, and how they will recognize when im-provement has been achieved. In short, individualprofessional development plans foster the develop-ment of self-efficacy because they provide the frame-work within which teachers can get clear informa-tion about the outcomes and pattern of progressthey are making as they strive to master new knowl-edge and skill sets. This information is the substancefrom which strong efficacy beliefs are built.

Third, schools with award-winning professionaldevelopment programs have built integrated sys-tems of feedback and support that provide teacherswith clear and compelling information about skillimprovements. This includes frequent and regularprogress reviews with principals, peer evaluationteams that observe and provide written feedbackabout performance improvements (often facilitatedby electronic communication), and built-in timewithin the teacher workday for collaboration, feed-back, and learning.

Finally, award-winning schools have elementsin place that help stabilize positive efficacy beliefsand build the cyclical and amplifying relationship

we know exists between efficacy beliefs and perfor-mance. In these schools, teachers have opportunitiesto gain recognition for their developmental gainsand expertise, and to share what they have learnedwith colleagues. For example, in most of theseschools teachers can earn salary increases, advance-ment credits, or stipends for professional develop-ment success. Many also provide opportunities forteachers to gain special recognition by conductingworkshops for colleagues both within and outsidetheir school or by attending or presenting at stateand national conferences.

In short, schools with high-performance profes-sional development activities have integrated anumber of key dimensions that support and rein-force skill development and efficacy beliefs. Theseinclude well-defined school goals, individual profes-sional development plans that are aligned withthose goals, and the presence of effective feedbackand reward systems that work to stabilize efficacybeliefs and build positive efficacy-performance cy-cles.

Summary and ConclusionsSchool districts and administrators now under

pressure to select or design models of professionaldevelopment that are drastically different from pastapproaches are seeking solid research data and prac-tical applications to meet the new demands. It is thecontention of this paper that the growing demandsfor accountability and results require innovativeapproaches to teacher in-service that are theoreti-cally sound and supported by research. We havetried to demonstrate why we believe that the self-efficacy construct represents a viable organizingconcept for the development of new and better pro-fessional development models. Self-efficacy is acentral feature of social learning theory and its roleas a potent intervening factor between learning andsubsequent performance has been established byresearch in a number of contexts, including teacherdevelopment. There is also substantial research indi-cating that the self-efficacy construct can provideschools and staff development specialists with thetools they need to design effective teacher training,improve teacher competence, and by extension en-hance student outcomes.



We have suggested that the development of self-efficacy should become a central consideration in thedesign and development of in-service training plansand methods as well as a measured outcome of in-service training and other teacher development ac-tivities. There is some evidence this may be occur-ring. The value of self-efficacy as an important vari-able in teacher effectiveness is implicitly reflected inThe National Staff Development Standards (NSDS)(1994; 1995a; 1995b). These standards do not specifi-cally identify self-efficacy as a major focal point fordesigning staff development efforts or an importantoutcome metric of those efforts. But, as with theModel Professional Development Award schools,they do incorporate ideas, processes, and activitiesthat address some of the specific sources of self-effi-cacy. For example, the NSDS specifically calls forfollow-up of in-service instruction with a variety ofstrategies including modeling, peer coaching, colle-gial support groups, mentoring, study groups, aswell as audio-taping and video-taping. From a theo-retical perspective, the nature of these activities isconsistent with an orientation to teacher in-servicethat fosters positive efficacy beliefs. From a practicalperspective, they can all be implemented in waysthat offer an opportunity to specifically attend toand enhance the efficacy beliefs of teachers.

We believe that self-efficacy, when used as apivot point in the design of in-service training andprofessional development activities, can provide asound theoretical framework for understanding thewhy’s and how’s of teacher development. It alsopoints to the potential value of a set of practical tools—including feedback, various instructional designelements, and integrated support systems—that canbe used to foster positive efficacy beliefs, improveteacher competence, and enhance student outcomes.

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Using Cooperative Learning in ElementaryScience Classrooms

Mary RansdellUniversity of Memphis

AbstractThis study investigated teachers’ beliefs and practices of cooperative learning, and strove to determine whether their

observed teaching practices reflected their stated beliefs. Findings of the study revealed that teachers understoodcooperative learning to mean small groups of students working together to accomplish a particular assignment. Theteachers’ stated conceptions about cooperative learning were congruent to their observed practices. The studied teachers’observed practices differed from those of noted scholars regarding the importance of the interdependence element ofcooperative learning.

IntroductionMany of today’s educators learned what teach-

ing was from personal experience—as students inK–12 or college classrooms (Goodlad, 1994; Wise,2001). Observations in classrooms in several statesindicated that whole group direct instruction seemsmost frequently employed at the K–12 level, whilelectures continue to be the most popular method ofinstruction chosen by post-secondary instructors(Brinkley, et. al, 1999). A question that comes tomind is why teachers are not using more coopera-tive and collaborative teaching strategies, especiallygiven the amount and consistency of supportiveresearch that presently exists? One answer thatmight follow is that few of today’s classroom teach-ers and teacher candidates have had extensive ele-mentary, middle, or secondary school teacher prepa-ration coursework or in-service professional devel-opment in using cooperative learning formats andare not knowledgeable about how to structure thelearning. Another answer is that when teachers andteacher candidates have tried cooperative learning,they were removed from their comfort zones (asperhaps were the students) to such a degree thatthey have tended to fall back into more familiarteaching and learning routines.

While attempting to complete an assignmentthat required the use of cooperative learning tech-niques, several undergraduate teacher educationstudents reported that the teacher with whom eachworked in their field placement schools indicated

that (1) he or she did not use cooperative learning inhis or her classroom, or (2) that it did not work aftertrying it—once. This was problematic in terms ofundergraduate students learning to connect theoryand practice by experiencing current best practicesin instruction. The author wondered what practicingteachers understood cooperative learning to be andhow they used cooperative learning in their class-rooms.

Thus, this study was conducted in spring 2000 toanswer the following questions:

1. What does the term “cooperative learning”mean conceptually to fourth and fifth gradeteachers?

2. How do the teachers who use cooperativelearning techniques implement them?

3. Was the implementation congruent withtheir stated conceptions?

4. Why do the fourth and fifth grade teachersimplement cooperative strategies?

5. What specific structures do these teachersuse when implementing a cooperative learn-ing lesson?

Cooperative Learning and ConstructivismCooperative learning challenges students, to-

gether with peers, to use information in new waysand to create new understanding. Cooperative learn-ing has roots in constructivism and allows studentsto take a measure of control in their learning. The

Mary Ransdell


deflection of responsibility from the teacher to thepupil encourages peer-led discussions whereby stu-dents begin to construct their knowledge in accor-dance with their prior experiences and knowledge(Perkins, 1999).

Constructivism encourages students to generatetheir learning based on a framework of discussionand discovery in concert with other learners. Learn-ing occurs more by actively engaging with materialsand creating new connections between pieces ofdata rather than by passively receiving a continuousstream of facts and other information.

Cooperative Learning and Its ComponentsCooperative learning, as Johnson and Johnson

(1993) define it, “is that which involves studentsworking together to accomplish common goals” (p.6). According to Slavin (1991), cooperative learningis a “humanistic” approach that encourages socialinteractions (p. 89). He suggests rewards, individualaccountability, and equal opportunities for eachteam member to contribute to the success of theteam as basic components that comprise cooperativelearning. Kagan (1985) maintains that cooperativelearning methods have particular elements that in-clude the “division of the whole class into smallteams of three to five students each, who were posi-tively interdependent upon one another by the sys-tematic application of principles of reward and/ortask structures” (p. 67).

The cooperative learning components suggestedby these scholars include individual accountability,the development of social and communication skills,and positive interdependence (Johnson, Johnson, &Holubec, 1993, 1994; Kagan, 1994, 1995, Sharan &Sharan, 1994, and Slavin 1985). Johnson and Johnson(1991) further state that student interdependence(i.e., each student having a particular role within thegroup) resulted in students achieving at higher lev-els. Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec (1993, 1994) addgroup processing to this list.

Cohen, Lotan, Whitcomb, Balderrama, Cosseyand Swanson (1994) indicate that no single child isfully capable of performing all of the tasks requiredby a particular assignment or project. They furtherstate that students working cooperatively shareknowledge and learn from each other. It is prudent

to offer a working definition of the cooperativelearning components as suggested by these scholarsand used by the author for purposes of this study.

• Positive interdependence: This is most commonlydefined as having specific roles for each partici-pant that are necessary for the group to worktoward the goal(s) set by the teacher. Ideally,these roles are unique for each member of thegroup and it is vital that each member performtheir assigned task.

• Individual accountability: Teachers assess theacademic learning or the attainment of socialskills by formal or informal methods using sub-jective or objective measuring instruments. Gen-erally, this is a test, homework, or observation ofsocial skills demonstrated in a group setting.

• Social skills: This component’s focus is on theparticipants’ ability to share materials and work-space. Participants also demonstrate consider-ation for others by keeping their voices at a rea-sonable level.

• Communication skills: Participants demonstratethe ability to discuss topics, to disagree withoutcausing arguments, and to resolve conflictspeacefully. Participants use conflict resolutionstrategies as necessary.

• Group processing: Johnson, Johnson, and Holu-bec (1990) add this to the above list. This oral orwritten procedure allows the students to tell theteacher how well the groups worked together orreport any problems. The teacher might discussthe completed cooperative activity with thestudents to gain their input that way, or ask forthe information in written format. Allowingstudents to write their comments permits confi-dentiality. Teachers might use information gain-ed from group processing when forming groupsfor future projects, grading, or addressing defi-ciencies in acceptable social skill demonstration.

Literature ReviewA 1999 perusal of the websites for the state de-

partments of education in each of the 50 states re-vealed that educational initiatives for public educa-tion already on the books or proposed for review inmany states required (at that time) an emphasis on

Using Cooperative Learning in Elementary Science Classrooms


student achievement. Cooperative learning researchindicates increased achievement as one consistentbenefit of this instructional strategy.

Fuchs, Fuchs, Kazdan and Allen (1999) studiedthe use of helpful behaviors via Peer-Assisted Learn-ing Strategies (PALS). Student pairs read to eachother and received points based on the completionof reading activities and the demonstration of “ap-propriate tutoring behavior.” Each student pair con-tained a high achieving partner and a low achievingpartner. The students worked for three, thirty-fiveminute periods each week for the twenty-one weeksof the study. These researchers found that thosestudents who gave the most help also experiencedthe highest gains in reading comprehension perfor-mance. This finding suggests that teaching is thebest way of learning.

Asking students to discuss or manipulate mate-rial increases the number of learning modalitiesinvolved. Gardner (1993a, 1993b, 1999) asserts thatnot all students learn in the same way, and thatteachers who present a particular concept using avariety of formats successfully teach more students.Additionally, different modalities offer not only thepossibility of reaching previously untaught studentsbut can also reinforce students’ previous learning. Itfollows that increased student involvement with aconcept via a variety of techniques and sensory stim-uli that may include traditional activities, co-opera-tive learning techniques, or other group activitiesincreases familiarity. This leads to increased evi-dence of achievement when the teacher assesses thecontent knowledge (Mulryan, 1995; Sternberg &Berg, 1992).

Mulryan (1995) studied 48 fifth and sixth grad-ers’ responses during cooperative learning exercisesto determine the level of student involvement andparticipation in math. Mulryan analyzed the timethe students spent on-task and found more qualityon-task behaviors occurred during episodes of coop-erative learning. Her analysis indicated that highachievers appeared to respond well to cooperativelearning directives, but low achievers did not. Pas-sive girls, especially the low-achievers, appeared togain less from the experience.

Gillies and Ashman (2000) studied academicand social gains made by 22 inclusion students and

130 general education students who were tested andreading at least one year below grade level. Theyplaced students in both structured and unstructuredgroup activities. The structured group receivedtraining in small-group interpersonal and socialbehaviors in an attempt to promote positive teaminteractions and cooperation while the unstructuredgroup received no such training. Gillies and Ash-man concluded that the structured groups had ahigher rate of academic achievement and coopera-tive or on-task behaviors than their counterparts didin the unstructured groups.

McManus and Gettinger (1996) wondered aboutstudents’ reactions to cooperative learning. Theystudied 26 teachers from the same school districtand 38 students enrolled in classrooms taught bytwo third grade teachers. During the six-week obser-vation period, each classroom had four groups offour or five students each for the nearly daily, un-specified, cooperative exercises. Students in thisstudy indicated to the authors that they learnedcooperatively nearly every day and that the coopera-tive activity chosen by their teacher was often inassociation with language arts. The authors reportedthat the students rated academic benefits highest.More students indicated a preference for cooperativelearning activities over individual activities but theyalso admitted that sometimes their on-task behaviordeclined. Students liked the ability to work withfriends, but did not enjoy the occurrences of socialconflict.

Holloway (1993) studied the perceptions that afifth-grade teacher and her students have aboutcooperation within the context of cooperative learn-ing. Through formal and informal discussions, Hol-loway found that the teacher thought that studentlearning through cooperative techniques was like aripple effect. In other words, one piece of informa-tion leads to another, but her students misunder-stood this point entirely. Her students thought thattheir own cooperation caused fellow students tocooperate. The students felt it was more like settinga good example and hoping others would follow.The students’ definitions centered on active behav-iors while the teacher’s definition involved conceptsand shared learning.

Antil, Jenkins, Wayne, and Vadasy (1998) stud-

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ied teachers who reportedly use cooperative learn-ing. The authors surveyed 85 elementary teachersand then subsequently interviewed 21 of the sur-veyed teachers. Through the interviews, the authorsstudied the cooperative techniques that teachersemployed and compared them with criteria found inthe literature. They found that the teachers did notsee a parochial way of using a particular cooperativestrategy, but rather adapted the strategies they knewto fit their personal teaching style. Many of the par-ticipants in their study indicated that cooperativelearning was a vehicle to improve both academiclearning goals and social skills however their use ofestablished structures was inconsistent with thenotions of noted cooperative learning scholars.

A limited amount of literature exists discussingthe conceptions that current teachers hold and theirpractice relative to cooperative learning. This studyexplored this area.

MethodologyQualitative naturalistic inquiry allows a re-

searcher to study the complexities of phenomena byobserving, questioning, listening, and reflectingabout specific observations (Glesne & Peshkin,1992). Naturalistic inquiry provided trustworthinessvia lengthy investigations to provide scope, persis-tent observations to provide depth, and triangula-tion to provide similar data through several sources(Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This study involved obser-vations of and interviews with teachers to determinethe conceptions held by teachers, their use of partic-ular teaching strategies, and the degree of congru-ence between the teachers’ conceptions and practiceof cooperative learning and the writing of the schol-ars. These indicators could not be quantified, andthus required the use of qualitative research tech-niques.

The author interviewed and observed six Mid-western United States classroom teachers in actionon three occasions. She scheduled observations andinterviews at the teachers’ convenience, with most ofthe interviews occurring immediately following anobservation.

Four elementary school principals granted per-mission to the author to contact fourth and fifthgrade teachers in their respective schools. Teachersreceived introductory letters and emails as recruitingtools. Teachers interested in participating in thestudy completed a demographic information sheet.The researcher and teachers discussed the study andagreed to the visitation dates. The researcher thenmailed a formal consent form to the teachers.

The six teachers represented a variety of demo-graphic categories. Two teachers taught in a privateChristian school and four were in public schools.Four teachers were female. Two teachers taught fifthgrade while four taught fourth grade. Teaching ex-perience ranged from a first year teacher to twoteachers who had six years elementary teachingeach. Five of the teachers were in their 20’s whileone was in his early 50s. All six had attained teachercertification in the traditional manner and three ofthe teachers held a master’s degree. School popula-tions ranged from rural to inner city.

The observations occurred in the teachers’ class-rooms at each teacher’s convenience. The only re-quirement was that the teachers teach science anduse cooperative learning techniques during the ob-servation. The study involved fourth and fifth gradeteachers teaching science in order to provide anunambiguous focus, subject-matter consistencyacross all of the observations, and to limit the size ofthe study. Each of the teachers claimed at the outsetto use cooperative learning in their teaching of sci-ence and agreed to use cooperative techniques dur-ing the scheduled observations.

The author did not promote any specific cooper-ative learning strategy. She took extensive field notesand wrote them more fully after leaving the field.The researcher used a set protocol to conduct inter-views with the teachers that followed each observa-tion. Sample questions appear in the chart below.This pattern was repeated twice for a total of threeobservations and three interviews with the teachers.



Chart 1 Sample Interview Questions

First Interview:How confident were you with cooperative learning techniques and your ability to use them effectively?How do you determine the effectiveness of the cooperative techniques?Do you anticipate that you will continue to use cooperative techniques?

Second Interview:Tell me what you think of when I say the words, “cooperative learning.”From where did these ideas come? (Books, professors, colleagues, in-services)Are there any barriers to implementing cooperative learning that you have experienced? Has your practice changed in relation to cooperative learning? What has changed?Do you always use the same strategies or structures for cooperative learning?Why do you use cooperative learning? What do you hope it will do for the student(s)?

Third Interview:Describe your philosophy of teaching.How would you describe how children learn? What needs to happen for children to learn?What do you do that facilitates that learning?How does cooperative learning fit into how children learn? How does cooperative learning fit with your facilita-tion of their learning?How do you assess the effectiveness of the cooperative learning model compared to another instructional model?

The first interview averaged an hour in length;the second averaged 45 minutes, while the thirdaveraged 30 minutes. The research project took placein spring semester 2000 and took approximatelythree months to complete a cycle of three observa-tions and three interviews with five of the teachers.The school year ended before the third observationof and interview with the sixth teacher could beaccomplished. Therefore, 17 observations and 17interviews comprised the data set

The author audio taped the interviews thentranscribed and coded the information as soon afterthe visits as possible and no later than that sameevening to preserve the nuances of the interview.Commercially available voice recognition softwaresped transcription. Additional codes referring toemerging themes were entered for current and pre-vious interviews throughout the process.

Member checking performed after the conclu-sion of the third interview with each teacher pro-vided confirmation of the interview data. Lincolnand Guba (1985) refer to member checking as a pro-cess allowing interview participants to examine theprinted interview transcripts to establish truthful-

ness of the transcription. After completing the three interviews with each

participant, the teachers received a copy of the com-pleted transcripts of their interview. Each teacherread the interview transcripts and clarified or addedadditional comments as necessary then returned thetranscripts via an enclosed, stamped, envelope. Onlyone participant added additional comments to clar-ify her thoughts and the author edited her notesaccordingly.

ParticipantsMr. Black earned a bachelor’s degree in elemen-

tary education approximately 30 years ago andtaught for several years immediately upon finishinghis degree. He then spent a number of years awayfrom the elementary classroom, but he returnedthree years before the research project. Mr. Blacksaid that his concept of cooperative learning stem-med from his musical background. He saw himselfas the conductor of a symphony using the strengthsof various groups within the room, and he believedthat all of the sections must cooperate for the wholeproject to work. Mr. Black taught at a private urban

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school with an enrollment of 200 students in grades4–6. Students in this school were primarily upper-middle class Caucasian children. His class contained20 fourth grade students. To express his point ofview regarding cooperative learning, Mr. Black said,“[it] is a lot more work because you must organizeeverything. I am an organized person and you haveto be organized to teach cooperative[ly]” (Ransdell,2001).

Ms. Brown was a first year teacher and verycareful about structure when using cooperative tech-niques. She managed her 28 fifth grade studentswith an easy rapport. She reported that her ideasabout cooperative learning came from her collegecoursework and from her student teaching experi-ence. The public school where she taught was subur-ban with an enrollment of 640, mostly Caucasian,students in grades K–5.

