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2018 MO-STAR List
2018 MO-STAR List
How are Literacy Teacher Educators Developing Preservice Teachers Understandings about Learners and Literate Classroom Environments?
Rebekah E. Piper
Laurie A. Sharp, Ed.D.
Roberta D. Raymond, Ed.D.
Mary Jo Fresch
Introduction
A literate classroom environment supports the “acquisition, use and retention” of literacy skills among students in PreK-12 settings (Easton, 2014, p. 4). Teachers who establish and maintain literate classroom environments arrange and organize the classroom to maximize students’ literacy learning inside the classroom (Fountas & Pinnell, 2018; Peters, 2010; Roskos & Neuman, 2011) and beyond (Darvin, 2006; Dwyer, 2016). Within literate classroom environments, teachers engage all students in powerful uses of reading, writing, listening, and speaking (Daniels, Hamby, & Chen, 2015; Flynn, 2016; McTigue & Rimm-Kaufman, 2010; Thompson & Rubenstein, 2014) by anchoring instruction in 21st century literacies (Knobel & Lankshear, 2014; Lapp, Moss, & Rowsell, 2012) and tailoring independent and collaborative learning experiences according to individual learning needs (Brozo, 2009; Watts‐Taffe, 2012). Essentially, literate classroom environments provide every student with literacy-rich learning spaces that are motivating, productive, and safe (Mizelle, 1997; Turner, 1995).
Literacy teacher educators have a strong influence on how preservice teachers are trained to address literacy as future teachers (Grisham et al., 2014). During teacher training, literacy teacher educators design and implement high-quality learning experiences that develop preservice teachers’ competence with the desired behaviors, knowledge, and skills for teachers outlined in professional standards (International Literacy Association [ILA], 2018; International Reading Association [IRA], 2010). It is vital that preservice teachers learn how to address various components of literacy in their future teaching practices, including how to create literate classroom environments that stimulate and support literacy learning among all students.
Literacy teacher educators must carefully consider the preparation practices they use to train preservice teachers. We are literacy teacher educators who are committed to providing high-quality teacher training to preservice teachers. We are passionate about our work and strive to prepare future PreK-12 teachers to enter schools as competent novice literacy professionals. Since creating literate classroom environments is an important aspect of effective teaching, we wondered how literacy teacher educators develop these understandings among preservice teachers. Therefore, we conducted the current study to identify current preparation practices for this aspect of teacher training, as well as areas that may require specialized attention.
Methods
We conducted the current study in a state located in the South Central United States. We created a participant pool of literacy teacher educators who were affiliated with 67 state-approved, university-based teacher preparation programs. We created this pool by accessing publicly available information posted on each university’s website, such as class schedules, course syllabi, and faculty listings on departmental Webpages. Our efforts resulted in the identification of 457 participant pool members.
We collected data using a researcher-created survey. Our survey included a variety of closed- and open-ended questions to elicit information from respondents regarding their views of preservice teacher preparedness for literacy instruction and preparation practices they use to develop preservice teachers’ understandings about literacy and literacy instruction. Among these questions, we invited respondents to describe how they develop preservice teachers’ understandings about literate classroom environments. When the current study commenced, we emailed a survey invitation to all participant pool members. We tracked survey completion among participant pool members in a spreadsheet and sent three monthly reminders to encourage participation. When the survey period closed, we received completed surveys from 65 respondents. To achieve the goal of the current study, we retrieved qualitative data related to literate classroom environments from completed surveys. We met as a research team and established a process to analyze data. As the lead researcher, AUTHOR 1 conducted an independent analysis of data in the web application Dedoose using two phases of coding (Saldaña, 2016). AUTHOR 1 first labeled initial concepts with codes and then organized similar codes into categories. While coding, AUTHOR 1 kept a listing of all codes and their corresponding definitions in a codebook and made anecdotal memos to document questions, reflections, and thoughts. Once AUTHOR 1 completed her analyses, AUTHOR 2 and AUTHOR 3 performed independent data audits to confirm the accuracy of findings.
Findings
Of the 65 respondents who completed our survey, 55 respondents described preparation practices they use to develop preservice teachers’ understandings about literate classroom environments. These respondents included four males and fifty-one females who had been involved with training teachers for PreK-12 classrooms
.