WSU Education - Becoming a Teacher

CID Summer 2005 Convening: Developing Effective Teachers

Topic 4: Becoming a Teacher

Washington State University-College of Education

This Snapshot describes how the doctoral program in the College of Education helps new teachers develop a professional identity, a sense of their roles and responsibilities within a community of teachers.

Teaching encompasses a variety of roles and responsibilities that doctoral students may not have the opportunity to experience while in graduate school, but are expected to perform in their first faculty appointment or as a practicing professional outside the academy. When students develop a sense of confidence and excitement about their teaching, it contributes to a richer understanding of the professional identity of an effective teacher.

Summary Description
To date under the CID rubric, WSU's College of Education faculty have examined and developed a core set of research courses and experiences for the Ph.D. students. In a recent college-wide study, faculty, graduate students, and college administrators believe research is the foundation of the Ph.D. degree. It is expected that all Ph.D. students shall have a foundation of ideas, skills & habits of mind that prepare them to conduct high quality and rigorous research. The core courses will provide the foundation of ideas and skills needed to understand, critique, synthesize, conduct, analyze, and explain in light of theory and research literature a wide range of research that is possible in education and its related fields. As such, faculty, graduate students and administrators see doctoral training tied to the research enterprise rather than the traditional teaching, research, & service orientation. While the WSU CID has not directly addressed the preparation of doctoral students as teachers of the discipline, T & L faculty as well as Ed Psych faculty provide teaching opportunities (TA). Additionally, all college TAs are required to enroll in the T&L 527 Seminar in Teacher Education Instruction course each term they teach. International students who are TAs also enroll in a university TA instruction course.

Tools and Resources
All TAs are required to enroll in the T&L 527 Seminar in Teacher Education Instruction course each term they teach. "The seminar addresses teacher preparation program components and rationale, university teaching strategies , and evaluation methods. This central mission will be broadly conceived to include the range of challenges that university instructors... encounter (e.g. mentoring students in the educational community, considering coherency across program components, confronting the relationship between beliefs and practices, and the challenge of linking research and practice).
Educational Psychology doctoral students have the opportunity to TA Ed Psych 401 Classroom Assessment in Elementary Education and Ed Psych 402 classroom Assessment in Secondary Education. An Ed Psych faculty member mentors the TA and serves as the course coordinator, however the graduate student is responsible to the teaching, mentoring, and evaluation of the undergraduates in the course.
Resources:
Center for Teaching & Learning

Goals for Students
1. Valuing classroom teaching
2. Implicit and explicit understanding of the moral climate and presonal and professional ethical conduct
3. Develop course syllabus
4. Classroom management and problem solving skills
5. Understanding diverse learning styles
6. Developing measurable course objectives
7. Developing effective measurement strategies

Program Context
How does it fit with other elements of the doctoral program?
TA positions exist to help fund doctoral study work and help coverage of undergraduate methods and skills type courses. An understanding exists among faculty that most applicants have one or more of the following:
1. Student teaching teaching experience
2. K-12 teaching experience
3. K-12 administrative experience
4. Methods course experiences

How Do We Know?
How do you know students have met your goals?
TAs are evaluated by the students using the Departmental/University evaluation survey.
Students receive feedback from faculty assigned to the course as supervisors.
Students are encouraged to share issues and problems they are having in teaching in the TA seminar.
How do you know if they have not?
Feedback from evaluation surveys -- assessment of open-ended as well as Likert scale responses.
Complaints by course students.

Unanswered Questions
1. How do we address the importance of preparing doctoral students for the academy when faculty believe that the Ph.D. is more about the development of research skills.
2. How do we address the importance of research skill development to doctoral students who value more exclusively teaching?
3. How do we convince our faculty of the value in preparing our doctoral students to be teachers?
4. How do we recruit doctoral students for a life of the mind and teaching in the academy?

Contact Information
Jennifer M. Beller, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Educational Psychology
509-335-4907
Email address
[email protected]