Mr. Greene was a confident teacher who hadcomplete control of the classroom and respect fromhis students. He claimed that he learned about coop-erative learning as an undergraduate student, butthat he did not feel his college professors empha-sized it enough. He indicated that the message re-ceived from his professors was that teaching cooper-atively was the exception to the rule, rather than therule itself. Mr. Greene taught 19 fifth grade studentsand worked with Mr. Black at the same small pri-vate urban school having an enrollment of primarilyupper-middle class Caucasian children.

Ms. Orange was a second year teacher whotaught four sections of fifth grade science. She claim-ed that her ideas about cooperative learning camefrom her college coursework. Ms. Orange said hersuburban public school had 571 students in gradesK–5. The ethnic breakdown was 45% African Ameri-can, 5% Hispanic, and 50% Caucasian. Ms. Orangereflected about her orientation to cooperative learn-ing and said during the first interview, “I don’t feelthere was a lot of support out there for cooperativelearning. …I feel like I was thrown in and told to gofor it.” (Ransdell, 2001)

Ms. Peach had been teaching fourth grade forfour years at the time of this study. She could notidentify the source of her ideas about cooperativelearning. She said she understood the words inde-pendently, but said her concept of cooperative learn-

ing evolved from her earlier teaching experiences.Ms. Peach emphasized the team concept in her class-room by seating the students in groups of five stu-dents and using the word “team” as much as possi-ble when referring to the groups. Ms. Peach de-scribed her public school as “rural, but in town.” Ofthe 651 students in the school, less than 7% wereminority students. She emphasized the followingduring her third interview:

I think it [cooperative learning] is somethingthat happens naturally with me. There werethings that I want to refine as I do every year. Itis a learning process for me and I want to makeit more beneficial for the children. (Ransdell,2001)

Ms. White was a second year teacher. She de-scribed her school as rural with an enrollment of 400K–5 students. Approximately 95% of the students inthis public school were Caucasian, 2–3% were Afri-can American, and 1–2% were Hispanic. Ms. Whiteattributed her concept of cooperative learning to theidea of being a life-long learner. She argued thatpeople needed to be able to work together in societyand cooperative learning offered students thoseskills. Ms. White stated that she was not entirelycomfortable with cooperative learning (Ransdell,2001).

ResultsWhat does the term “cooperative learning” mean

conceptually to fourth and fifth grade teachers? To as-certain the teachers’ conceptions of cooperativelearning, the teachers answered the same series ofinterview questions to help determine what a typicalcooperative learning lesson might look like in thatteacher’s classroom. Teachers mentioned smallgroups of two to six students per group with fourstudents per group being the optimum number. Ms.Peach said, “I think of kids working together in agroup. Cooperative means working together so [thatmeans] that one person is not doing all of the work.No one sits back and watches the others do thework, (Ransdell, 2001). Only Ms. Orange said thatshe preferred partner or trio activities. Ms. Orangesaid,



… Some people think groups of four, but I don’thave a pre-selected number of group membersin my head. I often think partners or threes.… Ithink there are people who get stuck in the ruthaving four or five people per cooperativegroup. I don’t agree with that; I think anytimechildren are discussing, they are learning and itis cooperative learning. (Ransdell, 2001)

Mr. Black and Ms. Orange were two of theteachers who mentioned the need for structure andthat cooperative learning activities always had aspecific task for the students to accomplish. Ms.Orange said, “If I don’t give them enough structurewithin the groups, it fails. I have had some projectsfail badly because of the lack of structure. I didn’tassign roles at the beginning of the year,” (Ransdell,2001). The most frequently selected cooperativelearning tasks mentioned by these practitioners weregames that reviewed material and hands-on projectssuch as science experiments.

All teachers mentioned that the cooperativegroups in their respective classrooms performed thesame activities simultaneously. Mr. Black and Ms.Peach also mentioned that their respective studentsmight perform specific tasks at various stationswithin the room.

How do the teachers who use cooperative techniquesimplement them? The teacher interviews and class-room observations revealed clues about how theteachers routinely incorporated cooperative learninginto their curriculum. Five of the six observed teach-ers divided the students into groups of two to sixstudents each with four students per group beingthe norm. Mr. Greene, Ms. Orange, Ms. Peach andMs. White grouped the students into “tables” of fourto six students. Ms. Brown did not seat her studentsin groups, but had a pocket chart in which the stu-dents’ names were divided into groups. The stu-dents went to particular places in the room for coop-erative activities. These procedures usually deter-mined the groups for cooperative learning and lim-ited or removed the need to assemble new groupsfor each cooperative learning event, although someof the teachers made adjustments as necessary. Thesixth teacher, Mr. Black, did not assign seats for hisstudents, but claimed that the students usually sat in

the same places each day. By default, group mem-bership in his classroom stayed the same.

The teachers grouping techniques agreed withfindings by Schmuck and Schmuck (1997) who stat-ed that human nature is such that we tend to behesitant when in a new group. In other words, ittakes time for feelings of inclusion and belonging-ness to develop, and the stability of a group’s mem-bership helps to create a more agreeable classroomenvironment.

All six teachers asserted that they favored heter-ogeneous groupings and felt the students learnedbetter. Interview transcripts indicated that criteriaused to create groups included scholastic ability,leadership skills, and social skills. The teachers’ dec-larations suggested congruence with findings byJohnson and Johnson (1991) who emphasized thatheterogeneously grouped children learn better thando homogeneously grouped learners.

Teachers in this study did not appear to fullyshare the scholars’ opinions regarding their use ofroles and routinely left out this aspect of cooperativelearning, often preferring not to distribute roles orassign a role to only one member of a group. How-ever, positive interdependence or individual roleswas the only cooperative learning component con-sistently mentioned by each interviewed teacher whendescribing his/her concept of cooperative learning.This finding echoes that of Antil, Jenkins, Wayne,and Wadasy (1998) who say teachers modify oreliminate various components of cooperative learn-ing as they see fit.

All six teachers stated in interviews that theyoften used cooperative learning to review for up-coming content tests and that the students knewthat they would be assessed via a chapter or unittest. The assessment would take the form of individ-ual student grades rather than group grades. Thisappeared to be the case during all but one of theobservations where students reviewed material. Thesingle exception observed was Ms. Orange who toldher students that each child should write some oftheir group’s answers and as proof of that, shewould look for the handwriting of each person. Shetold them that she planned to grade the answersheets later and each member of the group wouldreceive the same grade.

Mary Ransdell


The observations occurred during the springsemester, and the teachers appeared to have estab-lished desired student behavior for cooperativelearning groups because the teachers issued fewreminders to the students either before or duringcooperative activities. The author observed that thestudents remained on-task during the cooperativelearning activities by leaning into their groups,kneeling on chairs to see the project at hand better,helping each other handle the materials, talkingquietly with their teammates, pointing to passagesor pictures in books, and writing on papers. Accord-ing to research by Slavin (1983) and Johnson, John-son, and Holubec (1994), cooperative learning strate-gies increase the likelihood of on-task behavior.Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec (1993, 1994) advo-cate group processing. One way of conductinggroup processing is to have students complete aform confidentially telling the teacher how well eachgroup member contributed to the project. Variationsof this procedure exist; other teachers might conductgroup discussions or ask students to write a shortparagraph describing how their group worked to-gether. One teacher, Ms. White, asked her studentsto complete a survey that told her, confidentially,how their group members performed. This was theonly instance of group processing observed by thisresearcher during this project. Of the remaining fiveteachers, Mr. Black, Mr. Greene, and Ms. Orangeclaimed not to have heard of the technique. Ms.Brown kept anecdotal notes and Ms. Peach did notlike to use group processing for fear students wouldrate unfairly those peers whom they disliked.

The teachers spoke about their perceived obsta-cles to the successful implementation of cooperativelearning. Transcripts revealed that teachers felt coop-erative learning necessitated extensive planning andadditional time to implement than other means ofinstruction teachers currently used. Space for storageof supplies and for students to work was a secondconcern expressed by several teachers. Certainly inclassrooms where students actively engage in learn-ing, storage space could be a problem whether ornot teachers incorporated cooperative learning intotheir teaching. Thirdly, they noted a lack of materi-als, adult assistance and the teacher’s level of physi-cal energy by the end of the day as perceived barri-

ers. Finally, teachers revealed that individual orcultural conflicts between students sometimes stoodin the way of successfully carrying out cooperativelearning activities (Ransdell, 2001).

The teachers also struggled with giving theirstudents full control of their small groups and oftheir learning. Kohn (1992) said that there was grati-fication in being in control of a situation. His point isthat many current practitioners began to teach inclassrooms where the expectation was that studentsabsorbed information and then delivered it to theteacher upon demand. Cooperative learning offersstudents the chance to have some control over theirlearning. Kohn (1992) further pointed out that thischange in the locus of control from teacher to stu-dent was difficult for teachers accustomed to con-trolling the activities within their classroom. Ms.Orange said she did not feel comfortable letting thechildren take control even after she and the childrentalked about the responsibilities of the people ineach group. The teachers’ perceived barriers wereimportant because they could limit the teachers’ useof cooperative learning with their students.

Ms. Peach, Ms. Orange, and Mr. Greene foundthat they were able to plan lessons that includedcooperative events rather than planning cooperativelessons because they had not planned a cooperativeevent in several weeks. They could now let the con-tent and the learning objectives, rather than the cal-endar, determine the instructional methodology.This represents a shift for these teachers and corrob-orates work by Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec(1994) who say that cooperative learning can occurbetween periods of whole group instruction.

Is the implementation of cooperative learning con-gruent with the teachers’ stated conceptions? The teach-ers, except for Mr. Black, planned and executed les-sons that nearly matched their stated concepts ofcooperative learning and those of the experts. Thestudents participated in small group activities de-signed to review material or experiment to constructknowledge (Ms. Peach). In some instances, studentshad specific roles assigned by their teacher and othertimes students had no assigned roles. Students dem-onstrated social communication skills as they work-ed together and solved minor differences of opin-ions. Ms. Peach initiated a “talking stick” to practice



turn-taking. She explained,

I implemented that [the talking stick] with thestipulation that all group members would havea chance to speak not that no one could speakunless they held the “talking stick.” I used thatwith the four groups. I found that the studentsrealized the importance of taking turns andasked to use the “talking stick.” I reinforced thatby using the “talking stick” when I visited eachgroup. I gave them a marker to use as a stick. Iwent over the rules and the kids thought it wasneat. Later, one of the groups to having troublegetting along asked me for a “talking stick.”

Ms. Brown described an activity where each teammember had specific jobs and the team membershad to answer explicit questions at the end of thelesson. Mr. Greene stated that he liked to have thechildren challenge each other in game-type formatswhile Ms. Orange said she employed pairs and tri-ads most of the time. The classroom observationsconfirmed the teachers’ declarations.

Mr. Black articulated a definition of cooperativelearning that was like that of the scholars and theother five participants. However, he further ex-plained, he had a music background and thought ofcooperative learning in symphonic terms. He saw anorchestra where each section contributed to the finalpiece. In practice, his definition of cooperative learn-ing meant “turn taking” or “sharing” rather thanstudents contributing specific components to thefinished product. During two of the visits, he hadguest speakers. Neither guest speaker was a certifiedteacher and neither practiced cooperative learningtechniques as defined in this paper. The first guestspeaker talked about rocks and their minerals. Shepassed a few specimens around for the children tohold and identify, based upon her talk. The secondspeaker directed the children to build their ownterrariums by visiting the various stations aroundthe room to gather needed materials and then re-turning to their tables where they helped each othercreate individual terrariums.

Upon beginning the interview, the teachers an-swered a few icebreaker questions before movinginto the established protocol. One of the questions

asked the teacher how successful he/she thoughtthe lesson was. After having the second of twospeakers present material, Mr. Black indicated thathe thought the lesson was cooperative because theyshared material and helped each other create theirterrariums.

In his defense, Mr. Black created and executedone cooperative learning lesson that the author ob-served. This lesson was aligned more nearly withthe other teachers’ use of cooperative learning tech-niques. His students seemed comfortable and thechildren appeared to be familiar with cooperativetechniques.

Why do the fourth and fifth grade teachers imple-ment cooperative strategies? The most popular re-sponse was that teachers wanted the students toreinforce their learning. Cohen, Lotan, Whitcomb,Balderrama, Cossey and Swanson (1994) indicatethat we learn better by verbalizing so it follows thatstudents in cooperative groups learn by explainingconcepts to each other. Mr. Greene said, “… if thekids are teaching each other they are probably doingsome learning” (Ransdell, 2001). Of the 17 observedlessons, six contained new material, nine were areview of previously taught information, one was aculminating event, and one was an extension ofprevious learning.

The second reason teachers used cooperativelearning was because of a limited supply of neces-sary materials for hands-on learning and to meet theneeds of their kinesthetic learners. Mr. Black said, “Ilike to have at least one hands-on activity for eachunit.” Ms. Peach said, “I hope the students can learnfrom one another. Most of my cooperative learninglessons are hands-on activities. Science makes senseas a content area for cooperative learning because itlends itself to hands-on.”

Finally, the teachers saw a need for students tolearn to accept diversity. These teachers felt thatcooperative learning helped the students learn tolive in a community while sharing resources andgaining intellectual knowledge (Ransdell, 2001). Ms.Orange said,

The biggest hope is that they learn social skills.That they learn to function in a group becausewe have to. We must be able to get along with

Mary Ransdell


other people. I think it makes the students moreresponsible. They know that I will be disap-pointed if they don’t get the [required] workdone. I hope it makes them more motivated tolearn. They seem to enjoy it if they think they arerunning the show.

In sum, teachers claimed that cooperative learningwas a good way to review for a test, to conduct ascience experiment, or to extend a previous lesson.Field notes collected during the observations corrob-orated this information.

The author asked the educators what made eachwant to use cooperative learning structures again.Several teachers were animated and claimed thatthey found cooperative learning to be successful.Some comments reflecting the teachers’ responsesincluded, “It was fun for the students and for me.”“It effectively engaged the students.” In addition,“The students learn better.” Teachers also men-tioned, “The cooperative lessons benefitted the stu-dents because it helped them prepare for real life.“

What specific structures do these teachers use whenimplementing a cooperative learning lesson? LearningTogether (Johnson & Johnson, 1991) was the pre-dominate structure in use by the teachers. Teachersused this strategy during nine observations. Teach-ers employed Group Investigation (Sharan & Sha-ran, 1994) twice. One teacher talked about havingused Co-op (Kagan, 1985) in her classroom but theincident was not witnessed. During two observa-tions, the teachers used a game show format. Theresearcher identified no published cooperative learn-ing strategy employed during three of the observa-tions.

Discussion and ImplicationsTeachers in this study articulated conceptions of

cooperative learning that aligned with the scholars.They indicated that cooperative learning involvedsmall groups of students working together to com-plete a specific task. Often this task was to reviewmaterial for an upcoming test or to conduct a scienceexperiment. Teachers hoped that cooperative learn-ing taught students to live in harmony with those ofvaried backgrounds. The teachers stated that theybelieved that the students in the larger (four or five

students each) groups did not always need specific,interdependent roles.

How did these teachers incorporate cooperativelearning? They claimed to vary the structure of thecooperative learning strategies by day and by con-tent rather than utilizing the same structures moreoften. The author identified strategies attributed toJohnson, Johnson and Holubec (1993, 1994b). Twoteachers employed techniques suggested by Sharanand Sharan (1994). One teacher used a format out-lined by Kagan and Kagan (1995). However, theteachers frequently deleted the aspect of positiveinterdependence. During two observations, the re-spective teachers used a game show format that theycreated to review content. In fact, the teachers useda variety of structures.

The teachers’ articulated definitions of coopera-tive learning differed slightly from their implemen-tations of cooperative learning. Kagan (1985), andJohnson, Johnson, and Holubec (1993, 1994) stressthe value of positive interdependence or individualroles for each member of the group. Each personcontributes unique tasks to the group’s effort. Eachperson’s involvement was essential and the groupfunctions when each person carries out his or herrole. These teachers repeatedly chose not to incorpo-rate positive interdependence. It is understandablethat teachers using pairs not assign roles, but theseteachers chose not to assign roles when the groupshad four or five students each. Teachers assignedroles during six of the scheduled observations butallowed the children to decide which role to take, orassigned only some of the children a role. This find-ing was significant in that it indicates the teachers’(1) ignorance of expert opinion and research (2)disregard for this information, or (3) a choice madeby each teacher regarding practice. Perhaps the in-creased level of planning needed to create coopera-tive learning events played a role in the teachers’decisions not to include roles for each student in thegroups.

These teachers felt cooperative learning benefit-ted the students, and that they would continue toemploy cooperative strategies as they had been do-ing. They thought that cooperative learning could beinterspersed with other methods of instruction.However, they felt they had reduced control in their



classrooms and this clashed with the more familiarhierarchical teaching styles. A common format in theelementary, middle, and secondary arena is teacher-directed instruction. Cooperative learning is highlystudent-participatory and the teachers seemed tofeel more comfortable in an instructional environ-ment that was more teacher-directed.

A widespread teaching methodology used inboth undergraduate and graduate college courses isthe lecture format (Brinkley, Dessants, Flamm, Flem-ing, Forcey, & Rothchild, 1999). Students expect tocome to class and take notes about what the teachersaid or displayed. Students learn passively via lec-tures or whole group teacher-directed methodolo-gies and then take these unconscious lessons directlyfrom their professors into their own classrooms. InWise’s (2001) words, “teachers teach as they experi-enced learning.”

College students participate in student-arrangedstudy groups or tutoring sessions, but these arrange-ments often lack the structure of cooperative learn-ing strategies. Limited-contact, in-service, or pre-service training does not provide adequate prepara-tion in cooperative learning strategies. Individualswho participate in these sessions come away withmany questions but before they can apply the strate-gies or have their questions fully addressed, thespecialist leaves or the university course ends.

Students in teacher education programs musthave multiple assignments that require them to usecooperative strategies, write their own lesson plansand/or actually teach the lessons using cooperativestrategies. This supports the familiar adage, “Use itor lose it.”

Practicing teachers who become familiar withcooperative learning through personal experiencewill gain confidence and may be more likely to addit to their instructional techniques. The teachers inthe study stated that they learned about cooperativelearning in their college coursework, but that theydid not remember much about the technique. Per-haps they did not internalize the methodology.

Educators who help teacher education studentsand practicing teachers construct a cooperativelearning schema and learn strategies help theseteachers teach their own students using cooperativestrategies. It is imperative that teacher education

students and practicing teachers understand theconnection between theory and practice. Studentsunfamiliar with cooperative learning must becomethoroughly familiar with the technique, its uses, itsadvantages, and its caveats. Perhaps when educa-tors have successfully internalized cooperative learn-ing, we will see cooperative strategies used morefrequently in elementary classrooms.

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Teacher and Student Cognitions DuringTeam Building Activities

Alice M. Buchanan Mary Frances AgnelloAuburn University Our Lady of the Lake University

Ron E. McBrideTexas A&M University

AbstractThis study investigated the cognitions of a teacher and four adolescent students during their involvement in

critical thinking (CT) activities. Content analysis yielded a multi-dimensional construct of teacher, student, andteacher/student thought patterns. The teacher created a supportive learning environment, provided activities thatmaximized involvement and opportunities for success, and facilitated the CT process. The students initially approachedthe CT tasks from a nonstrategic perspective but gradually adopted more thoughtful approaches to the tasks. In doingso, the students provided evidence of both CT skills and CT dispositions; attributes not usually associated with the at-risk adolescent learner.

The purpose of this study is to describe thecritical thinking cognitions and dispositions of ateacher and a group of young adolescent at-riskstudents during critical thinking activities. We at-tempt to capture salient elements of their thoughtpatterns gleaned from an analysis of stimulated-recall interviews. This qualitative investigationprovides an account of the students’ relationshipswith each other, the teacher’s thoughts in planningand implementing critical thinking activities, andthe interactions between teacher and students. Inexploring the teacher and students’ cognitions, amulti-perspective construction of the learning envi-ronment emerged.

