解制取向下的美国教师培养新路径——“为美国而教”计划的历程、职能与功过探析

美国教师生成有多种途径,其中一种是为非师范类的大学毕业生提供培训,鼓励他们从事教学,这当中"为美国而教"计划最为突出。介绍"为美国而教"计划的发展历程,志愿者的招募和遴选,针对志愿者的培训和支持,以及整个计划所取得的成就及其面对的批评,对我国现行的教师培养体制及资格制度有一定参考价值。     

为美国而教:关于价值观选择的三个故事

2013年5月19日,"为美国而教"项目的创始人和首席执行官温迪·柯普(Wendy Kopp)在波士顿大学发表演讲。柯普于1989年创建了"为美国而教"项目,招收一流大学的优秀毕业生,去美国各地区师资薄弱学校任教两年。随着该项目覆盖范围的扩大,柯普把教育公平的理念带到了世界上更多的地方。在演讲中,柯普鼓励学生要继承和发扬波士顿大学的优良传统,专注于自己喜欢的事情,反复试验和尝试,不断学习和改进。文章源自波士顿大学网站公布的英文演讲稿,由本刊特约译者、贵州师范大学陈建录博士编译,本刊编辑部审校,文章标题及一级标题系本刊所加。     

话语

“为中国而教”。——联合国教科文组织国际农村教育研究与培训中心“为中国而教——优秀大学生从事农村教育的计划”项目将于2009年2月正式启动。项目组负责人余微介绍，该项目借鉴自在美国成功运作19年的教育运动“为美国而教”，此次将招募一批来自中国一流大学各个专业的优秀毕业生，安排他们在欠发达地区的农村及城市打工子弟学校任教两年。     

“为美国而教”:教师教育解制路径的成功范例?

专业主义与解制主义之争是当前美国教师教育改革的焦点之一。作为教师教育解制路径的重要代表",为美国而教"取得了诸多成就,吸引了大批受过良好高等教育的人才,在一定程度上缓解了部分地区师资短缺的问题,同时也受到了越来越多的推崇。但由于"为美国而教"在教师质量、教师流失率、种族与文化等方面所面临的问题,其当前取得的成就并不意味着它已经成为一种成功的教师培养模式,更无法代表教师教育解制路径的胜利。     

美国教师教育的新发展:“城市教师驻校模式”及其对我国的启示

城市教师驻校模式是当前美国教育改革中新出现的一种教师培养模式,是在美国传统的教师教育模式发展无力和美国教师结构短缺现状的背景下应运而生的。这是一种职前职后一体化的教师培养模式,实施过程包括计划的组织和管理、驻校生的招录、教学点和指导教师的选拔、驻校期培养、驻校毕业生的安置以及新教师的入职指导六个部分。它为城市薄弱学校招聘、培养和留住优秀教师提供了一条有效途径。     

美国以“临床实践”为中心的教师培养模式研究

美国教师教育正在经历着一场基于"临床实践"的教师培养模式变革。在强调教师培养机构和学区形成伙伴关系的基础上,"临床实践"教师培养模式把实践置于培养方案的中心位置,所有课程均围绕临床实践而展开,因而能够克服传统教师培养模式过于强调学术课程和实践环节薄弱的弊病。该模式在美国教师教育领域有一定历史渊源和实践基础。然而,结合现实状况,临床培养模式变革仍面临资金、人事等方面的困境。     

国际教师教育改革的卓越取向——以英、美、德、澳卓越教师培养计划为例

随着人们对教师质量关注度的不断提升,"培养卓越教师"日渐成为英、美、德、澳等发达国家的普遍共识。英国的"卓越教师计划"、《培养下一代卓越教师》文件,美国的卓越教师专业标准,德国的"卓越教师教育计划"以及澳大利亚的"政府优秀教师计划"皆反映出国际教师教育改革的卓越取向。文章介绍了英、美、德、澳四国的教师培养计划,以期为我国卓越教师的培养提供借鉴。     

美国教师业一夜之间由“肥沃”变“贫瘠”——纽约市教师资格制度最新禁令侧记

美国教师培养体制主要有两种路径,一种是传统路径,即基于大学教育学院的教师教育;另一种是选择性路径,即为非师范类大学的毕业生提供培训,鼓励他们从事教学工作。近年采,选择性路径在美国日渐盛行,已然成为取代传统的教师生成机制的重要路径,并受到美国联邦政府的支持。目前,美国已经有48个州开辟了这一路径,越来越多的人绕过传统路径,通过这一路径成为教师。在选择性路径中,“为美国而教”计划表现最为突出,对人们由此走上教师岗位也最为有效。     

