A Case Study of the Approach to Teaching and to Technology of Three New Teachers in an Alternative Teacher Certification Program

Abstract

The Master of Arts in Teaching program at Empire State College, a new alternative teacher certification program focused on bringing career-changing adults to high-needs schools, provides a unique opportunity to understand the challenges facing new teachers, in their content area and in their use of technology. This article describes aspects of three new science teachers' graduate course work that aligned with their first semester as alternatively-certified teachers, examining their teaching practice, their general use of instructional technology, and their self-chosen technology project (in response to a course requirement). It attempts to determine what aspects of their backgrounds, circumstances, and approaches might be influencing their instruction and their use of instructional technology including their implicit epistemological beliefs, their expectations of students, their ways of interacting socially-professionally, their prior professional experiences, their knowledge of technology, the availability of technology, and the availability and type of collegial support. An emerging conceptual framework is proposed. It also considers how this clinical model of teacher education with the direct K12-classroom involvement of graduate instructors, the building of a collegial cohort, and its hybrid course design coupled with this particular instructor's educational philosophy (that supports trust-building, self-reporting and self-reflection) has enabled a rich and honest understanding of these new teachers' beliefs, which is a starting point for any fruitful analysis. It calls tor a deeper and more expansive study to determine if findings from this preliminary investigation could be generalized to the larger population of career-changing teachers and to new teachers in general. Considering the well-documented need to close the gap between teacher education and classroom practice, the ability to closely examine new teachers in their actual practice (as naturally afforded to instructors in a clinical model of teacher education) suggests that studies directly within this type of MAT program can provide insights for teacher education practice itself.