Adolescence provides opportunities for individ-uals to make decisions and select certain paths thatimpact the rest of their lives. For many, these deci-sions ultimately lead to productive and satisfyinglives. For others, however, poor decision-makingcombined with school and societal pressures lead toa cycle of “alienation, substance abuse, absenteeism,and dropping out of school.…” (Turning Points,1980, p. 9). While a case can be made for all adoles-cents being “at risk,” those students who risk schoolfailure and dropping out prior to high school gradu-ation are of particular concern and interest.

Perhaps the most powerful and frequently stud-ied correlates of at-risk youth involve social class,race and family structure. Overall, at-risk studentstend to be disproportionately drawn from families oflow socioeconomic status and are often members ofminority groups (Bianchi, 1984; Coleman, 1989;Stevenson & Baker, 1987). Additional predictors ofdropping out include being members of single-parent families (Bianchi, 1984; Dornbusch, Ritter,Roberts & Fraleigh,1987), earning low grades, andbeing male (Alpert & Dunham, 1986; Ekstrom,Goertz, Pollack, & Rock, 1986; Velez, 1989).

A second area receiving much attention in theeducational literature is critical thinking (CT). In the21st century developing competent thinkers able tocompete in a global society becomes increasinglyimportant. Critical thinking, though, will not occurwithout conscious and deliberate efforts on the partof classroom teachers. Unfortunately, as Peterson,Kromrey, Borg and Lewis (1990) note, little evidenceof such efforts occurs in most classrooms. It is forthis reason that Underbakke, Borg and Peterson(1993) advocate the teaching of CT and preparingteachers who will make critical thinking skills apriority in their classrooms.

For the most part, these two important areas of

Alice M. Buchanan, Mary Frances Agnello & Ron E. McBride


study remain mutually exclusive. While many edu-cators decry the lack of critical thinking in traditionalclassrooms, Levine (1988) notes the lack of emphasison developing critical thinking skills with at-riskstudents. He points out that mechanical skills, rotememory, and regurgitation of facts are primarilystressed, not higher order thinking skills. Levine andEubanks (1990) speculate that teachers focus on thelower skills test scores of minority students com-pared to their white counterparts. They then maydevote too much time and energy closing this “rela-tively small gap” and ignore the larger more impor-tant disparities in comprehension and thinkingskills.

The present study attempts to bring these two“worlds” together. We examined a group of earlyadolescents described as at-risk as they participatedin tasks where critical thinking was an integralcomponent. In a setting outside the traditional class-room environment, we use descriptions of teacherand learner perspectives to chart and construct thethought processes and perspectives of the partici-pants as they solved a variety of ill-defined (i.e., noone ‘right’ solution) problems.

MethodParticipants

Voluntary participants included one teacher andfour students attending an all-boys outdoor summercamp. Brent, the instructor, along with Jack, Alan,Matthew and Jason are pseudonyms for the partici-pants. The boys, part of a camp population of chil-dren, aged 10 and 11 years, exhibited many of thepreviously described correlates of at-risk students.The participants were male, two-thirds wereAfrican-American or Hispanic, many came fromsingle-parent families and all were financially disad-vantaged. Two four-week sessions are held eachsummer with a new group of students arriving tothe camp for the second session. In each camp ses-sion, two groups (9–12 students) participated in aninitiative games class. Within each of the fourgroups, one student was selected at random forstudy.

ProcedureAs part of their regular camp activities, the

students participated in an initiative games classthree times per week. Initiative activities requiregroup cooperation and critical thinking in order tosolve a challenge or problem. We videotaped onelesson each during weeks two, three and four ofeach camp session. All lessons lasted 40 minutes.

Following each lesson, the four students (onefrom each of the groups observed) watched thevideotape and engaged in a stimulated-recall inter-view. At three-minute intervals we stopped thevideotape and asked: (1) What is going on in thissection, (2) What were you thinking about, and (3)What did you notice about the other students? Re-sponses to the above questions produced not onlyindividual cognitions, but also yielded rich descrip-tions of what was going on within and between thegroup members as they searched for solutions to thevarious challenge activities.

At the completion of the study, the principalinvestigator randomly selected one of the video-taped lessons for a stimulated-recall interview withthe instructor. The interview protocol followed thatof the students.

All interviews were tape-recorded and tran-scribed. Once transcribed, two members of theresearch team coded the interviews and begancontent analysis procedures. Content analysis of theteacher and student responses produced categoriesderived inductively and are presented in the resultssection. Disagreements regarding coding categorieswere discussed until agreement was reached so thatall final coding was consensual.

ResultsContent analysis (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) of the

interviews yielded a three-dimensional categoriza-tion of thoughts. The first characterization capturesthe teacher’s thoughts in preparing, monitoring, andassessing student progress during the activities.Second, the students’ characterizations are pre-sented. Finally, a third category of cognitions reflect-ing the interactive nature of both teacher and stu-dents’ thoughts during the activities is presented.Each of these three categories or dimensions reflectsthe unique perspectives of the participants duringthe critical thinking activities.

Cognition in Team Building


Teacher CognitionsPreparing a safe learning environment for the

students, emotionally as well as physically emergedas the first teacher category. Each lesson began in aninformal manner where students were asked to talkabout themselves and their interests—favorite sport,athletic shoes, and so on. These “check-in” activitiesserved to establish an atmosphere whereby studentscould participate and contribute to the group with-out fear of failure or reprimand. In essence, theteacher created a “no fault zone” for the students. Indescribing the process, the instructor said:

We were doing our check-in time, where we goaround and we see how everyone is doing. AndI try to come up with a creative question, likeopening with a question each day, like, ‘what’syour favorite sport? What’s your favorite food?’Or something just to get them talking with eachother, getting them sharing about differentthings about themselves.

The check-in time also provided an opportunity toguide the students toward making connections fromprior activities to apply to the upcoming task. Theteacher encouraged the learners to brainstorm inorder to generate several ideas from which theycould then choose to try to solve the task:

Instead of just using one single idea and stickingwith it if it’s not working, try to brainstorm andcome up with a menu of ideas, and to choose thebest ones or bits and pieces from each one.

Upon completion of the check-in time, the instructorintroduced the new critical thinking task. In prepar-ing the learning environment, the teacher describedthe objectives and listed the parameters of the task,after which students asked questions for clarifica-tion. As part of this structuring component, studentsreceived instruction on safety concerns that neededto be adhered to during the activity. The teacherstressed, “You want to be aware of the safety con-cerns for the group.” Upon completion of this lessonsegment, the learners began the task.

At this point in the lesson the teacher adopted anon-directive role while overseeing the activity.

Instead of controlling the activity, he became afacilitator. While monitoring student progress, hedeliberately remained in the background and al-lowed the students to formulate and implementtheir own strategies. Only when the students reach-ed an impasse or when safety was a concern did theteacher intervene:

… I wanted to let them decide for themselves …and it [the students’ strategy] wasn’t probablythe best way to do it, without jumping in andtelling them what to do.

Intervention primarily took the form of indirectquestioning or prompting. When safety became aconcern during an activity, the instructor com-mented:

Instead of telling them ‘don’t climb up on shoul-ders’ or ‘don't stack,’ I tried to kind of cue themby saying things like, ‘what’s going to happen ifhe falls while he’s on his shoulders?’ or ‘what’sit going to be like for the people on the bottom?’

Another category emerging from the contentanalysis was that of teacher as assessor. While moni-toring the students’ attempts to solve the task, theinstructor constantly assessed the group dynamics,levels of involvement, and their choice of strategies.Of particular note was his concern about the stu-dents’ level of involvement after the initial noveltyand excitement began to wane:

Because they weren’t super discouraged butthey seemed to be, you know, they had beenworking at it a long time and seemed to be kindof losing some of their pizzazz for the activity.

At one point the teacher decided to let a group ofstudents take a break and move on to another activ-ity because of repeated unsuccessful attempts.

The teacher also noted that when the studentsexperienced several unsuccessful attempts at solvingthe problem, they began to work together to gener-ate alternative strategies. He commented that, “Theywere coming up with several kinds of ideas” andlater noted how “they switched from one idea to



another a couple of times.” Concurrent with generat-ing more refined strategies, the instructor also no-ticed evidence of group cooperation beginning toemerge:

There’s a lot of talking going on, communica-tion, a lot of … there’s a lot of touching, a lot ofbalance, a lot of teamwork and those kinds ofthings.

Instead of everyone trying to do “their own thing,”the students began to talk among themselves, listento alternate points of view, and work together.

The instructor also wanted the students to seethe relevance of what was learned in previous activi-ties and how it might be applied to the present task.He tried to get the students to transfer prior strate-gies and ideas for implementation in the new activ-ity, “I was trying to get them to think … back to thetime that it [the strategy] worked the best and try toduplicate it.” Such teacher prompting for transferserved to redirect student efforts to formulate newstrategies. Of particular import were attempts to getthe learners to synthesize earlier strategies and ideasfor application to the new task, “I was trying to getthem to think about how they could take piecesfrom different ideas and put them together.”

Leading a post-activity debriefing sessionemerged as the final teacher role. The instructorreferred to this component of the lesson as “processtime” and used it to elicit descriptions of things thestudents had experienced and learned during thetask. He asked them to reflect about the precedingactivity:

After the activities are done we have a processtime where we talked about what happened andwhat kinds of things went on, and what you canlearn from this.

Specifically, he asked the students about what thingsworked well, what kinds of things did not work sowell, and what kinds of things “have you beendoing in this activity?” The process time affordedyet another opportunity for the teacher to help thestudents make connections from previous sessions.To bring the lesson full cycle, the instructor again

prompted the students to recapture the relevance ofprevious activities and strategies and their applica-tion to the activity just completed. He felt that:

They [students] seemed pretty in tune with whatI was looking for answer-wise, because we’vetalked about a lot of stuff over and over in theseother sessions. Each session we talk about some-thing kind of along these lines.

Perhaps most important of all, the instructorwanted the students to be aware of the thoughtprocesses and the cooperation necessary for success-ful completion of the task. He wanted to take thembeyond the surface gamelike aspect of the activity:

So when you can take a step back and talk aboutwhat else was going on besides the fun factorand the work factor, they seemed to respond tothat.

The instructor encouraged the students to movebeyond the act and the effort to reflect on and assesstheir effectiveness in solving the task.

Student CognitionsAnalysis revealed a developmental sequence in

the students’ approach to the critical thinking tasks.Provided only with the objectives of the task, therules and parameters for participation, the students’initial attempts were characterized by a lack of anorganized or strategic plan for solving the task. Thetypical response to the instructor’s challenge was toimmediately start solving the task without anypreset discussion of strategies. Jason remarked: “Wewere playing ‘All Aboard’ and at first we were justtrying to get on all at once. And we tried that twiceand that didn’t work.”

The dissonance created by an inability to gener-ate a successful solution led the learners to step backand reassess and reevaluate the task. When successwas not forthcoming, the students took a morethoughtful approach to solving the task. They real-ized that the tasks were not as simple as they ini-tially appeared. Jack commented, “It was hard. Wedidn’t have nothing to write on, or anything likethat.” Jason’s comment embraced the recognition



that: “… this was going to be hard ‘cause you can’tsay ‘you get over there and you get over there’ …we were going to have to use our mind.”

It was at this point that the students started tomake connections between the instructor’s earlierprompts to brainstorm for ideas and finding a solu-tion to the activity. Jack remarked, “Well, Brent (theteacher) told us to, like, go back to our ideas that wemade up, so we went back to our ideas and make upsome more ideas.” The students reassessed the taskand began a more thoughtful approach. Matthewcommented “… some people were walking around,looking at the board, and trying to think of otherideas.” Evidence of rudimentary leadership alsoemerged. Students now realized that they needed tolisten to each other and work together in order tosolve the task. Alan observed that, “Two of them, acouple of them were trying to be leader and weretelling where to get where. Who goes where.”

As the leadership roles emerged, so did thecooperative element. Students began to work to-gether in order to achieve success. Jack noticed,“Some people were going after others by themselvesand others were working together.” The participantsreflected that as the activities progressed, “workingtogether” became a more frequent response to thequestion, “What did you notice about the otherstudents?” During one activity, for example, Mat-thew noticed that “… when they were trying to dothis activity they were working together and usingeverybody's help and trying to get everyone on.”

Students began to entertain alternate points ofview and to help each other. Prior strategies weremodified and new ones developed and evaluated.Matthew noted, “We were trying to think of anotherway to get better at getting in line by ages” and ashort time later commented, “They were getting inline and they were yelling out their age and helpingeach other.” The group appeared to become a morecohesive unit, working together to solve the task.They also became somewhat more cautious of thestrategies being developed. Jason concluded, “Ididn’t think this was going to work because it didn’twork last time.”

As the critical thinking activities became morecomplex, the students’ level of thinking becamemore sophisticated. During one activity, Matthew

thought that flipping a small platform over wouldbe a successful strategy. When asked why hethought so, he rationalized, “Because it had twosides that were higher than the middle … the smallpeople could get into the middle and kind of leanover just in case the big kids lost their balance.”

Teacher/Student InteractionsAs a consequence of analyzing the teacher and

student roles separately, a third construct emerged.We noted a number of related or overlapping cogni-tions expressed by the participants as they re-sponded to the interview questions. Structuring thelesson to include a check-in and debriefing time, forexample, were pre-planned interactive componentsof the lesson. The teacher noted:

… they seemed to like the check-in time becauseI let them come up with different questions andthey come up with all kinds of stuff about shoesand wrestlers and all kinds of stuff. So theyenjoy that.

The debriefing session formed a second struc-tured component within the lesson. The teacher’spurpose was to:

Have a little process time to talk about some ofthe things I said before like what things wereworking well, what kinds of things aren’t work-ing so well, what kinds of things have you beendoing in this activity.… So I was trying to getthem to think about the different kinds of thingsthey’ve actually been doing while they weredoing this activity.

Alan corroborated this part of the lesson when,at the end of one of the activities he said, “We werefixin’ to go to our next activity. We got into our circleand talked about what we did.” And later he com-mented, “They [the other students] were just in thecircle listening to what other people had to say.”

Many informal interactions also occurred duringthe critical thinking activities. These interactionswere not deliberately planned by the teacher butoccurred as a result of students’ responses to theactivity. The teacher used the cues in the environ-



ment to formulate the decision of whether or not tointervene. These interventions came primarilythrough the use of prompts and hints in the form ofquestions.

At the heart of each task was the teacher’s desireto engage the students in critical thinking withoutconstant mediation:

Because, I think it’s good to let them work withit even if it seems hard for them to … even ifthey get a little discouraged, because it’s a lotbetter for them to figure it out on their own thanfor me to jump in and tell them what to do, evenif it saves them a little time. So I was thinkingabout what was the right amount of time to letthem work with it before I gave them any kindof a hint.

Matthew provided evidence of the teacher’sindirect role during the Stepping Stones activitywhen he remarked, “Coach Brent was telling us ifwe had any more solutions, different solutions, andtried to make us think.”

DiscussionThrough content analysis of teacher and student

interviews, we identified salient elements of theparticipant’s thought patterns. Additionally, wenoted a multi-dimensional construct of teacher,student and teacher/student interactions that re-flected the unique perspectives each brought to thelearning environment. Of particular interest was themanner in which the teacher prepared the learningenvironment. Each critical thinking activity ensuredthat students were active contributors to the learningprocess.

An essential element in each of the initiativegames was the opportunity for success provided bythe teacher. Since the at-risk student is often viewedas a “low-achieving learner plagued by academicfailure” (Presseisen, Richman & Beyer, 1992, p. 10),the importance of providing for success cannot beunderstated. Schoel, Prouty, and Radcliffe (1988)agree. They noted that when groups learn they canexperience and overcome difficult challenges withpeer support and feel rewarded for doing so, apowerful success experience is generated. The ill-

defined nature of each task combined with workingin small groups appeared to maximize opportunitiesfor student success. The participants worked to-gether in a student-centered environment that per-mitted group collaboration, peer support, and ongo-ing discussion.

The instructor identified the purpose of eachtask, provided parameters for task pursuit, andlisted safety concerns at the beginning of each les-son. Once the teacher explained and clarified eachtask, he turned over responsibility for finding asolution to the students. Further instruction wasnon-directive and the emphasis shifted to studentparticipation.

By shifting the responsibility for learning to thestudents, the instructor also increased the opportuni-ties for social dialogue among the participants.Affording the opportunity for discussion amonglearners represents a break from traditional teacher-dominated classroom discourse and can, theoreti-cally, improve the quality of assisted performanceby teachers and peers (Englert, et al., 1991; Rosen-shine & Meister, 1992). As a result of the teacher’sactions, the students were able to initiate their owndiscussions. They listened to each other’s ideas andstrategies and, as a group, decided which ideas toaccept, implement, or reject. The students becameactive participants in the learning process and notsimply “objects waiting to be filled with facts andfigures” (Bartelome, 1994, p. 183).

The students had to work together and generateappropriate strategies to be successful. The instruc-tor monitored the activity closely and providedfeedback when he thought students needed guid-ance or if safety was an issue. The evaluation of-fered, however, was not for the purpose of rejectingthe learner’s efforts. Rather it served the purpose ofallowing students to make appropriate strategyadjustments and provide information to help guidethem toward productive solutions.

From the students’ perspective, evidence ofcritical thinking skills and critical thinking disposi-tions emerged. A two-phase approach seemed tocharacterize the student roles when solving the task.The initial challenge and novelty of the tasks lent agamelike nature to the activity that immediatelycaught their attention and interest. While interest



levels were high, the learners did not stop to con-sider the difficulties inherent to the task. The mainfocus appeared to be accepting and responding tothe challenge. Strategy formation perhaps could bebest characterized as “chaotic polyphony,” that is,many voices speaking at once. Only after repeatedfailures and an accompanying waning of initialenthusiasm did the learners begin to see the need forgenerating and evaluating cogitative strategies.

At this point of the task, the students entered asecond, more thoughtful phase and indications ofstrategy formation emerged. Pressley et al. (1990)state that a strategy is “composed of cognitive opera-tions over and above the processes directly entailedin carrying out the task” (p. 3). The first phase ofaddressing the critical thinking tasks could be seenas nonstrategic. That is, the students exhibited noth-ing over and beyond the immediate goal of the task.An example of this was Jason’s observation early onin one activity noting that his group was just tryingto get onto a small platform all at once.

During the second phase, though, leaders beganto emerge and, with teacher guidance, the groupsbegan to develop more thoughtful strategies. Thisdevelopmental pattern of thinking is reflective ofVygotsky’s (1978) belief that skilled thinking devel-ops through social-instructional interactions withmore proficient thinkers. While some students ap-peared to be more thoughtful than others, the teach-er provided much of the guidance during the activi-ties. As mentioned earlier, though, the guidance wasmore in the form of cues and prompts and was notin the form of systematic and/or in-depth criticalthinking instruction.

The students provided consistent evidence ofpersistence, cooperation, listening to alternativeideas and demonstrating leadership qualities—all ofwhich illustrate the dispositional side of criticalthinking. These dispositions are important becausethey provide a vital affective dimension that sup-ports as well as drives the critical thinking process(Beyer, 1987; Ennis, 1987). In order to be effectivecritical thinkers, participants must first be predis-posed to the process. Perkins, Jay, and Tishman(1993) posit the belief that thinking dispositions arecomprised of inclination, sensitivity and ability. Allthree elements must be present in order for

dispositional behavior to occur. That is, the learnermust have the inclination or the felt tendency to-ward thinking, she must be sensitive to the opportu-nities to so, and finally, he must have the ability orbasic capacity to carry through. A shortfall in any ofthese three areas can result in the failure to activatethe thinking-dispositional behavior (Tishman, 1994).