美国“临床实践型教师教育”的教育实习模式探析

教师是一个类似于医学、护理或临床心理学的临床实践专业。为达成培养高效教师的终极目标,美国"临床实践型教师教育"聚焦实践性教育学环节,对教育实习的目标与内容、实习基地学校和指导教师的资格认证均作出了明确规定。为确保教育实习的成效,"临床实践型教师教育"强调相关主体应建立起支持性合作伙伴关系,并尝试搭建全国性的信息网络平台,从而形成具有整体性、连贯性的教育实习体系,以培养高效教师,满足教育需求。     

“卓越教师培养”背景下“英语语音”课程教学改革研究

教育部出台《关于实施卓越教师培养计划的意见》对师范专业人才培养质量提出了更高的要求,本研究认为,"英语语音"课程应该扣紧"卓越教师培养计划"中"乐教、懂教和善教"的素质要求,探索教学方法和评价模式的改革,促使学生构建扎实的语音知识系统,同时培养学生良好的教师职业素养。     

Rhetoric and practice in pre-service teacher education: the case of Teach For America

Teach For America (TFA), an organization that places college graduates in urban and rural classrooms for two-year terms of service, is lauded by reformers who see its five-week summer training institute as evidence that teachers have little to learn before entering classrooms. Yet, while boosters see TFA as a radical alternative to traditional teacher education, a look at the evolution of their increasingly robust summer training model hardly affirms that perception. In fact, much of what is done in the summer institute parallels the work of traditional teacher education programs in the USA – a surprising state of affairs given the rhetoric of so many TFA supporters. This project traces the evolution of TFA’s summer training institute across two decades, highlighting the growing divide between TFA’s outward-facing image and its actual work. Framing TFA’s summer institute as a case study for examining the relationship between rhetoric and practice in education, the article raises broader questions about how the policy-making context affects the construction and perception of reality.     

Expanding the research terrain: Teach For America and the problem with one-dimensional research

This paper situates Teach For America (TFA) within the larger landscape of teacher education research. After discussing the widely publicized research on TFA and outlining the methods of this review, I overview theoretical, qualitative, and quantitative studies that are not highlighted by TFA in its internal review of literature. Next, I discuss how TFA’s emphasis on a limited base of research provides a partial picture of the organization’s practical materiality. To conclude, I theorize a multi-dimensional education research landscape that transcends existing conceptions of teacher/student/school success, which are largely based on the data that we attach to students and teachers.     

Strange bedfellows in science teacher preparation: conflicting perspectives on social justice presented in a Teach For America—university partnership

Teach For America (TFA), a widespread and well-known route into the teaching profession, frequently partners with university-based education programs to prepare and certify its corps members. However, university-based teacher education programs frequently emphasize very different understandings of socially just education and priorities for training teachers from those of TFA. Accordingly, science teachers trained through TFA-university partnerships encounter conflicting understandings of science education, justice, and urban communities as they are introduced to teaching practice. In this ethnographic case study we explored the experiences and reactions of a cohort of TFA corps members in a science methods course as they engaged with TFA’s perspective focused primarily on enhancing students’ social mobility and the methods course emphasizing democratic equality through scientific engagement. The study considers intersections between TFA’s approach to teacher preparation and sociocultural perspectives on equitable science teaching. The study also lends insight into the contradictions and challenges through which TFA science teachers develop understandings about their role as science teachers, purposes and goals of science education, and identities of the students and communities they serve.     

美国选择性教师资格制度的实施经验与启示

美国选择性教师资格制度是一种非传统的教师资格认证体系,自20世纪80年代以来,它为美国缓解教师数量的短缺和满足教师队伍多样化的需求做出了一定贡献,弥补了美国传统教师教育的不足。文章阐述了美国选择性教师资格制度产生、发展的过程,分析了选择性教师资格制度的主要特征,指出该制度对于完善我国非师范专业毕业人员教师资格认证具有重要的借鉴意义。     

幼儿教师专业发展现状及提升对策

采用调查法对260名学前教育专业毕业生进行了幼儿教师专业发展水平调查与分析。结果显示,幼儿教师专业发展处于优秀水平,在教龄和岗位两方面存在显著差异。从教师专业发展现状和问题入手,介绍了学前教育毕业生教师专业发展存在的问题并提出相应的对策。     

