The development of pedagogical understanding as indicated in preservice teachers' portfolios

Chris Lyn Botts Lawrence, Purdue University

Abstract

The primary focus of this study is on preservice teachers' development of pedagogical understanding. Related to this theme, three primary goals were established. The first goal was to develop a theoretical framework that integrates conceptions of reasoning, motivation, and cognitive, social, and moral development into a paradigm for teacher education. The second goal was to develop an holistic method for assessing preservice teachers' understandings of pedagogy. The third goal was to explore ways to integrate theory with practice and consider the instructional implications that lead to individual progress. Underlying this study is a view of teacher education as a developmental process and a belief that this process can be explicitly described and assessed. The participants in this study were 72 undergraduate preservice teachers. Each participant completed a semester portfolio for a course in educational psychology. The portfolio work consisted of a set of writing assignments and self-evaluations. Scores on three instruments were considered as independent variables (measures of intellectual and ethical growth, cognitive complexity, and orientation to learning). The writing assignments presented participants with open-ended tasks focusing on concepts such as student self-management, individual differences, eliciting and evaluating higher-order thinking, students' learning strategies and perceptions, classroom management, positive classroom environments, and observational learning. These tasks facilitated the application of both broad and specific pedagogical concepts, previous knowledge, beliefs about classrooms, and knowledge about classroom planning. The nature of the tasks required individuals to put themselves in the role of a teacher when considering situations. To assess participants' levels of understanding of pedagogical concepts, scoring rationales for open-ended and applied tasks were constructed from participants' responses and these results were analyzed. The way participants conceived, developed, and structured these tasks was assessed with the holistic scoring rationales for Level of Pedagogical Understanding. An analysis of the participants' responses showed that the group as a whole developed higher-levels of pedagogical understanding and deeper orientations to learning over the semester. High interrater reliability was obtained when applying the scoring rationales to the written assignments. Validity of the portfolio analysis was obtained by a pattern of positive correlations with the independent variables and was further supported with self-evaluations.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

McDaniel, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Educational psychology|Developmental psychology

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