To varying degrees the students provided evi-dence, though not always polished or refined, of theabove elements. The inclination to engage in think-ing may have been triggered by the nature of thetask itself. The element of challenge and the thoughtprocesses inherent to solving the tasks seemed toappeal to the students’ sense of adventure. Theywillingly engaged in the process of trying to gener-ate solutions for the various critical thinking tasks.The students also appeared to have the capabilitiesand skills necessary to solve the tasks. What wasoften lacking, though, was a more sophisticated andsystematic application of key critical thinking skillsto the task at hand.

Even though the teacher provided structuredopportunities for students to reflect on strategiesthat worked well (or not), to transfer what had beenlearned in previous activities, and to listen to groupmembers ideas, the students were not always sensi-tive to these instructional components. They did notalways make the connections and apply these strate-gies in a conscious manner to a new task even withthe assistance of the teacher's cues and prompts.

In preparing the learning environment, theinstructor appeared to provide what is often referredto in the literature as “scaffolded instruction.” Whilethe precursory evidence presented might supportthis notion, the teacher provided no conscious indi-cation or understanding of this concept. While asupportive learning environment was noted, evi-dence of scaffolding in the formal pedagogical formdescribed by Meyer (1993), Wood, Bruner and Ross(1976) and others cannot be claimed.

What the teacher did provide, though, was asupportive learning environment in which he devel-oped a positive affective relationship with the stu-dents. Parish and Parish (1988) state that positiveassociations with other peers and teachers is crucialin order to reduce the sense of social isolation oftenencountered by at-risk students. By providing activi-



ties that maximized involvement and opportunityfor success, the students could take pride in theiraccomplishments and those of their group members.According to Parish and Parish (1988), these positiveassociations with others allow students to relatetheir own sense of identity with that of other suc-cessful peers and teachers. By doing this, the instruc-tor established a sense of “belongingness” within thegroup; a characteristic that Hahn (1987) suggestsmay increase the likelihood of at-risk students fin-ishing school.

Furthermore, the teacher’s non-directive, accept-ing pedagogical style suggests an alternative to thedeficit orientation frequently assumed about “at-risk” students. Deficit orientation implies a defi-ciency within the learner or his/her context (Barte-lome, 1994). Such an assumption may lead someteachers to employ a controlling, authoritarian peda-gogy with their students (Haberman, 1991). Theresults of this study, though, suggest that the teach-er’s positive, non-directive style with this group ofat-risk participants in this setting created an environ-ment conducive to fostering rudimentary elementsof critical thinking. Faced with a series of challengesthe students, assisted by the teacher, responded in amanner not usually associated with at-risk learners.

Because this study occurred in a non-traditionalmilieu, no attempts to generalize are made. Thepositive results may well be due to a setting that didnot have the kinds of constraints typical of manytraditional classrooms. That is, the teacher onlyworked with small groups and dialogue was notconstrained by “atypical formats such as cycles ofknown-answer questions followed by short studentresponses and ending with teacher evaluations”(Meyer, 1993, p. 45).

Nevertheless, the positive effects noted in thisnon-traditional setting may have some direct impli-cations for the traditional classroom setting manyadolescent students face on a daily basis. First, theactivities were both motivating and enjoyable to thisgroup of participants. If we expect students (at-riskor not) to become critical thinkers, then the activitiesteachers provide must be relevant and interesting.The physical challenges of the tasks certainly ap-pealed to the boys, but the critical thinking inherentto the tasks kept them actively engaged over time.

Second, when critical thinking activities werepresented in a non-threatening and supportiveenvironment, this group of young adolescents dem-onstrated not only an interest to engage in them, butshowed surprising diligence and determination inseeing the challenges through to some kind of solu-tion. They felt comfortable to take risks and theteacher encouraged rather than discouraged themwhen initial attempts were unsuccessful.

Third, this group of participants did demon-strate evidence of rudimentary critical thinking skillsand dispositions. They took note of the teacher’squestions, synthesized previous information, gener-ated and then tested hypotheses in their search forsolutions. Additionally, the participants listened toalternative ideas, worked together, and noted lead-ers emerging in their midst. Providing challengingtasks and working in cooperative groups to generatesolutions seemed to serve as powerful stimulants tothe critical thinking process for this group of partici-pants.

Finally, the non-directive role taken by the teach-er may have important implications for classrooms.The teacher became a facilitator rather than a con-troller of information. He “stepped off center stage”and allowed the students to pursue solutions to thetasks. Rather than telling the students the answer,the instructor guided them, often through question-ing. By doing so, the teacher shifted the responsibil-ity for learning to the students.

Future research needs to expand the number ofparticipants and investigate a variety of classroomsettings. Also, because this study relied heavily onthe use of structured interviews, future studiesmight also incorporate more observational datatechniques to assess the students' role in fosteringcritical thinking.

The manner in which these students embracedthe challenges and displayed incipient evidence ofcritical thinking and critical thinking dispositions isencouraging. While these skills were not at a sophis-ticated level, the learners nevertheless providedpositive indicators of critical thinking. These areattributes not usually associated with at-risk learnersand are attributes worthy of continued study for allstudents.



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The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of undergraduate student, Ms. Valerie Kettelhut,1

in providing background research material through her CLASS PDS coursework.


The CLASS Professional Development SchoolInitiative: Redesigning Teacher Education

Through Effective Collaboration1

W. Bumper White Robert SchaibleLewiston-Auburn College University of Southern Maine

AbstractThe innovative CLASS professional development school initiative seeks to redesign teacher education through

effective collaboration to better meet he needs of a changing pre-service student population. Non-traditional, often part-time students are entering undergraduate pre-service education programs across North America and in other parts ofthe world in greater numbers. The timing for this is fortuitous because many states in the United States, Maineincluded, predict that half of the teachers currently in classrooms will be retiring within the next five to ten years. Pre-service programs, including Professional Development School (PDS) school-university partnerships, face new challengesto meet the needs of diverse populations of students. The University of Southern Maine’s College of Education andHuman Development on the Gorham campus and the Lewiston-Auburn College in Lewiston jointly developedundergraduate professional development school (PDS) K–8 programs called Teachers (for) Elementary And MiddleSchools (TEAMS). In planning this program, university and school representatives reviewed the current literature andfocused their attention on meeting the needs of current teachers, the needs of K-8 students, and non-traditional, part-time teacher candidates. This descriptive paper provides an in-depth look at a TEAMS program on the Lewiston-Auburncampus where it is called Collaborative Learning And School Success (CLASS). By “telling/sharing our story” ofthe implementation, early experiences and challenges of this collaborative and interdisciplinary program that is designedto meet the needs of diverse populations of students, we hope to expand the knowledge base and promote dialog for thoseinstitutions embarking on a similar exploration within the PDS context.

Program Background InformationFourteen years ago, in 1989, the College of Edu-

cation and Human Development at the University ofSouthern Maine initiated a plan to re-place its tradi-tional undergraduate degree in tea-cher educationwith a newly developed fifth-year, graduate Profes-sional Development School (PDS) model programknown as the Extended Teacher Education Program(ETEP). This plan was shaped in great part by acareful study and discussion of the findings of Dr.John Goodlad’s National Net-work for EducationalRenewal and the Holmes Group, which indicatedthat to be most effective, teacher-education shouldbecome a collaborative effort between universitiesand local school districts and occur post-B.A. (Good-

lad, 1984; Holmes Group, 1990; Yerian & Grossman,1997). Similar efforts to restructure teacher educationprograms through these collaborative PDS-typeuniversity-school district partnership programs haveoccurred not only in the United States, but also inCanada, the United Kingdom, the Virgin Islands,and other Commonwealth countries (Fullan &Connelly, 1990; Rolheiser-Bennett, 1990; Rudduck,1991; Doherty-Poirier, 2001).

In 1995, the University reexamined its earlierdecision to drop the undergraduate program due toperceived losses of undergraduate students seekinga shorter route to certification at other Maine col-leges and universities offering traditional teachereducation programs. In addition, we became aware

W. Bumper White & Robert Schaible


that Maine, like many other places, was predictingretirement over the next decade for half of its teach-ers and the consequent need of many new hires. Inaddressing these needs and concerns, the Universitydecided to develop an innovative undergraduateteacher-preparation program, based on the PDSmodel, with a strong internship component both tohelp prepare beginning new teachers for the class-room, and to retain these teachers in the professionfor a longer period of time once they get started.

Determined to offer a program of academic rigorand high quality, we were unable to meet com-pletely the need of students who seek, mainly forfinancial reasons, to avoid a fifth year of preparation.We were, however, able to address some of theirconcern by devising a 4½-year nine semester pro-gram. This multi-phase program which includescoursework in an academic major leading to a bache-lor’s degree in a liberal arts field and a professionalregimen of teacher preparation which includes somegraduate level coursework that results in certifica-tion, rather than a degree in education, to teach inelementary and middle schools (K–8). Students takethe liberal arts core and academic major courses atthe same time they are immersed in professionalcoursework and field experiences at partner schools.They receive ongoing opportunities for educationalpractice each semester, including a comprehensivemid-way Candidacy Review during semester fivewith the program culminating in a full year, full-time unpaid internship in semesters eight and nineprior to the program’s Exit Review.

As with the University’s ETEP program men-tioned above, the core concept is that of John Good-lad’s “simultaneous renewal of education,” whichmeans that both the university and the partnerschools seek to renew themselves—their mission,curriculum and pedagogy—as they work together toimprove the quality of educators. We chose the PDSmodel because it is so well supported in both pastand current research (Goodlad, 1984; Holmes, 1990;Sykes, 1990, Fullan, 1993; Sarason, 1993; Darling-Hammond, 1994; Clark, 1997; Abdal-Haqq, 1995,1998). This core PDS concept has demonstrated a“promising potential” in the support of ongoingprofessional development in teaching practice for

both pre-service and in-service educators (Sandholtz& Dadlez, 2000) with many tangible benefits andlasting innovations as part of an ongoing “quietrevolution” in the way that university-school PDSpartnerships seek to improve student learning(Kochan, 1998).

The University of Southern Maine’s TeacherEducation Council unanimously approved a skeletalplan for the new undergraduate PDS program inearly February of 1998. The University consists ofthree campuses: two located fairly close to eachother (Portland and Gorham) in the southern part ofthe state; the third, Lewiston-Auburn College (LAC),located in the twin-city area of Lewiston and Au-burn, closer to the central part of Maine. The planwas established for all three campuses, but soonafter the work of implementation began, it becameclear that, due to differences in student profiles andcurricular structures, the Portland/Gorham andLAC programs would need to be developed sepa-rately. While both would follow the same guidingprinciples of the PDS model, the details of imple-mentation would of necessity be somewhat differ-ent, with LAC’s program tailored to meet the needsof its largely part-time and non-traditional studentbody as well as take advantage of the college’sinterdisciplinary curriculum and collaborative ethos.The Gorham/Portland program assumed the nameof Teachers (for) Elementary And Middle Schools(TEAMS), while at Lewiston-Auburn College theprogram became known as Collaborative Learningand School Success (CLASS).

This paper will be based upon the CLASS pro-gram both because it’s the one with which the au-thors are most familiar and because it offers oppor-tunities for discussion of key issues not relevant tothe TEAMS program. Currently, there are 35 stu-dents in the program, 29 of whom are non-tradi-tional and/or part-time students with a wide rangeof needs, expectations and demands. By sharing ourexperiences in developing a PDS through effectiveuniversity and school district collaboration thatincludes this population, we hope to encourageothers to consider such a model or to be assistance tothose already undertaking the challenge.

The CLASS Professional Development School Initiative


The Lewiston-Auburn College CLASSPDS Program

Introduction/OverviewWhat we are trying to accomplish in the CLASS

program at LAC is well supported in the past andcurrent research as previously cited, but most signif-icantly by our own collective personal experiences ascollege professors, classroom teachers, school ad-ministrators, cooperating teachers, methods instruc-tors, and university supervisors. Along with ourschool partners, our central commitment was toredesign teacher education through effective collab-oration. To develop an innovative model PDS sitewhich would prepare “teacher-leaders” to becomechange agents in schools by providing our CLASSpre-service students both an opportunity and em-powerment to make choices to be more effective inthe tea-ching-learning environment through bestprac-tices within a context of pedagogical contentknowledge beliefs and strong (full year, full-time)internship (Cobb, 2001; Gimbert, 2001; Goodlad,1984, Shulman & Grossman, 1998; Wait & Warren,2001).

Since non-traditional and part-time studentscomprise the majority of those attending Lewis-ton-Auburn College, it became apparent that the CLASSprogram needed an implementation that, whilemaintaining high standards and expectations, wouldmake it possible for these students to enter it andcomplete their degree. Our review of the literatureon PDS programs yielded but few mentions ofmeeting the needs of students like ours (Levine,1992; Higgins, 1999; Teitel, 1999). Although tailoringthe program for this population would be difficult,we accepted the challenge as particularly relevant tothe College’s very mission, which stresses our com-mitment to being “accessible to a non-traditionaland diverse student body" and empowering them“to take responsibility for their own learning.” Webelieve we are making substantial progress due to anumber of factors, including:

1. A collaborative design process.2. The type of capable teacher candidates we

are attracting; i.e., non-traditional, part-timestudents, who bring with them maturity andsignificant life experience.

3. The particular strengths of the college itself;strengths that are especially relevant to thepreparation of effective classroom educators.

4. Intensive coursework in the sciences (includ-ing physics) and mathematics, with fieldopportunities for practical applications inour PDS partner schools.

5. Participation in state and national grantprograms in support of mathematics, scienceand technology.

6. The development of an effective learningcommunity and PDS partnership throughthe active participation of all constituentmembers.

1. Collaborative Design ProcessAs the University of Southern Maine undergrad-

uate teacher education program’s conceptual frame-work went through the final approval process, theCoordinator of CLASS PDS, on behalf of the College,contacted schools in our immediate area. Our goalwas to find elementary and middle schools inter-ested in working collaboratively on the final devel-opment, redesign and implementation of the CLASSPDS program so that we could provide an “authen-tic context of co-ownership” (Teitel, 1997).

In early January of 1998 we sent a letter to theprincipals of the twelve Lewiston and Auburn ele-mentary and middle schools. Four principals re-sponded immediately. Each was telephoned so thattheir interest and support could be gauged regard-ing the development of an innovative univer-sity-school PDS partnership. Follow-up visits with eachschool were discussed, and invitations were re-ceived from all four. Initial visits in February andMarch included in-depth discussions with bothadministrative teams and/or interested tea-chers.After careful consideration, Sherwood HeightsElementary in Auburn and the Lewiston MiddleSchool were selected to join the partnership. Bothschools have diverse populations that include alarge proportion of economically disadvantagedchildren. Each school signed a formal written agree-ment with the College and was given representationon subsequently developed CLASS program, steer-ing, admission, and candidacy committees, as wellas on various ad hoc committees.



The initial planning and preparation for theimplementation of the CLASS program was a com-prehensive process involving college faculty, partnerteachers, college students, and school district andCollege administrators. The design and implementa-tion process entailed three concurrent efforts: gen-eral overview sessions, design-team work, andparticipation in a summer leadership institute.

During the spring of 1998, a series of generaloverview sessions were held for teachers and ad-ministrators. These were conducted at the part-nerschools and were open for the entire school commu-nity. These sessions provided significant informationabout Professional Development Schools in generaland, specifically, the University of Southern Maine’sundergraduate teacher edu-cation program’s con-ceptual framework. They al-so included a strong“give and take” conversation component designedto make clear from the outset that this was a fullpartnership and that planning of this new programwould be collaborative from start to finish.

Design teams with members from both thepartner school district and the university were themost integral part of the design and implementationprocess and were generously supported by theuniversity through stipends for both the designteams and the participating partner teachers. Thissupport from the top administrative level of theuniversity was crucial and profoundly affected ourability to develop the partnership. The first designmeetings were held toward the end of the schoolyear; others occurred near the end of June and earlyJuly. At these meetings we worked together to de-velop a general outline of the curricular and pro-grammatic elements, and began to address theissues surrounding the inclusion of non-traditionaland part-time students.

In July an expanded design team was invited toattend a week-long local educational leadershipinstitute called Leadership Associates for School andEducational Renewal (LASER). Directed by threefaculty of the University’s College of Education andHuman Development and one liberal arts facultymember from Lewiston-Auburn College, BobSchaible, LASER was based on Goodlad’s Center ofPedagogy and Inquiry (CPI) and was fundedthrough a DeWitt-Wallace foundation grant. This

institute provided a unique opportunity for ourdesign teams to meet educational leaders and practi-tioners from around the state and to work on in-quiry projects related to education reform and re-newal. Our team’s focus was on the development ofour CLASS PDS program with an emphasis ondesigning the program for the non-traditional stu-dent.

To ensure success, we determined that both pre-service college students and mentor teachers shouldbe of the highest quality (Gonzales & Lambert,2001). In both cases, selection was made during thesummer by a committee of both university-basedand partner school-based faculty through a competi-tive process based on a variety of academic criteria(for students only), written application, and inter-view. In late August, prior to the start-up of publicschools, we held a half-day orientation and lun-cheon for all interested college students, mentorteachers, and district and college administrators.This was an important informational and com-munity-building event since it brought together forthe first time all the various stake holders as weprepared to launch our program in the comingacademic year. The CLASS PDS was successfullyimplemented in September of 1998.

2. Teacher CandidatesThe typical Lewiston-Auburn College under-

graduate is in her/his early 30s—more than likely asingle parent, female, who is taking 6–8 semesterhours of coursework while employed either on afull-time or part-time basis. Our students’ schedulesare often more constrained than are those of tradi-tional students, making it very difficult to createworkable academic schedules, especially when westrive to place students into working cohorts. How-ever, this difficulty is substantially offset by the moremature professional commitment and a more pur-poseful sense of scholarship Lewiston-AuburnCollege students bring to the classroom. Many havealready had rich, meaningful and diverse life experi-ences related to the education of school-aged chil-dren—e.g., serving on advisory committees, volun-teering, participating in PTA’s, and working assupport staff, educational technicians, etc.



3. Strengths of the College Lewiston-Auburn College is committed to inter-

disciplinary and collaborative education in curricu-lum and course development as well as in peda-gogy. With interdisciplinary majors, but no formalacademic departments, LAC has offered in itsfourteen-year history many courses that are co-developed and taught across disciplines. Thesecourses include: Men, Women, and Work (instruc-tors, in different years, from sociology and literature,sociology and management, sociology and psychol-ogy); Violence: Causes and Control (instructors frompsychology and literature); Health Care Policy andAdministration (political science and sociology);Behavior, Health, and Society (sociology and psy-chology); Cancer and Society (biology and nursing);Poetry and Photography: Two Ways of Speaking(photography and literature); U.S. Studies (historyand literature); Life and Literature after Darwin(biology and literature); and What is Race? (biologyand cultural studies).

Our commitment to building the team-teachingexperience into our curriculum is not based solely,or even primarily, on the need for an expert voicefrom each discipline. Instead, it flows from ourconviction that collaborative teaching offers tangiblebenefits to students and teachers alike. We believethat self-consciously collaborating teachers can serveas models in the collaborative learning process andthereby help create a classroom where everyone isboth a learner and creator of knowledge and whereexisting power relations can be more easily chal-lenged and altered (Robinson & Schaible, 1993;Schaible & Robinson, 1995). We find that team-teaching also improves undergraduate education byspurring each member of the team to take a freshapproach to such matters as selecting course read-ings, structuring class sessions, effectively modelingpedagogy, and developing various means of eval-uating student learning. Finally, we view workingtogether in the classroom as an effective way toovercome the isolation experienced by many faculty(Massy, Wilgar, & Colbeck, 1994; Matthews, 1993)and to develop a community of shared concern overteaching. Interdisciplinarity and collaboration areviewed at Lewiston-Auburn College as good notonly for students, but also for faculty; indeed we

regard this emphasis as one of the best and leastexpensive (and as yet untapped in many institu-tions) sources of ongoing faculty development.