Teacher education graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession: Development and test of a model

This study aims to advance insight into the relationship between teacher education and graduates’ intended and actual entrance into the teaching profession. Moreover, it indicates how this relationship varies between teacher training for primary education (i.e., programs for class teachers-to-be) and teacher training for secondary education (i.e., programs for subject teachers-to-be). A hypothetical model of graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession comprising empirically grounded variables was developed. Besides teacher education related variables, other factors (e.g., motivation and labour market) were included. Data for this study were collected based on a sample of 301 teacher education graduates. Logistic regression analysis shows that intention to enter teaching is a valid predictor of actual entrance. Path analysis was applied to test the hypothetical pattern of (inter)relationships between the variables. For graduates from teacher training for pre-school and primary education, the path model accounts for 33% of the variance in intention to enter teaching. For teacher training for secondary education the explained amount of variance is 44%. Results are largely consistent across the two types of teacher training showing a small, although statistically significant, contribution of teacher education above other antecedents of graduates’ intention to enter teaching.     

Supporting new science teachers in pursuing socially just science education

This forum explores contradictions that arose within the partnership between Teach for America (TFA) and a university teacher education program. TFA is an alternate route teacher preparation program that places individuals into K-12 classrooms in low-income school districts after participating in an intense summer training program and provides them with ongoing support. This forum is a conversation about the challenges we faced as new science teachers in the TFA program and in the Peace Corps program. We both entered the teaching field with science degrees and very little formal education in science education. In these programs we worked in a community very different from the one we had experienced as students. These experiences allow us to address many of the issues that were discussed in the original paper, namely teaching in an unfamiliar community amid challenges that many teachers face in the first few years of teaching. We consider how these challenges may be amplified for teachers who come to teaching through an alternate route and may not have as much pedagogical training as a more traditional teacher education program provides. The forum expands on the ideas presented in the original paper to consider the importance of perspectives on socially just science education. There is often a disconnect between what is taught in teacher education programs and what teachers actually experience in urban classrooms and this can be amplified when the training received through alternate route provides a different framework as well. This forum urges universities and alternate route programs to continue to find ways to authentically partner using practical strategies that bring together the philosophies and goals of all stakeholders in order to better prepare teachers to partner with their students to achieve their science learning goals.     

The dangers of relentless pursuit: teaching,personal health,and the symbolic/real violence of Teach For America

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the pressures experienced by teachers as they strive to embody the Teach For America (TFA) motif of ‘relentless pursuit’. It draws on interviews conducted with 36 teachers and uses a Bourdieuian analysis to consider the mechanisms of control manifested through socialization and corps member habituation. The findings suggest that corps members experience both symbolic and self-imposed overt violence as they aim to meet the demands of TFA. This has implications for the increasing number of teachers in programs around like TFA as well as the broader discourses of teacher accountability and the teaching profession.     

The perceived role of the Teach For America program on teachers’ long-term career aspirations

In urban school systems, the percentage of teachers that leave the profession is disproportionally high. Part of the driving force for this high rate of teacher turnover are alternative certification programmes, like Teach For America (TFA) which recruits teachers only for a short-term teaching commitment. This study contributes a novel perspective on these teachers’ decision to stay or exit the classroom after this two-year commitment by analysing extensive open-ended qualitative interviews with 30 TFA participants in Los Angeles. Within this sample, a majority enter the programme without viewing teaching as a long-term career option, though they are willing to extend their initial two-year teaching commitment for several years, though not much longer after that. Only a minority of these teachers entered TFA as a means of becoming long-term classroom teachers. No teachers changed their long-term career plans as a result of their participation in TFA. Implications are discussed.     

Teacher training for secondary education and graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession

This study focuses on the relationship between teacher education and graduates’ intended and actual entrance into teaching. Moreover, it explores how this relationship differs for two types of initial teacher training for secondary education. A hypothetical model of graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession comprising empirically grounded variables was developed. Besides teacher education related variables, other factors (e.g., motivation and labour market) were included. Data for this study were based on a sample of 370 graduates qualified for teaching in secondary education. Logistic regression analysis indicates that intention to enter teaching, preparedness for teaching, employment opportunities and type of teacher training explain 43% of the variance in actual entrance into teaching. Furthermore, path analysis was applied to test the hypothetical pattern of (inter)relationships between the variables. Results are largely consistent across the two types of teacher training showing a small, although statistically significant, contribution of teacher education above other antecedents of graduates’ intention to enter teaching.