Another aspect of collaboration and student-empowerment at LAC is the active-learning peda-gogy practiced across the disciplines. Virtually allfaculty at LAC conduct their classes according to thestudent-led discussion format as developed by oneof our faculty and a colleague on the Portland cam-pus (Rhodes & Schaible, 1992) or through somevariation of the format, along with various otheractive-learning strategies. Most of our faculty sub-scribe to the notion of decentering, wherever possi-ble, the authoritative voice of the teacher so that awider variety of student voices can be heard, exer-cised, and strengthened.

Too frequently in the past, pre-service teacher-education has been a passive simulated experienceconfined to a separate college in a university setting.Courses taught with traditional teaching strategies,and the courses themselves typically segregatedwithin academic content areas with little attempt tointegrate content concepts or to integrate liberal artscontent with professional field experience (Holmes,1986). The PDS partner teachers and faculty at LAC,however—both being proponents of integratedsystems—felt that it was important to model integra-tion throughout the program’s curriculum.

One can readily see how LAC’s interdisciplinaryand collaborative philosophy provides a supportivecontext for developing a PDS teacher educationprogram, especially one serving primarily non-traditional students. Our interdisciplinary curricularemphasis, we believe, is especially suitable for non-traditional students who have had much life experi-ence encountering problems in inter-related, over-lapping areas not neatly packaged as discrete disci-plines. And our collaborative ethos seems particu-larly appropriate for a classroom of adult learners,most of whom, as Brookfield (1988) makes clear,sometimes feel demeaned by the more traditionaland authoritarian top-down model of pedagogy,and greatly appreciate being treated as the adultsthey are, people with invaluable life experiencesrelevant to many concepts and issues raised in theacademic.

In developing the curriculum of our PDS pro-



gram, we have designed it to reflect the College’sintegrative and collaborative philosophy, as evi-denced by students concurrently taking liberal arts(including science) courses, a number of which areteam-taught; professional education courses; andinterrelated practica experiences at the partnerschools, as well as having opportunities for servicelearning in the school communities in which theyteach. Such integration occurs developmentally overthe course of the program, not during only one ortwo semesters as in the traditional “student teach-ing” model. We developed these requirements to beconnected, meaningful, task-based, constructivistprocesses within both the college classroom and thatof the student’s mentor teacher.

Learning to write should, of course, be an inte-gral part of the preparation of pre-service teachers.While non-traditional learners, as noted above,typically bring to a subject substantive and maturereflection based upon lived experience, they fre-quently needs to upgrade their writing skills. Here,again, we believe our practice meshes well with thestrengths and needs of the non-traditional learner.Lewiston-Auburn College’s faculty is committed toits well-established writing across the curriculumprogram, according to which every class in thecurriculum has a significant writing component.Close collaboration between faculty and the Col-lege’s Writing Center, the emphasis placed uponrevision, and the encouragement offered by the ourannual writing-competition scholarship awards, allserve to give the students the writing competencethey desire. The interdisciplinary curriculum and collaborativepedagogy, the consistently modeled student-cen-tered teaching, and the heavy emphasis on writingimprovement provide the CLASS PDS program anenvironment rich in the philosophical and pedagogi-cal applications of Goodlad while simultaneouslybringing this richness to a heretofore largely over-looked pool of potential educators.

4. Intensive Coursework in Mathematics andScience

Another factor contributing to the strength andinnovativeness of the CLASS PDS is the attention wegive to science and mathematics—two subject areas

that historically have been weak for elementary andmiddle school teachers. Our requirement of ninecredits in mathematics and twelve credits in sciencegoes well beyond what is mandated by the Univer-sity of Southern Maine’s core curriculum. To furtherstrengthen the science and math preparation of ourstudents, we hired a new faculty member, one ofwhose responsibilities was to develop and teach twocourses designed especially for pre-service teachersand required of all CLASS students: (1) physics, thescience most frequently avoided by (education)students, and (2) applied constructivist mathematics,designed to provide students with advanced under-standing and skills in problem solving. This regimenin science and mathematics gives our graduates thecompetence to teach these areas with confidence.

5. Participation in Grant InitiativesAn important aspect of the program is the tech-

nology strand that College faculty and partnerteachers developed and implemented. Technologystandards based on the new International Standardsfor Technology Education (ISTE) guidelines havebeen integrated throughout the program to help ourstudents develop understanding and facility withtechnology as an important tool for teaching andlearning.

At Lewiston-Auburn College we support boththis technology strand and our science educationthrough grant initiatives. Due to the interdisciplin-ary and collaborative focus on our campus, we wereable to work closely with our colleagues in the Natu-ral and Applied Sciences and successfully competedfor a National Science Foundation grant under theprogram of Postdoctoral Fellowships in Science,Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Educa-tion. Our grant, entitled “Making Science EducationAccessible to Non-traditional Students,” is support-ing a post-doctoral student from Yale for a two-yearperiod. This student works directly with our pre-service teachers and participates in a universitypartnership with elementary and middle schools,providing students, teachers and pre-service teach-ers, a rich research experience.

Our goal is to educate both the pre-service andpartner teachers about student-centered pedagogyin science and mathematics education and to pro-



vide on-site encouragement and support in thepartner schools. One way we are meeting this goalis through our Digital Science Archive (DSA) initia-tive coordinated by our NSF doctoral fellow. Thepurpose of the project is to create a digital archive ofall Lewiston-Auburn College Natural and AppliedScience lectures, graphics, and visuals that students,pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers in ourPDS partner schools can access for use in learning,teaching, and research. We hope to develop a seam-less, global continuum of illustrations that are anno-tated, and made available continuously, and whoseuse and interpretation are supported by theLewiston-Auburn College participants.

In another grant initiative, the College and oneof its partner schools received a grant from theMaine Math and Science Alliance under a programcalled the K–16 Partnership Initiative in Mathemat-ics and Science Education. The grant, entitled “Get-ting Results Through Pre-Service and In-ServiceCollaboration: An Interdisciplinary Ap-proach toTeaching-Learning Mathematics, Science, and (De-sign) Technology,” has further en-abled us to cometogether as a learning community and to improvemathematics, science and technology education atall levels—both pre-service and in-service.

Our largest and most important grant entailsparticipating in the US Department of Education(DOE) technology challenge grant program. Thenational Virtual Professional Development Schools(VPDS) Consortium supports local efforts to improveall students’ learning results by strengthening teach-er preparation and the “PDS’ness” of the university-school district partnership, while simultaneouslystrengthening professional development in uses oftechnology that contribute to enhanced studentachievement. The CLASS pro-gram is receiving$310,000 over five years in support of its ongoingpartnership with the Auburn and Lewiston Schooldistricts.

During the five-year funding cycle this Consor-tium grant will support a variety of activities thatstrengthen the CLASS PDS program. First, it pro-vides support for forming and sustaining VirtualProfessional Development School planning teams,comprised of K–12 and teacher-education facultyand administrators. In addition, the grant provides

funding to hire substitutes to release classroompartner teachers for professional development in-cluding opportunities to work closely with pre-service students. Most significantly, the grant fund-ing supports the hiring of one of the partner teachersto be the CLASS program’s school-based, full-timeSite Coordinator whose role it is to work with bothin-service and pre-service teachers and serve as auniversity adjunct faculty member to enhance col-laboration between the school district and univer-sity.

The award also provides $10,000 per year perPDS partnership, for five years, for the purchase ofhardware and/or software and/or wiring and/orInternet connectivity. Using this capability, teachers,pre-service students, teacher-education faculty andK–12 students can more fully participate in andbenefit from the national Consortium’s activities inprofessional development, networking, planningassistance, and online course offerings. In addition,the grant funds provide the CLASS partnership withfree onsite and online technical assistance regardingtechnology, equity, and effective strategies for devel-oping and strengthening our PDS partnership.

Through these various grant programs pre-service and in-service teachers are able to attendseveral day-long workshops throughout the schoolyear to advance the overall goals of the CLASS PDS,work closely with college faculty, develop a teamapproach to effecting systemic reform, conductaction research, and gain access to professionalreadings through study groups and netcourses. Theresult of these inter-related components is that stu-dents graduating from CLASS will be better pre-pared to educate children for a world in whichscience and technology increasingly define ourworld and the options and opportunities it offers.

6. Community and PartnershipAn important element of CLASS is student

participation as empowered members of a commu-nity of learners. Such empowerment is facilitated bythe strong support given the program by faculty inthe traditional liberal arts disciplines and by thecommitment to student-centered learning, men-tioned above, that pervades all programs of study atLewiston-Auburn College. This support from the



liberal arts helps students understand how theiracademic disciplines in the humanities and thenatural and social sciences relate to their profes-sional courses and their work in the partner schools.And the student-centered approach is particularlywell suited for our non-traditional adult learners,who are more willing and ready than are youngerstudents to assume a partnership with faculty increating a community for learning.

The greatest challenge for us in this area, on theother hand, is scheduling. We must not only sched-ule coursework and field experience, but also findtime for cohort members, with their busy workand/or family lives, to interact outside of our formalsettings in order to build community and constructsocial bonds which help support them as a cohortover the four and a half years of the program. Here,again, our sense of partnership with the liberal artsfaculty is a strong asset as they collaborate withCLASS in facilitating the working out of manageableclass schedules.

During the full year, full-time internship, whichoccurs in the student’s final two semesters, theCLASS community of learners supports students intheir first sustained efforts as professional teachercandidates. As in most successful PDS partnerships,all community members along the pre-service/in-service continuum serve as resources for one anotherwhen learning how best to teach and learning howto study teaching-learning (Fischetti, (1999). Theemphasis for the CLASS program is on cooperationand collaboration, not the competition that is tradi-tionally pervasive at all levels of education, and ondeveloping competencies for effective teaching(“best practice”), not on grades or accumulating alist of courses for certification.

The CLASS PDS team is comprised of collegefaculty, a school-based site coordinator, mentor andpartner teachers along with administrators andadministrative assistants, all who play an importantrole in supporting our pre-service students as posi-tive and productive members of the learning com-munity as they develop into teacher-leaders for the21 century. Four dimensions, noted below, arest

clearly outlined in the program’s conceptual frame-work for designing, implementing, conducting, andevaluating programs that prepare adults to work in

school settings:

1. Connections and Partnerships — Studentsand faculty examine the connections be-tween theory and practice through ongoing,reciprocal relationships with schools, agen-cies, and businesses which include opportu-nities for service learning.

2. Reflection and Critical Inquiry — Studentsand faculty actively engage in examiningand questioning content knowledge andunderstandings, and their own professionaldevelopment.

3. Performance Assessment — With support andguidance from faculty, students demon-strate, through performance, their contentknowledge, skills, and understandings, par-ticularly as they relate to course goals andprogram outcomes.

4. Diversity — Students and faculty explore theimpact of factors such as cultural back-ground, age, exceptionality, gender, sexualorientation, and ethnicity on human devel-opment and learning.

In building our innovative university-schoolpartnership, we are following a constructivist philos-ophy that leads both the college students and theirmentor teachers to develop and expand their under-standing of teaching-learning through an intensivehands-on, minds-on approach that is content-rich,pedagogically intensive, and field-based. This by itsvery nature may mean taking a risk—and this, inour view, is what real learning is all about. In fact,we see risk-taking as evidence that a student orteacher is taking ownership of the CLASS programand investing in its partnership.

Discussion: Challenges and IssuesAs stated earlier our major challenge, and the

essential question was whether the CLASS PDSprogram could be designed and implemented tomeet the special needs of our traditional and non-traditional students, some who are part-time andmany who are also, frequently, parents and employ-ees. Our mid semester and end of semester studentconference interviews and our mid-program Candi-



dacy Review and Program Exit reviews along withour internal program evaluation surveys stronglysuggest that we are on track in this regard. We feelthis is because of the processes inherent in the sixfactors discussed earlier that have provided theinnovative program with a flexible and durableframework: our collaborative design process, highquality teacher candidates; strengths of the college;intensive coursework in the content areas; participa-tion in grant programs; and the high quality of thelearning community and university-school partner-ship.

However, there are many unresolved challengesthat we encounter as we continue implementing theprogram. The discussion in this section is necessarilybrief, given the parameters and limitations of thisarticle, but we offer the following to give the readerinsights on our progress—or lack thereof—regard-ing the issues before us. Some solutions are unclearat this juncture, but will, we feel confident, becomeclearer in time.

Some of these challenges include how mosteffectively to:

• Accommodate the different starting placesof our entering students and build individ-ual cohort unity.

• Build on the considerable and varying tal-ents and experiences of older and non-tradi-tional students.

• Develop overall program community in theface of: scheduling issues, the differentlearning and student needs of our cohortgroups.

• Encourage the mentor teachers and the col-lege students to take more responsibility inbecoming actively involved in the process oftheir own learning and program develop-ment.

• Support students with regards to the finan-cial demands and hardships brought aboutduring their required full year, full-timeinternship in the partner schools.

• Develop inducements/incentives and in-kind contributions for teachers and collegefaculty who participate in the PDS.

There are many time-sensitive difficulties associ-ated with trying to develop a rigorous pre-serviceprogram for students when many of them are non-traditional. Moreover, there is very little about theseissues in the literature. How do we, for example,accommodate the different starting places of stu-dents entering the CLASS PDS program and man-age to build cohort unity? How do we build on theconsiderable and yet wildly varying talents andexperiences of non-traditional students? Some aresignificantly experienced in education from havingengaged in such activities as running a daycarecenter or working as a tea-cher’s aide in a classroomfor many years. Others are older (and may in fact beolder than their men-tors) and have much life expe-rience and yet have not set foot in an elementaryclassroom for decades. These individuals, althoughperhaps strong academically, feel out of place incollege and lack confidence in front of their peersand thus need additional support.

Meeting these challenges has been difficult, butwe believe we have enjoyed a measure of successand are determined to improve over time. Strategiesimplemented to achieve success include: having a“summer orientation” each summer for the newcohort where, in addition to community buildingactivities, they meet the re-turning cohorts and PDSpartner teachers and faculty; open houses for collegestudents and school partners/mentors at the begin-ning and end of each school-year; holding frequentportfolio conferences during each semester; mentor-ing by our PDS partners in a proactive and reflectivemanner; scheduling concurrent courses of study atrelevant places in the curricular sequence to ac-commodate the different starting places of our stu-dents; holding cross-cohort classes/seminars/work-shops for students and their mentor teachers wherestudents can showcase their varying talents andexpertise; inviting college students and men-tors toattend, lead and/or participate in conferences; andencouraging overlapping field visits at the partnerschools to create opportunities for peer observationand feedback. This has been difficult work conceptu-ally and logistically, but vital to serving our popula-tions.

Building community has also been difficult.How do we best deal with scheduling issues that



arise when trying to bring our students together?How do we manage the tension between differentlearning needs and the students’ need for our co-hort groups? It is important to have a flexible fieldexperience and seminar schedule that is sensitive tothe needs of our non-traditional and part-time stu-dents but that still allows for a core of commonteaching-learning experiences and the developmentof a vibrant learning community at the college andpartner schools. Developing a sense of communityin, between and among cohorts—with the very part-time, in- and out-movement of our non-traditionalstudents—is a priority of our pro-gram and hasinvolved a tremendous amount of shared decisionmaking and planning in addressing the challengeswe face. We want our students to be part of a truecommunity of learners where learning is ap-proached as a process, where community decisionsare made by consensus.

What we have accomplished: building moresocial and convivial elements into the weekly semi-nars; having an “End of Semester (EOS)” openhouse for college students and school partners/mentors at the beginning and end of each semester;creating community-building exercises as part of thecourses/seminars; creating a student chapter of thestate teachers’ association for members of the differ-ent cohorts.

There is evidence that we are making progressin building community throughout the program.Students have more readily volunteered and evenexpressed a willingness to play an active role in theinterview process with new applicants. A relatedexample is that students are now much more likelyto be observed informally mentoring both studentsin their own cohort or even cross cohort. With re-gards to curricular professional development pro-gramming, the CLASS PDS pre-service studentshave led (both formally and informally) workshopsfor the partner school tea-chers, as well as hostingthe annual State conference for “Student Teachers”where many of them also presented. Finally, it wasthe students who took it upon themselves to take alead role in the restructuring of the program’s ser-vice learning component to make it even morerelevant through increased community outreach andconnectedness to the K–8 classrooms.

One thing that has not worked well with regardsto building community has been to regularly sched-ule weeknight pizza social “get-togethers” for studygroups, discussion or outside speakers that is oftenso successful at campuses with traditionally agedstudents. Our students are simply not able due totheir irregular schedules; they would much ratherschedule those type of networking opportunities ontheir own.

The challenges we face encouraging the pre-service students and mentor teachers to take moreresponsibility in becoming and remaining activelyinvolved in the process of their own learning andprogram development are in many ways similar tothose found in post-BA PDS programs where stu-dents tend to be older and similar in age to ourstudents, with multiple outside responsibilities andalso reside off campus. Higgins (1999) has identifiedfour “layers of learning” that contribute to the shap-ing of the learning community: “trust, shared own-ership, learning together and reciprocal support” allof which are consistent to our own experience andfindings with our undergraduate non-traditionalstudents.

Early in the program, the university ProgramCoordinator and the school-based Site Coordinatorwere often making many of the decisions aboutaspects of the program by default, despite our bestintentions because the pre-service students—andsometimes the mentor teachers, were not yet com-fortable determining their “own” developmentaland individualized site-based curriculum as part ofthe CLASS PDS program. We have had to make aconscious effort to change this both in action andperception and to encourage the mentor teachersand the college students to take more responsibilityin becoming and remaining actively involved in theprocess of their own learning and in program devel-opment; thus, developing increased “shared owner-ship” of the overall program (Higgins, 1999). At thesame time we must be sensitive to the reality thatour students, especially the non-traditional ones,have busy schedules with so many outside demandsand responsibilities that they often do not have thetime or energy to participate fully in the shareddecision-making aspects of the program especiallytowards the end of the program during their full



year, full-time internship in the partner schools. As previously noted, this internship is an inte-

gral component of the CLASS PDS program. Formany of our non-traditional and low-income stu-dents, these “outside demands” include filling manyresponsibilities in their lives, including employmenton which they, and in most cases their family, arefinancially dependent. This makes the full-time, fullyear internship during their final two semesters asignificant challenge as they strive to meet both theireducational and financial commitments. This isanother challenge that we have had to address inorder to retain students and for the program to growoverall.

Our solution to this challenge has been to recip-rocate the commitment of our students by establish-ing an endowed fellowship fund to assist financiallydeserving students to offset the personal financialhardships of the full-year, full time resident intern-ship requirement for students demonstrating finan-cial need; thus, retaining the pool of talented anddedicated Maine teacher candidates who want tobuild a better future by becoming teachers inLewiston-Auburn and schools across Maine. Theendowed fellowship has recently reached its goal of$150,000 and we are now beginning to distribute theendowment’s interest to fund the internship fellow-ships.

Somewhat related to this is the two-fold issue ofinducements/incentives and in-kind contributionsfor teachers in the partner schools as well as forcollege faculty. It is often difficult to find faculty inhigher education or in public schools who are will-ing to make the commitment to systemic changeand reform in teacher-education when these effortsrequire time and dedication far beyond what iscommonly expected (Firestone & Pennell, 1993;Sandholtz, & Merseth, 1992). In our own situationwe were able to support the initial PDS design teamwork through modest stipends, made available bythe university administration for our participatingschool partners. However, it is imperative that thissupport increases to a level such that professionaldevelopment and opportunities to serve with recog-nition and compensation are regarded as a regularpart of the work.

To address this concern we asked mentor teach-

ers to define their role—to make a list of all they doand would like to do and then suggest appropriatein-kind compensation. Although many quantifiedtheir need in terms of money, several asked forprofessional development in-kind opportunitiesbetween institutions, and a few even said that nonewas necessary since they, as professional educators,had already gained so much by being a participantin their PDS partnership work to reform and/orimprove the quality of teacher education at thecollege. This desire and willingness by the K–8partner school teachers to play an active role in thehigher education pre-service curriculum reform anddevelop a more “holistic view of what it takes” hasalso been supported elsewhere in the current litera-ture on professional development schools (Reed etal., 2000). It is another example of the strength andsuccess of the CLASS professional developmentschool initiative where working closely together allof the partners have been able to redesign teachereducation through effective collaboration.

There are three areas that continue to present uswith challenges where we still have questions al-though we have tried different remediations withmixed success. All teacher education programs—notjust PDS’s, commonly face these challenge areas:Recruitment, attrition, and university support forcollege faculty working in the PDS partner schools.

The program has remained smaller in numbersthan we had planned for with incoming cohortsaveraging about 18 students. This is in part due tothe rigorous nature of the program—especially the12 credits in lab sciences and 9 credits of mathemat-ics, as well as the fact that it is a nine-semester pro-gram. Teaching salaries remain depressed statewidewhich results in difficulty in attracting viable malecandidates. Maine’s own lack of ethnic diversity isalso a barrier to attracting students of color andother under represented populations. We are ad-dressing these issues through more effective out-reach and recruiting efforts and active disseminationof information; e.g. that although the program isnine semesters in length, students graduate with 30+graduate credits. We are still a very young programand are confident that once the word gets out thenumbers of our applications in all student demo-graphic groups will increase.



Our attrition rate is about average among similarfour-year programs and institutions. One difference,however, is that it generally occurs within the firsttwo–four semesters. We would like it to decreaseover the next couple of years. We do believe thatthere is a positive side to attrition and actually builtinto the design of the program a mechanism toaddress it more pro-actively: the mid-programCandidacy Review. Thus, the CLASS PDS programis as much about providing undergraduate studentswith real opportunities within the context of anactual classroom to find out both whether teachingis something they want to commit to doing andwhether or not they have the “right stuff”—to be-come teacher–leaders. This concept can be a “hardsell” to the administration as it makes it difficult forthem to anticipate both the costs and a secure tuitiongenerated revenue stream during these fiscallychallenging times. Overall, most of the program’sattrition is students self-selecting themselves out, asopposed to the PDS partners counseling them out.

Support for the PDS university faculty withregards to teaching load and responsibilities, mostall of which occurs off campus at the partnerschools, is mixed. Our experience in developing andimplementing the CLASS PDS program has shownthat even though the risks and opportunity forsuccess for both the public school district and collegeare relatively equal, in many ways it is the localschools, their teachers and administrators who havemade the stronger level of commitment in risk tak-ing and leading the way as stakeholders. We viewthis as an encouraging sign as regards the vigor ofour partner schools and the school district, and as ahealthful challenge to the university’s administra-tion who identify themselves as professionals dedi-cated to bringing about significant social changethrough a better understanding and appreciation ofwhat a PDS faculty member contributes and howthey should be recompensed.

As part of this limited discussion with regards toproviding insights on our progress, the challengeswe face and the solutions we seek, it is germane tomake a brief mention of what we have done in theway of systemic program evaluation—which couldbe the subject of an entire subsequent article. Aswith all dynamic programs, to help us better under-

stand, evaluate and be accountable to the partner-ship, it is important for us to document and assessour growth over time through the collection of datainformally and formally through processes whichinclude both internal and external reviews, some-thing that was indistinctly part of our initial design.This is not atypical as Teitel (2003) recently wrote,“Producing careful documentation and assessmentof the impacts of PDS partnerships was challengingin the mid-1990s for the following reasons…” (p.198). He lists several different reasons with whichthe CLASS PDS program can identify; e.g., rapidevolution of programming, too premature for longi-tudinal study, emphasis on nurturing, and lack ofcontrol groups (Teitel, 2003).

To address the shortcomings of our initial designwe reviewed the literature and worked on develop-ing both our underlying assumptions and mecha-nisms to gather pertinent data to shape our everevolving and maturing approach with regards toevaluation (Reed et al., 2000). As with everythingelse that we developed, there has been a very closecollaboration between the university and schoolpartners on building systemic assessment into theprogram.

In the first year of implementation we primarilyrelied on just our frequent regularly scheduledconferences with students and partner teachers, aswell as a comprehensive survey that was given to allPDS partner school community members to collectdata. In the years since we have further augmentedour evaluation to include a more com-prehensivemultifaceted assessment strategic plan to allow formore data driven decision making.

In addition to continuing to collect the valuablequalitative anecdotal data through the student andpartner teacher conferences and more quantitativesurvey data, we have also benefitted from the fol-lowing assessment processes:

• Completion of a comprehensive five yearNational Council for the Accreditation ofTeacher Education (NCATE) program re-view;

• Participation in a U.S. Department of Educa-tion five-year consortium V-PDS grant



which included an external reviewer/con-sultant assigned to evaluate each of the PDSsites along with an annual survey;

• Utilization of our PDS partner schools’ K–8student performance data based on Maine’sLearning Results state curricular frame-works, student Maine Educational Assess-ments (MEA’s) and other standardized testresults;

• Participation in a University of SouthernMaine program evaluation by the Center forEducational Policy, Applied Research andEvaluation (CEPARE)

• Participation in a State of Maine Departmentof Education program review;

• Implementation of self-reporting/self-evalu-ations completed by students on a regularbasis.

ConclusionAll of us in the CLASS PDS partnership have

learned a great deal and grown professionally overthe last four and one-half years as we have effec-tively worked together to redesign teacher educationthrough collaboration. With our first cohort of stu-dents graduating in May of 2002, we were finallyable to all collectively celebrate in the success of“our” interns receiving multiple job offers and allgoing on to teach in local schools which includedone of the CLASS PDS partner schools—thus, thecircle of professional development will continue tospiral for all of us.

Yet, we realize that we are just beginning toexplore all the possibilities of developing an inno-vative and unique pre-service PDS program basedon effective collaboration that serves a promisinggroup of diverse students including significantnumbers of non-traditional and/or part-time stu-dents. It is our hope that this effort will assist othersworking to simultaneously renew our schools andour university programs for professional educationwhile at the same time opening the doors to diversepopulations of talented students who constitute aninvaluable resource we cannot afford to overlook.

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Extending the Learning Community: The Birthof a New Teacher Support Group

Donna R. SandersonWest ChesterUniversity

AbstractThis article shares the results of a study that explored the need, and consequential birth, of a new teacher support

group for newly graduated elementary education majors. Constructed of a university supervisor and five newlygraduated novice teacher’s, this study examines their first semester as classroom teachers. Research related to theinduction stage of teacher’s careers and their identity provides a lens through which to explore socialization experiencesof the novice teachers during their transition from pre-service to professional practice. Additionally, ways in which firstyear teachers navigate the organizational environment are highlighted. The analysis finds that many of the groupmembers struggled with issues of classroom management and discipline and experienced feelings of isolation andloneliness. Additionally, these beginning teachers discuss fitting into a school culture that has already been establishedand the pressures to meet each student's individual needs. These data suggest that while beginning teachers are oftenafforded other avenues of support, such as a veteran mentor teacher and a new faculty induction program, an informalsupport group made up of all beginning teachers can be beneficial in providing “a bridge to the real world of teachingoutside of the university walls.”

As an assistant professor new to the supervisionof student teachers in elementary education, I amastounded and appalled at the research identifyingthe high attrition rates among teachers in the induc-tion stage of their career. Sadly it has been reportedthat the most talented new educators are often themost likely to leave the profession (Gonzales & Sosa,1993). As many as forty percent resign during theirfirst two years of teaching (Haselkorn, 1994, Gunder-son & Karge, 1992) and a higher resignation rateexists for new teachers in comparison to veteranswho have been teaching for ten years or more. In-trigued by this research and searching for a way toassist newly graduated student teachers, I developeda New Teacher Support Group to provide a support-ive learning community for novice teachers andassist them throughout their first year of teaching.

Idea Construction and RationaleDuring the 2001–2002 school year I supervised

thirty elementary education student teachers atWest Chester University, outside of Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. Many of these thirty talented studentswere hired by local school districts after graduation.

During the summer of 2002 I corresponded with ahandful of my former students by electronicallyemailing with them as they began to prepare fortheir first teaching assignment. As anxiety mountedand the summer shortened, and as I read manyarticles centering on the difficulties novice teachersface, I decided to ask my former student teachers ifthey would be interested in extending their learningcommunity by conversing with other novice teach-ers about to embark into the unknown—their firstyear of teaching. I sent into cyber space an invitationto join a new teacher support group in an attempt toease the challenges of the first year of teaching. Forme it was an attempt to continue assisting my for-mer students from the world of student teachingright into the real world of the classroom. The re-sponse was overwhelmingly positive and five nov-ice teachers signed on for the journey.

At our first meeting in late August, I shared myrationale as to why I thought a support group fornovice teachers was a worthy idea. Based on the factthat as the summer progressed, and more formerstudent teachers were securing teaching positionsfor the approaching school year, I was being emailed

Donna R. Sanderson


by former student teachers at an alarming rate.Many of these calm and confident student teacherswere now riddled with anxiety about the approach-ing school year. Many asked very focused organiza-tional questions, especially questions centering onclassroom management and discipline. Other ques-tions that surfaced were if it was appropriate to calltheir new grade partners, or how to effectively setup a seating chart, and what is the best way to wel-come parents into the classroom? I realized thatthese students were simply asking me, but whatthey needed was the opportunity to widen theirlearning community and ask each other these in-triguing questions as well.

Before our first group meeting I read an articlecentering on novice teachers and the organizationalenvironment by Walsdorf & Lynn (2002) and sharedpart of it with the group, for it talked about how theinduction stage of a teacher’s career is exceptionallydifficult and riddled with challenges (Gold, 1996;Huling-Austin, 1990). Yet, more specifically, it statedthat:

Beginning teachers’ transitions from pre-serviceto professional practice are often unsettling,because there is not a gradual induction into jobresponsibilities as is characteristic in other pro-fessions. Customarily assigned teaching loadsfrom their fist day of employment, beginningteachers soon realize the challenges they willface with students’ lack of enthusiasm, manage-ment and discipline issues, and the exhaustingnature of their work (Stroot, Faucette, &Schwager, 1993; Veenman, 1984; Walsdorf &Lynn, 2002).

I quickly realized that while these students werestill pre-service teachers, they had a support systemalready in place to help them succeed. This wasespecially true during their last semester of studentteaching with both a cooperating teacher and auniversity supervisor available everyday for ques-tions and answers and to offer guidance. I wasworried that some of these very talented studentteachers would find themselves in an unsupportedand therefore, stressful teaching situation. Even witha new teacher mentor and a new teacher induction

program mandated by their new employers, I fearedthat these novice teachers might stumble and want-ed to create a support system to help keep their feetfirmly on the ground.

Main Goals and ObjectivesThe development of a teacher’s identity is a

continuing and dynamic process that is ever chang-ing. Cooper and Olson (1996) suggest teacher iden-tity is continually being informed, formed, andreformed as individuals develop over time andthrough interactions with others. Scholars identifymultiple influences that shape teacher identity,ranging from personal experiences to media imagesto pedagogical beliefs supported by pre-serviceinstruction. This newly designed New TeacherSupport Group was formed to support novice teach-ers in a multitude of ways during their first year ofteaching. The groups objectives included: (1) provid-ing a forum for scholarly dialogue pertaining to newchallenges that may be faced; (2) collaborativelybrainstorming suggestions for questions that arisethroughout the school year; and (3) promoting andsupporting on another’s professional growth asthese novice teachers form their “teacher identity.”

Participants and Their GoalsAs mentioned, five newly graduated elementary

education majors quickly signed on to take part inthis new venture. All had recently secured a contractwith a school district as a full-year long-term substi-tute or a temporary professional (non-tenured) firstyear teacher. Four of the participants were teachingin Pennsylvania in three different suburban schooldistricts and one in a suburban school environmentin southern New Jersey. Grade level assignmentsranged from two teachers in kindergarten, oneteacher in third grade, one teacher in fourth grade,and one teacher in sixth grade.

The five beginning teachers were invited toparticipate in this endeavor based on the fact eachwould be a classroom leader for the first time duringthe upcoming school year. It must be added that twoadditional novice teachers were asked to join butdeclined because of time constraints and geographicproximity.

Of the five participants, four had previously

Extending the Learning Community


completed their student teaching semester with meas their university supervisor, and was a student ofmine for two elementary education specialized pre-paration classes which were completed before herstudent teaching semester.

As the leader of this support group I quicklywanted to know why these former students wantedto be part of this initiative. Since no grades would beissued and each of these participants were alreadycollege graduates, I was curious to know why theywould dedicate time and energy to this “new learn-ing community.” What was their motivation? Whatdid they think was in it for them? What did theywant to learn?

At our first meeting in August 2002 they wereasked to share their thoughts and goals for the sup-port group. Although the group did not have anyprofessional teaching experience their answers weremature and well developed. The youthful teacherseach shared a vision that they would like to:

• Get new ideas for different situations, and tohear what works and doesn’t work in otherclassrooms.

• Have an outlet to discuss issues that otherscan’t really relate to, or don’t want to hearabout.

• Possibly get current information that WestChester University is presenting to theircurrent student teachers (if it was differentfrom what has been learned).

• Have other first year teachers grow andlearn by sharing ideas and experiences.

• Relate/vent to first year teachers who aregoing through the same things and ex-change workable ideas.

• Have support from other first year teachersminimizing the notion of isolation.

After reading these responses I was very opti-mistic about the support group. Their answersshowed a desire to better themselves as educatorsand to work collaboratively to attain their goals.They wanted to communicate with each other bydiscussing, listening and sharing. They used wordssuch as grow, learn, adapt, and support. I was confi-dent that our goals harmonized and that this group

had the ability to truly support one another through-out their first year of teaching.

Organizing the Support GroupMany education scholars agree that the first year

of teaching is exceptionally challenging (Huling-Austin, Odell, Ishler, Kay & Edelfelt, 1989; Veen-man, 1984). First year teaching experiences are pow-erful influences on teachers’ practice and attitudethroughout the remainder of their careers (Kuzmic,1994). Because of the importance and complexity ofbeginning teachers’ experiences, their socializationhas received increased attention in educationalresearch and reform during the past two decades(Huling-Austin, 1990; Kuzmic, 1994).

For over a decade, reformers have called forinduction programs with mentors to ease the transi-tion of beginning teachers into full-time teaching(Huling-Austin, 1990). Many (Cochran-Smith, 1991;Feiman-Nemser, 1983; Koerner, 1992; Staton &Hunt, 1992) believe that working with an experi-enced teacher will help shape a beginning teacher’sbeliefs and practices. Most induction programsattempt to increase teacher retention and improvethe instruction of new teachers.

This support group was designed to offer stu-dents a “bridge to the real world of teaching outsideof the university walls.” These five newly graduatedelementary education students along with a univer-sity student teaching supervisor were about to ex-plore the challenges of beginning teaching throughthe vehicle of an informal “self-help/group-help”support system. Different than a formalized schooldistrict induction program, the strength of this newteacher support group, came from putting newteachers in contact with each other to generate pro-fessional dialogue and provide a feeling of together-ness as they realize they are not alone in their newlyfound professional struggles.

When organizing the support group two wordswere used to sum up the tone of the support: “infor-mal” and “doable.” As their leader, I strove for aformat that would let each of the participant’s feelcomfortable and at ease so they could trust thegroup and become true learning partners with eachother. Realizing that all of the new teachers wereanxious about what challenges waited in the near

Donna R. Sanderson


future, we quickly tried to bond as one group with-out having individuals try to outshine one another.We tried to create a safety zone where we could askquestions, make mistakes, and stumble withoutfeeling embarrassed or alone. Since many of theteachers already knew each other from taking class-es together we gelled quite easily and quickly.

The support group also had to be “doable,”meaning as the group leader I was quickly remindedhow time consuming the first year of teaching canbe. Just a few weeks into September I rememberedmy first year of teaching and how you can eat, sleepand breath your first teaching position. We neededto be supportive of one another and available to giveand receive help, but not to be overbearing anddemand too much of each other’s precious andlimited time.

With the challenge of being both “informal” and“doable” we decided to meet monthly as a groupand to be available by electronic mail at all times. Asa united front we agreed that even in our busy liveswe could all commit to one meeting a month to de-stress, unwind, and bring fresh, real-life educationalissues to the group that were problematic. In addi-tion, having each other only a click away gave us thesecurity that help was not far if an emergency wereto arise.

As a group we decided that the meetings wouldbe semi-structured with topics born from the realworld and real issues/problems/situations thatgroups members were facing. Weekly emails wouldbe sent from me posing questions related to researchcentering on novice teachers, plus emails at any timecould be sent from group members looking forhelp/advice/answers/feedback. We decided to al-ways use the “reply to all” button to keep all themembers electronically “in the conversation.” Over-all, we viewed our correspondences as an ongoingelectronic conversation that would support us as wejourneyed into uncharted waters from pre-service toprofessional practice relying on other group mem-bers as a life preserver.

Data CollectionTo create an awareness centering on the partici-

pant’s teaching identity and socialization, and theirnew role as “teacher,” a number of ethnographic

methods and resources were used. These methodsincluded participant’s daily jottings, electronicemails in both structured question format and un-structured conversations, and notes from monthlymeetings. Multiple sources of data and differentmethods of collecting these data lend credibility toour conclusions.

Daily JottingsBorn from Walsdorf and Lynn’s 2002 article

entitled, “The Early Years: Mediating the Organiza-tional Environment,” and our discussion during ourinitial meeting, a guide was created to help organizethe teachers’ thoughts into categories. These catego-ries, centering on different organizational areas,were to be commented on at a later time when theseteachers could reflect and write about their day’sexperiences; preferable at the end of the day whentime was available and the issues were still fresh intheir minds.

The categories focused on what research statesas areas for concern for first year teaching profes-sionals. Fessler (1992) contends that teachers movethrough their careers in response to the organiza-tional factors in their environment. He also contendsthat the induction stage is a crucial period of transi-tion and that there is a need to provide support fromthe organizational environment.

Participants were asked to make daily jottingsduring the fall semester in the appropriate catego-ries, plus they were given the freedom to create newcategories if they saw the need. They were told that“jottings will consist of something that happenedduring the day that stands out, makes you questionsomething, frustrates you, etc.” The categories chos-en for the daily jottings were: (1) isolation and loneli-ness, (2) classroom management and discipline, (3)conflicts with colleagues, (4) understanding stu-dents’ individual needs, (5) difficult teaching assign-ments (content), 6) formal mentor program, (7) lackof spare time, (8) parent communication, (9) motivat-ing students, and (10) pacing of the curriculum.

Electronic EmailsSince communicating electronically is both fast

and efficient, this was the primary mode of commu-nication we shared as a group. During the first



semester, structured open-ended questions coveringa multitude of areas were emailed to the partici-pants. The questions forced the group members tocritically evaluate their own teaching performance,compare their first year of teaching to their studentteaching experience, and explore their rationale forwhy they are using certain procedures in their class-rooms. The aim of these questions was to force themembers to critically review and reflect on why theyare utilizing certain practices in the classrooms. Thequestions invited students to engage in discussionwith other group members and to analyze what isand isn’t working in regard to their chosen teachingmethods. These questions were intended to be usedas a springboard for self-reflection and gentle prod-ding for improvement as each group member sawfit. Likewise, informal conversations took placethrough email in which participants quickly re-sponded to one another. Each group member wasencouraged to ask questions or provide encourage-ment as the school year progressed.

Additionally, informal notes were taken duringour unstructured conversations each time we met asa group. These meetings always produced manyavenues for collaboration as members shared a meal,laughed, and talked about life as a new teacher.Throughout the first semester four meetings wereheld and the new teachers informally talked abouttheir experiences in a supportive environment.During each of our meetings we heard from all ofthe group members and further examined how eachwas coping with their new professional challenges.

Data Analysis

Data analysis is the process of bringing order,structure, and meaning to the mass of collecteddata. It is a messy, ambiguous, time-consuming,creative, and fascinating process. It does not pro-ceed in a linear fashion; it is not neat. Qualitativedata analysis is a search for general statementsabout relationships among categories of data, itbuilds grounded theory. (Marshall & Rossman,1995, p. 111)

The analysis of data did not occur in a linearmanner, but rather recursively. As data were col-

lected, they were continually reviewed, organized,and categorized. This was accomplished so the datacould be recorded efficiently and managed in waysthat allowed for easy retrieval. “The experiencedqualitative researcher begins data analysis immedi-ately after finishing the first interview or observationand continues to analyze that data as long as he orshe is working on the research” (Maxwell, 1996, p.77).

The initial step in qualitative analysis is readingthe documents that are to be analyzed (Dey, 1993).I found that reading and rereading the electronicemails afforded me the opportunity to live throughthe electronic discussions a second time and allowedme to become familiar with the data. During thisreading time I wrote notes (analytic memos) in orderto develop tentative ideas about categories andrelationships. Referred to as “an essential techniquefor qualitative analysis” these memos not only as-sisted in my reflection of the data collected, butcaptured my analytical thinking about the data byfacilitating such thinking and stimulating analyticalinsights (Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p. 78). Overall,data were collected and used in a number of ways.The data generated from the electronic emails werecoded, indexed and synthesized, as well as the datagathered from the daily jottings and meetings.

Results and DiscussionDaily Jottings

Over a five-week period during the fall semesterthe teachers took the needed time to complete theirdaily jottings at the end of the teaching day. Analy-sis of the data suggested that the most popularcategorical areas that novice teachers had to com-ment on were classroom management and disci-pline, conflict with colleagues, isolation and loneli-ness, and meeting students’ individual needs.

Comments expressing frustration during non-academic times during the school day were fre-quent. Teachers talked about transition times duringthe school day, the end of the day routines, remind-ing students to work quietly, and general disrespectamong the students. One teacher wrote about abehavioral incident that happened on the play-ground and wondered whose responsibility it is tohandle the problem when the classroom teacher

Donna R. Sanderson


isn’t present at the time of the incident. Overall,these new teachers, with teaching assignmentsranging from kindergarten to sixth grade, com-mented on similar classroom experiences and thestruggles they endured during their first semester asthe classroom leader. In regards to management anddiscipline these feelings are all too frequent forbeginning teachers. Brock and Grady (1998) believethat new teachers have been left to discover forthemselves the answers to effective classroom man-agement and discipline. Walsdorf and Lynn (2002)concur that these two teaching demands are interde-pendent, and a teacher needs to succeed on bothareas.

These new professionals also wrote about feel-ings of competition, jealousy, and a general uncom-fortableness as they described personal incidentshappening in their schools. One teacher, who washired as a long term substitute like all of the otherfirst year teachers in her district, told of the unspo-ken competition for teaching contracts in her build-ing between the four new teachers. In October,when it was decided which two new teachers wouldbe made permanent and which two would lose theirpositions at the end of the school year, there wasobvious hurt and jealousy. Similarly, complaintswere made centering on teachers who talk nega-tively about students and other teachers and whenteaching assistants, who you count on to be there,are consistently absent.

In addition, many of these new teachers wroteopenly about the isolation and loneliness they feel asthey are trying to assimilate into an already cohesiveschool culture. Lunchtime and faculty meetingswere times that newcomers felt isolated. One teacherwrote she felt like a burden constantly asking hergrade partners for assistance. She also felt left outwhen all her grade partners were invited to a partyfor another co-worker and she was not. Breedingand Whitworth (1999) believe that these feelings ofpsychological loneliness, even in a setting withmany children and adults, can be quite common.New teachers join faculties wherein friendships andsocial groups are already established, and the cul-tural norms of the school are unknown to them(Brock & Grady, 1995).

The teachers had many comments under the

heading understanding students’ individual needs.Some found assistance from talking with parentsabout what has worked with youngsters in the past,while others felt they were just beginning to “sort”the students according to their academic levelswhich would help with grouping, seating and theteacher workload as well. Comments were madepraising the special teachers (such as the Title I,English as a Second Language, and Seminar teach-ers) for knowing much about their students sincethey had tracked them over a few years. One noviceteacher in particular felt she had trouble meeting herstudents’ social and emotional needs in the class-room; in fourth grade, tears over lost homework andthe inability to make friendships plagued her.

Walsdorf and Lynn (2002) believe that under-standing students’ needs and interests is an essentialfactor in recognizing strategies to motivate studentsto learn. Ganser (1999) and Veenman (1984) agreethat the ability to motivate students has consistentlybeen one of the top ten concerns of beginning teach-ers.

Electronic emailsWhile some of the earlier questions, which were

send out during the first weeks of the school year,were used to acquaint the group with each other,they gradually became more centered and focused.In October, when asked the question, “What hasbeen the most challenging part of your job thus far?”a variety of responses were given. One teacher spokeof her struggle with “motivating the students’ whoare not motivated,” and another teacher wrestledwith interpreting the teachers’ manuals and gettingacquainted with the curriculum.

Two kindergarten teachers concentrated solelyon management and discipline, since for many oftheir students this is their first real school experience.One kindergarten teacher grappled with not beingable to “save” every student and was disappointedthat a pupil needed to leave her room to attendanother school that could specialize in giving thestudent the specific behavioral help he desperatelyneeds. The other kindergarten teacher wrote ofexerting much effort in keeping order in her class-room and “finding a management system thatworks for more than just a couple of days.”



Still another first year teacher felt her biggestproblem is pleasing herself. While she continuallyacclimates herself with the teacher’s guides, shewrote of how she wants every lesson to shine and bedynamic. She wrote about wanting to do these“really cool lessons like some of her grade partners,”but struggles with the issue of time and the feelingof being overloaded. While she has realized that“although the fluff lessons look and sound great,they are extremely difficult to incorporate day in andday out. There is so much to do that I find myselflimited to sticking to the curriculum and then mov-ing on.”

These comments correlate with the researchtracking other novice teacher’s struggles. Feeling ofself doubt, insecurity, and failure are common tobeginning teacher’s during the induction phase.Furthermore, induction research indicates that or-ganizational factors, like the ones that have beenspoken of in this study, frequently affect beginningteachers’ feeling of success and ultimately theirdesire to remain in the profession (Brock & Grady,1995; Ganser, 1999; Valli, 1992). During the informalemail conversations, which took place throughoutthe semester and were initiated by all group mem-bers, I noticed a pattern of responses centering onclassroom management and discipline. It was mid-November and I decided to ask a formal questionfocusing strictly upon that topic. I was curious to seewhat was and wasn’t working in their classroomsnow that the students had “settled-in” for the year.

When asked “What rules, routines or proceduresdid you establish early on in the school year that youare starting to see the benefits of now? What wouldyou change next year in regards to management?”,many similar answers were received. All of the tea-chers explained how they had been consistent withthe rules from day one, a trait they had been taughtin undergraduate classes. From walking in the hall-way to sharpening pencils and lining up, consis-tency was a common theme they highlighted. Simi-lar to the research of Brock and Grady (1998), thesebeginning teachers were left to discover on theirown what worked and didn’t work in their class-rooms. Perhaps the most positive benefit from thisemail exchange was that it encouraged and pro-moted each of the teachers to dialogue between

themselves. I noticed a surge of emails being sharedthat gave suggestions on what to do during certainincidents, and group members provided helpfulmanagement hints to each other, regardless of thedifferences in the grade levels being taught.

I realized this “internal dialogue” was part ofour original goals and it was beginning to take form.This was especially noticeable between the twoteachers who taught kindergarten. Although theyare in the same district, but in different schools, theiremailing seemed to take on a life of it’s own as itcentered on the distinct needs of five-year-olds. Asthe semester wore on and the formal emails contin-ued I realized that a definite connection was beingformed between the support group members. Yet,after closely analyzing our correspondences, I no-ticed it wasn’t my formal email questions that werebringing us closer, but instead the informal emailconversations and the times when we met for ourmeetings.

Even though these beginning teachers were tea-ching different grades in different districts theybegan to realize that many similarities still existedbetween them. Analysis of our informal discussionssuggests that each teacher wanted to succeed in theclassroom and felt extremely overloaded. These tea-chers felt so pressed for time and that they “shouldalways be doing something for school” they con-fessed that emailing their responses to the formalquestions was becoming exceedingly difficult. Be-cause of their lack of time, and at their request, itwas decided we would do away with the formalquestions and keep our email conversations on a“need be” basis.

From reading current literature the concept oftime has consistently been an issue for educators,and this support group has been no exception. Out-side of the classroom teachers must spend manyhours with clerical work, lesson planning, and eval-uation of student work. In fact, beginning teachersrank these added demands as some of the most dif-ficult burdens they face (Ganser, 1999; Brock &Grady, 1998). Through our discussions we realizedthat many of our group members were getting only5–6 hours of sleep a night because of planning lateinto the night.

At our informal meetings we realized how very

Donna R. Sanderson


much all the new teachers have in common. It wasenjoyable to hear them laughing at things thatwould happen in their classroom and sharing ideasto help one another. Advice was freely given fromwhere to shop for the best classroom furniture, whatto look for at yard sales, and how to set up class-room centers. The teachers thrived in the unstruc-tured conversations and seemed most at ease withletting the conversations flow from one school re-lated issue to another. Topics discussed in lengthcentered on how to seat students for optimum learn-ing, how to conduct yourself on back-to-schoolnight, and how student teaching cannot possiblyprepare you for the realities of having your ownclassroom.

Overall, I realized this group gave the teachers aforum for freely discussing their feelings withoutbeing intimidated or looked down upon. It createda safe haven. A comfort zone where they could talkfreely and honestly and not be judged by others. Istarted to wonder what would happen if thesenovice teachers revealed some of their privatethoughts, like they were doing in our support group,to their formal mentors or in their new faculty in-duction classes. Would they have taken the risk?Would they have felt as comfortable? Research statesthat beginning teachers face many harsh realitiesduring their first year of teaching and are oftenforced into situations where they are required tomasquerade as experts (Walsdorf & Lynn, 2002).Plus, Shepston and Jensen (1997) believe that noviceteachers can begin to question their own abilitywhen colleagues continually question their deci-sions. Having five beginning teachers “all in thesame boat” reassured and calmed these novices andlet them share information and details that mightotherwise have gone unspoken.

By developing a new teacher support group andextending their learning community by informallyoverlapping their “university world” with their“real world classroom realities,” these five beginningteachers assisted in creating a safe space in which toshare their professional experiences. This collabor-atively inspired safe space was formed to cushionthese young professionals through their first semes-ter of their induction stage as they began their transi-tion into their new teaching careers.

ReferencesBreeding, M., & Whitworth, J. (1999). Increasing the

success of first year teachers: A synthesis of threestudies. Paper presented at the annual meetingof the American Educational Research Associa-tion. Washington, DC. (ERIC Document Repro-duction Service No. ED 428 056)

Brock, B. L., & Grady, M. L. (1998). Beginning teach-er induction programs: The role of the principal.The Clearing House, 71(3), 179–183.

Cochran-Smith, M. (1991). Reinventing student tea-ching. Journal of Teacher Education, 42, 104–118.

Cooper, K., & Olson, M. (1996). The multiple “I’s” ofteacher identity. In M. Kompf, D. Dworet & R.Boak (Eds.), Changing research and practice (pp.78–89). London: Falmer Press.

Dey, I. (1993). Qualitative data analysis: A user-friend-ly guide for social scientists. London: Routledge.

Feiman-Nemser, S. (1983). Learning to teach. In L. S.Shulman & G. Sykes (Eds.), Handbook of teachingand policy (pp. 150–170). New York: Longman.

Fessler, R. (1992). The teacher career cycle. In R.Fessler & J. Christensen (Eds.), The teacher careercycle: Understanding and guiding the professionaldevelopment of teachers. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Ganser, T. (1999). Reconsidering the relevance of Veen-man's (1984) meta-analysis of the perceived prob-lems of beginning teachers. Washington DC.(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED429 964)

Gold, Y. (1996). Beginning teacher support: Attrition,mentoring, and induction. In J. Sikula (Ed.)Handbook of research in teacher education. NewYork: Macmillan.

Gonzales, F., & Sosa, A. S. (1993). How do we keepteachers in our classrooms? The TNT response.IDRA Newsletter 1, 6–9.

Gunderson, K. L., & Karge, B. D. (1992). Easing thespecial education teaching shortage: Are emer-gency credentials the answer? Teacher EducationQuarterly, 19(3), 9–18.

Haselkorn, D. (1994). Shaping the profession thatshapes America’s future. NCATE Quality Teach-ing 4(1), 1–2, 10, 12.

Huling-Austin, L. (1990). Teacher induction pro-grams and internships. In W.R. Houston (Ed.),



Handbook of research in teacher education (pp. 535–548). New York: Macmillan.

Huling-Austin, L., Odell, S. J., Ishler, P., Kay, R., &Edelfelt, R. A. (Eds.). (1989). Assisting the begin-ning teacher. Reston, VA: Association of TeacherEducators.

Koerner, M. (1992). The cooperating teacher: Anambivalent participant in student teaching.Journal of Teacher Education, 43(1), 46–56.

Kuzmic, J. (1994). A beginning teacher’s search formeaning: Teacher socialization, organizationalliteracy, and empowerment. Teaching and Teach-er Education, 10(1), 15–27.

Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (1996). Designingqualitative research (2 ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:nd

Sage Publications.Maxwell, J. A. (1996). Qualitative research design:

An interactive approach. Thousand Oaks, CA:SAGE Publications.

Shepston, T. J., & Jensen, R. A. (1997). Dodging bul-lets and BMWs: Two tales of teachers. WashingtonDC. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No.ED 407 364)

Staton, A. Q., & Hunt, S. L. (1992, April). Teachersocialization: Review and conceptualization.Communication Education, 41, 109–137.

Stroot, S. A., Faucette, N., & Schwager, S. (1993). Inthe beginning: The induction of physical educa-tors. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 12,375–385.

Valli, L. (1992). Beginning teacher problems: Areasfor teacher education improvement. Action inTeacher Education, 14(1), 18–25.

Veenman, S. (1984). Perceived problems of begin-ning teachers. Review of Educational Research,54(2), 143–177.

Walsdorf, K. L., & Lynn, S. K. (2002). The earlyyears: Mediating the organizational environ-ment. Clearing House, 75(4), 190–195.


Organizing Instructional Practice Around theAssessment Portfolio: The Gains and Losses

Min ZouSoutheast Missouri State University

AbstractThis exploratory study describes a teacher educator’s efforts to organize her instructional practice around an

assessment portfolio mandated by the state and examines the effectiveness of such endeavor. Findings revealed that,when a link between teaching and the required assessment portfolio was created, students’ self-efficacy and performancein compiling the portfolio substantially improved, the instructor’s instructional practices were better organized,students’ metacognitive awareness of learning process was heightened, the instrumental value of course assignmentsincreased, and students’ understanding of teaching and learning as reflective acts was reinforced. The article concludeswith a suggestion that teacher education programs should make learning portfolios, not assessment portfolios, their firstand second year students’ first formal experience with portfolios to ensure a high level of student engagement in theprocess of portfolio development.

IntroductionIn defining teaching portfolio, Wolf and Dietz

(1998) proposed three distinct models: (1) learningportfolio (i.e., personalized collections of one’s workthat emphasize ownership and self-assessment), (2)assessment portfolio (i.e., selective collections of one’swork submitted by teachers according to structuredguidelines set by professional organizations, stateagencies, or school district), and (3) employment port-folio (i.e., customized collections of informationgiven by individuals to prospective employers for aspecific professional position). The term used bySnyder, Lippincott and Bower (1998) for assessmentportfolio was credential portfolio, a portfolio thatresponds to and is organized around externallydefined licensure standards to prove that the can-didate has demonstrated competence of state-de-fined teacher standards (p. 46).

According to Wolf and Dietz (1998), what distin-guishes the learning portfolio from the assessmentportfolio is their respective purposes and differentemphases in terms of authorship and audience: withthe purpose of promoting teachers’ independentlearning, the learning portfolio is authored and own-ed by the teacher, and the primary audience is theteacher him or herself, unlike the assessment portfo-lio whose primary purpose is to attain a formal

assessment of teacher performance, and the mainaudience is the organization conducting the evalua-tion. While weighing the advantages and disadvan-tages of the two models, Wolf and Dietz (1998)pointed out that the learning portfolio was flexibleand encouraged teacher autonomy over the process,but it may not be able to provide a broad picture ofa teacher’s competence and performance. Wolf andDietz considered it a great advantage that the assess-ment portfolio is able to directly and explicitly pres-ent a comprehensive and standardized view of whata teacher knows, but they also pointed out that, indeveloping an assessment portfolio, “individualteacher learning goals can be sacrificed to somedegree in order to achieve greater standardization,and [the assessment portfolio] can be artificial innature” (p. 19). The similar concern was shared bySnyder et al. (1998) in their discussion of “credentialportfolio.” They believed that, starting with exter-nally defined standards, credential portfolio tendedto be a collection of artifacts that portray one’s bestwork, thus “[superseding] the use of a portfolio as aworkplace charting the growth of a teacher throughopen and honest reflections on the struggles andinevitable failures common to the learning process”(p. 46).

Though there has been extensive research on the

Min Zou


use of portfolio as an alternative assessment method(Davies & Willis, 2001; Harris & Arnold, 2001;Guillanume & Yopp, 1995; McLaughlin & Vogt,1996; Mills & Reisetter, 1995; Scanlan & Heiden,1996; Zidon, 1996), very little empirical research hasbeen conducted to examine the use of portfolio as aguide to direct instructional practices and to investi-gate the role “assessment portfolio,” or “credentialportfolio,” has played in the phase of decision mak-ing in teaching process. Fewer studies have focusedon how teacher educators base their instructionalpractice on the mandated assessment portfolio.

This article describes an exploratory study inwhich the efforts to organize instructional practicearound an assessment portfolio mandated by thestate were documented, the effectiveness of suchendeavor was examined, and the implications andsuggestions were discussed.

BackgroundWhen portfolio assessment has been increas-

ingly included as part of diverse evaluation of teach-er candidates and programs in teacher educationprograms, (Copenhaver, Waggoner, Young, &James, 1997; Lyons, 1998; Wade & Yarbrough, 1996)as well as for accreditation at state and nationallevels (Synder, Lippincott, & Bower, 1998; Wolf &Dietz, 1998), the Department of Elementary andSecondary Education (DESE) in the state of Missourimandated the implementation of the Missouri Stan-dards for Teacher Education Programs (MoSTEP)which parallels the Interstate New Teacher Assess-ment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standardsendorsed by the National Council for Accreditationof Teacher Education (NCATE). To document thesuccessful attainment of these standards, students inour program are required to compile a portfoliobeginning in their second year in the program (i.e.,Block II) and continuing through the senior year (i.e.,Block IV) and the student teaching experience.

There are ten Quality Indicators in MoSTEPstandards, each having a number of PerformanceIndicators that provide benchmarks for three levelsof attainment, namely, “Meets the Standard” (i.e.,the teacher candidate not only has the knowledgebase but also the ability to apply the knowledge inteaching), “Not Yet Meeting the Standard” (i.e., the

candidate may have the knowledge but is not yetable to apply that knowledge to teaching), and“Insufficient Evidence” (i.e., there is barely anyevidence to support the candidate’s meeting of thatstandard). The required portfolio consists of twoparts: (a) artifacts selected by teacher candidates thatserve as supporting evidence for meeting thesestandards, and (b) reflections in which teacher can-didates rationalize their selection of a particularartifact to support meeting a particular standard.Expectations of preservice teachers to meet theseQuality Indicators vary from Block to Block.

Problems observed. Helping my students compilethe required assessment portfolio was an importanttask assigned to me as part of my teaching when Istarted teaching Block II in the fall of 2000. At theend of that semester, based on the data collected byway of a survey, direct observations and personalinteractions with my students, I found that therewas an overall passitivity in students’ attitudestowards the portfolio, and quite a few studentsconsidered the portfolio an add-on to their alreadyheavy coursework load and tight study schedule. Ialso observed evidence of anxiety and frustrationamong about one-third of the students throughoutthis initial compiling process. Those students dem-onstrated a degree of incompetence, and their port-folios were considered unacceptable by the depart-mental criteria at the end of Block II experience. Oneof the major problems observed was inappropriateselection of artifacts for the standards, and theirreflections on the artifacts were irrelevant to thecorresponding standards.

I attributed those students’ lack of initiative incompiling the portfolios, their anxiety and frustra-tion as well as the displayed incompetence in com-piling the portfolio to the fact that there was noapparent link between the portfolio and the courses.The courses and portfolio were approached sepa-rately. To both my students and myself, the man-dated portfolio was a task we had to complete inaddition to our regular work, and the instrumentalvalue of the portfolio was vague to the students aswell.

Actions taken. In response to this perceived prob-lem, I made some substantial changes in my teach-ing in the fall semester of 2001. Around the five

Organizing Instructional Practice Around the Assessment Portfolio


MoSTEP standards for portfolio developing re-quired of Block II students, I reorganized the coursecontents and redesigned the course assignments.That is, I used these standards as the guidelines formy instructional decisions on course contents andassignments. Specifically,

1. I aligned the instructional contents withthese five standards: “Knowledge of SubjectMatter,” “Knowledge of Human Develop-ment,” “Motivation and Classroom Manage-ment,” “Communication Skills,” and “Pro-fessional Development.”

2. I linked course assignments to the possibledocumentation of artifacts for the portfolio.

The first change resulted in the fact that I selected allthe chapters in the textbooks that were directly re-lated to those standards but deselected those thatdid not directly address those standards. With thesecond change, all the assignments I developed forthose courses had the potential to become artifactsfor the portfolio.

Research goals. My study was guided by thefollowing questions:

1. Will students’ self-efficacy as well as theiroverall performance in developing the port-folio increase as a result of the implementedchanges?

2. Will students’ attitudes towards portfoliobecome more positive as a result of the im-plemented changes?

3. What, if any, benefits and/or disadvantagesare to be gained by organizing instructionalpractice around the assessment portfolio?

MethodThe study was conducted in my own classroom

with two groups of Block II students, one from thefall semester of 2000 when my teaching was notconnected to the mandated assessment portfolio,and one from the fall semester of 2001 when I orga-nized my teaching around the portfolio. All of mystudents (16 from Fall 2000 and 21 from Fall 2001)

participated in the study. The student demographicinformation is illustrated in Table 1. The data show-ed that students’ previous experience with portfoliowas limited. For those who indicated that they hadsome prior experience with portfolio, their experi-ence all came exclusively from one particular coursethey had taken before, and it was clear that none ofthe students had involved in any type of assessmentportfolio before.

The principal means of data collection were asurvey and students’ grades. The surveys adminis-tered to the two groups were identical in contentand format. To achieve reliability and validity, thesurvey was tested in two Block II sections before itsuse in my class. The survey contained 13 items,primarily investigating the change of students’ atti-tude toward the portfolio and their self-efficacy incompiling the portfolio as a function of the imple-mented changes in my instructional practice. Stu-dents’ attitude towards the portfolio was assessedthrough five constructs: (1) their perception of theusefulness of portfolios (usefulness), (2) their percep-tion of the importance of developing the portfolio(importance), (3) their preference between portfoliosand traditional assessment methods (preference), (4)their indicated intention to use portfolio assessmentin their future teaching (future use), and (5) their ex-press-ed level of personal liking for developing aportfolio. Students’ self-efficacy in compiling theportfolio was obtained through their self-ranking ona scale ranging from 1 to 5 (1 = not confident at all,5 = very confident). Students’ expected grade for theportfolio at the end of the semester was originallyused as another construct for assessing student’sself-efficacy but was dropped later because the feed-back obtained from the pilot studies conducted inthe other two Block II sections showed that students’expressed expected grades were more a wishfulthinking than an accurate reflection of their confi-dence level in compiling the portfolio.

The surveys were administered and collected atthe end of the fall semesters of 2000 and 2001 respec-tively when students were ready to submit theircompleted portfolios. Some of the items on the sur-vey are cited in Table 2.

Min Zou


Table 1Student Demographic Information

CategoryClass of Fall 2000

(N = 16)Class of Fall 2001

(N = 21)

Major

Elementary 11 12

Early childhood 3 6

Special Education 2 3

Gender

Female 16 17

Male 0 4

Level of Study

Sophomore 9 13

Junior 6 6

Senior 1 2

Previous Experience with Portfolio

A lot 0 0

Some 2 5

None 5 6

Unknown 1 3

Table 2Major Variables on Survey

Variables Items on Survey

Students’ Attitude toward Portfolio Is learning to develop a portfolio a useful and beneficial experience foryou? (usefulness)

How important is it for you to compose a portfolio? (importance)

Is portfolio a more effective assessment method than traditional assess-ment methods? (preference)

Are you going to use portfolio with your own students in your futureteaching? (future use)

How much do you like developing a portfolio as part of your learningexperience in Block II? (liking level)

Students’ Self-efficacy in Compiling thePortfolio

Indicate the level of confidence you have in developing a portfolionow. (confidence level)



ResultsThe results regarding students’ attitude toward

the portfolio, and their perceived self-confidence in

compiling the portfolio are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3Results Regarding Students’ Attitude to Portfolio and Self-Confidence in Portfolio Compiling

Components Survey 1 (Fall 2000)(N = 16)

Survey 2 (Fall 2001)(N = 21)

Attitude Toward Portfolio1. Usefulness Yes 76% 76%

No 10% 19%

Unsure 14% 5%

2. Importance

(5 = very important; 1=not important at all) 5 38% 43%

4 24% 19%

3 19% 28%

2 19% 5%

1 0% 5%

3. Preference

Yes 57% 52%

No 5% 29%

Unsure 38% 19%

4. Future Use

Yes 67% 47%

No 14% 47%

Unsure 19% 6%

5. Liking Level

(5 = like it very much; 5 5% 5%

1 = not like it very much) 4 24% 38%

3 48% 33%

2 9% 19%

1 5% 5%

Unsure 9% 0%

Self-efficacy in Portfolio Compiling

(5=very confident; 1=not confident at all) 5 0% 19%

4 14% 19%

3 14% 52%

2 53% 10%

1 19% 0%

Min Zou


Students’ Attitude Toward the PortfolioThe results of students’ perceptions of the use-

fulness and importance of portfolio show two simi-larities in both surveys: (a) there were more studentswho believed that portfolio was useful and impor-tant than those who thought it was not, (b) only afew students claimed that they liked portfolio verymuch as an assessment method while the majorityfell in the range between “like” and “relatively likeit.” A closer examination of the results reveals twodifferences observed from the two surveys: (a) therewere noticeably more students in the 2000 Surveythan in the 2001 Survey that checked “unsure” intheir responses to the survey questions, (b) therewere noticeably more students in the 2001 Surveythan in the 2000 Survey that indicated that theywould not use portfolio with their own students intheir future teaching. Accordingly, the overall resultsseem to have suggested: (1) intellectually, studentsof 2001 acknowledged the importance and useful-ness of the portfolio, but at the personal level, theydid not like it, (2) students of 2001 were more sure orcertain than those of 2000 about their own opinionsabout portfolio.

Students’ Self-efficacy in Compiling the PortfolioThe results of students’ self-efficacy in compiling

the portfolio show that students’ overall self-efficacylevel increased significantly in Fall 2001: while noone claimed to be “very confident” in the 2000 Sur-vey, the percentage jumped to 19% in the 2001 Sur-vey; while 72% of the students in the 2000 Surveyfelt “not confident” or “no confidence at all,” thepercentage dropped to 10 % in 2001 Survey.

Students Outcome PerformanceThe most eye-catching evidence found in this

study is the improvement of students’ performancein developing the portfolio. The students’ end-of-semester grades show that, in the fall of 2000, only64% of the class met the departmental criteria andpassed the portfolio, but in the fall of 2001, 100% ofthe class passed.

DiscussionThe study was initiated out of my concern about

my students’ struggle with their portfolios. My

attempts to help them go through the process led meto using the portfolio standards as the guidelines formy instructional decisions. By organizing my in-structional practice around the assessment portfolio,I witnessed the following observations. I considerthese observations as the answer to the third ques-tion in my Research Goals.

1. Increased student self-efficacy and performance indeveloping the portfolio. The most obvious andnotable evidence showing the benefits of orga-nizing instructional practice around the portfoliocame from the significant increase in students'self-efficacy and their overall performance incompiling the portfolio. Teaching to the portfoliomade it possible for me to spend significantlymore time in 2001 than in 2000 on the portfolio.This increased amount of time enabled me toprovide my students with more scaffolding intheir portfolio development process. I believethis increased level of instructional support play-ed an important role in improving students’ self-efficacy and performance in constructing theirportfolios.

2. Increased student understanding of portfolio. Thedata have clearly shown that students of Fall2001 appeared more certain than the students ofFall 2000 about their own perceptions, or beliefs,about portfolio when responding to those sur-vey questions regarding their attitude towardportfolio. This could suggest that teaching to themandated portfolio has helped the studentsbetter understand the notion of portfolio, andhelped them formulate some personal opinionsabout portfolio. Furthermore, course assign-ments that were developed around the stan-dards also seem to have helped the studentscomprehend the standards which tend to becomplex and condensed in content and word-ing, because none of the students in Fall 2001was found to have made inappropriate selectionof artifacts for the required standards. However,selecting artifacts that did not match the portfo-lio standard used to be one of the major weakareas commonly found in many of the portfolioscomposed by the students of Fall 2000.

3. Better organization of instructional practices. My



teaching was better organized than before. As aninstructor, I had the academic freedom to selectthe textbook chapters to cover for each course Itaught. This had always presented itself as achallenge to me. I was not certain if the decisionsI made were well founded. With the portfolioevaluation benchmarks at hand, and when thecourse content decision was made on the basisof the MoSTEP standards, I felt an increasedconfidence in my own choices of the coursecontents, and I felt more certain than before thatthose decisions were professionally validatedand administratively supported. As a result ofthis change, I also felt that the courses I taughtwere more thematically related to each other.For example, in following the standard of“Knowledge of Human Development,” I con-sciously selected the chapters that were relatedto the theme of “Development,” such as theoriesof cognitive development (e.g., Piaget’s, Vygot-sky’s), theory of psychosocial development (e.g.,Erikson’s), theories of moral development (e.g.,Kolhberg’s, Piaget’s, and Gilligan’s), and theoryof language development (e.g., Chomsky’s andSkinner’s). In order to follow the standard of“Professional Development” which requiresreflective quality of preservice teachers, I delib-erately created a theme of “reflection” amongmy assignments to my students. For one course,I asked them to complete an Observation Web inwhich they observed and then reflected on whatand how their cooperating teachers taught in theclassroom (e.g., teaching styles, teacher-studentinteractions, reward systems, classroom man-agement strategies, etc.). In another course, Iasked them to write a Literacy Autobiography inwhich they identified and reflected on thoseenvironmental factors that contributed to theway they read and write today. For anothercourse, I asked them to observe and reflect onhow their peers taught in a simulated teachingsituation. My goal was to engage my students inthe reflective practice, reflecting on their ownlearning and teaching practices as well as oth-ers’, including those of their cooperating teach-ers, their peers, and the experts discussed in thetextbooks.

4. Heightened metacognitive awareness of the learningprocess. When a link among curriculum, instruc-tion, and portfolio assessment was created, theportfolio compiling process was situated in aspecific and immediate teaching and learningcontext. My students of Fall 2001 were able tochart what was being taught and learned in thecoursework against the state mandated creden-tial standards and see how they fitted into thebig picture of the teacher education, and thus the“development of coherence, connection, andlinkage of theory and practice in guiding stu-dents toward meaningful synthesis of course-work” (Mills & Reisetter, 1995) was facilitated,and as a result, their learning became more con-scious. As one student responded in Survey 2,“Now I understand why I learned certain sub-jects,” and another student stated, “(I now) un-derstand what I have done and why.”

5. Increased instrumental value of the course assign-ments. When the course assignments were de-signed in a way that would qualify them for theportfolio artifact candidates, students were moremotivated to strive for quality work for eachassignment. The instrumental aspect of thecourse assignments became obvious to studentswho were well aware that each of those assign-ments they were working on could be selectedlater as their portfolio artifacts and what theywere doing could be part of their portfolio.

6. Reinforced understanding of teaching and learningas reflective acts. With the implemented changes,my students were “pushed” to see teaching as areflective act. When they strived to meet thestandards, they must be reflective: when theywere engaged in the process of making decisionas to what to include in the portfolio, and whichassignment could best represent their learning,they reflected; when they wrote the reflections tojustify their selection of a particular assignmentas the artifact, they also reflected.

7. More negativity in students’ attitude toward portfo-lio. Before the study I believed that by teachingto the mandated portfolio I would be able tohelp my students assume a more positive atti-tude toward portfolio. However, such out-comewas not found from the results of this study.

Min Zou


Instead, students seemed to become more nega-tive when they seemed to know more aboutwhat a portfolio was with their first-hand expe-rience with portfolio and when their level ofself-confidence in compiling the portfolio sub-stantially increased. Several students claimed in2001 Survey that they would not use portfoliowith their own students in the future, and somedoubted the effectiveness of portfolio as a moreeffective assessment tool when compared to thetraditional assessment methods. They explainedthat the portfolio was very important to themjust “because it is required,” and “it is necessaryto graduate;” otherwise, they didn’t consider itimportant. Some students expressed their doubtabout the benefits the portfolio could bringthem. One of them mentioned: “I have spokenwith principals who say they never look at them(portfolios) during (job) interviews.” The otherone complained: “I feel like I’m only concentrat-ing (on) a few set (of) ideas and I’m working justto fill a point.” Many students put “over 40–50”when asked how many hours they spent ontheir portfolio and complained that the wholeprocess was too time-consuming.

ConclusionThe observed negativity in students’ attitude

towards portfolio seems to have lent some support-ing evidence for the limitations of the assessmentportfolio as already identified by Wolf and Dietz(1998). Among the three portfolio models proposedby Wolf and Dietz (1998), the learning portfolio ismuch more likely than the assessment portfolio totrigger students’ interest and stimulate their motiva-tion in the compiling process due to its promotion ofstudents’ self-exploration, self-reflection and auton-omy over the process. For the assessment portfolio,restricted by its emphasis on evaluation, account-ability and responsiveness to the externally definedstandards (e.g., MoSTEP standards), students’ indi-vidual learning goals are de-emphasized, and, incompiling a portfolio of this type, students’ creativ-ity is limited, and their ownership of their work isinhibited (Snyder, et al., 1998). Thus, some negativefeelings generated from the process should not be acompletely unanticipated outcome.

I believe that this disturbing finding has at leastcautioned us against one important issue: the appro-priate timing for assessment portfolios to be im-posed on preservice teachers. This study has con-vinced me that preservice teachers should start witha learning portfolio, not an assessment portfolio. Thelearning portfolio permits students’ authority formaking decision on their portfolios’ structure, con-tent and process (Wolf & Dietz, 1998), thus theircreativity and initiatives are encouraged. Besides,since the student is the primary audience of his/herown learning portfolio, the compiling process ismuch less stressful than that of the assessment port-folio. For preservice teachers who are at their initialstages of learning to teach, such encouragement aswell as stress-free context to learn about portfolio asan effective assessment tool is of critical importance.Among the students who participated in the study,none of them had had any experience with assess-ment portfolio before, and their previous exposureto any other kind of portfolio was minimal as well.This portfolio experience in Block II was their firstformal encounter with portfolio, and the first im-pressions obtained from this experience could colortheir feelings about portfolio and deter them fromusing portfolios in their future teaching. I believethat one way to make our students’ first formalexperience with portfolio a positive one is to delaythe use of the assessment portfolio at least to theirjunior year when they are more mature and readyprofessionally. Let our students get involved in theprocess first, not just the product. Let the portfolio“provide a means for preservice teachers to reflecton their own growth and assess their own learning”(Dutt, Tallerico, & Kayler, 1997) before it is used asa demonstration showcase for professional organiza-tions or authorities.

ReferencesCopenhaver, R., Waggoner, J. E., Young, A., &

James, T. (1997). Promoting preservice teachers’professional growth through developmentalportfolios. The Teacher Educator, 33(2), 103–111.

Davies, M. A., & Willis, E. (2001). Through the look-ing glass: Preservice professional portfolios.Teacher Educator, 37(1), 27–36.


Dutt, K., Tallerico, M., & Kayler, M. (1997). Assess-ing student teachers: The promise of develop-mental portfolios. The Teacher Educator, 32(4),201–215.

Guillaume, A. M., & Yopp, H. K. (1995). Professionalportfolios for student teachers. Teacher Educa-tion Quarterly, 22(1), 93–101.

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Interstate New Teacher Assessment and SupportConsortium (1992). Model standards for begin-ning teacher licensure and development: A resourcefor state dialogue. Washington, DC: Council ofChief State School Officers.

Lyons, N. (1998). Reflection in teaching: Can it bedevelopmental? A portfolio perspective. Tea-herEducation Quarterly, 25(1), 115–127.

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Mills, E., & Reisetter, M. (1995). Portfolio Assess-ment graduate education class. The ProfessionalEducator, 17(2), 15–24.

Missouri Department of Elementary and SecondaryEducation. (1999). Performance standards for edu-cation professionals. Jefferson City, MO: Author.

National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Edu-cation. (1996). NCATE handbook for continuingaccreditation visits. Washington, DC: Author.

Scanlan, P. A., & Heiden, D. E. (1996). External re-view of portfolios in preservice teacher edu-

cation: Studying our own practice. ReadingHorizons, 36(4), 297–316.

Snyder, J., Lippincott, A., & Bower, D. (1998). Theinherent tensions in the multiple uses of portfo-lios in teacher education. Teacher EducationQuarterly, 25(1), 45–60.

Wolf, K., & Dietz, M. (1998). Teaching portfolios:purposes and possibilities. Teacher EducationQuarterly, 25(1), 9–22.

Wade, R., & Yarbrough, D. (1996). Portfolios: A toolfor reflective thinking in teacher education?Teaching & Teacher Education, 12(1), 63-79.

Zidon, M. (1996). Portfolios in preservice teachereducation: What the students say. Action InTeacher Action, 18(1), 59–70.

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