Teacher Efficacy Narratives as a Curricular Component for Preservice Teachers.

Veteran Teacher Efficacy Narratives as a Curricular Component for Student Teaching Seminars Teacher efficacy is a self-construction involving teacher's beliefs and perceptions of 'I can make a difference and I know how'. Class discussions using six narratives collected from veteran special education teachers served as a curricular component for a student teaching seminar to 'talk' about teacher efficacy for students with disabilities. A reference group of other professionals, parents and students framed the narratives around five bottom-line teacher efficacy objectives. The narrative activity was presented to 18 student teachers in Fall, 2000. Seven patterns emerged: (1) the narratives confirmed 'real' classroom experience; (2) aspects of some special educator tasks were crystalized; (3) a 'community of learners' grappled with the narrative dilemmas; (4) certain special educator role dimensions were influenced by age and experiences; (5) philosophies, pronouns and certain understandings seemed to change; (6) talk about 'hard' efficacy problems led to questioning solutions; and (7) new bottom-line objectives of teacher efficacy emerged. The narratives are seen as a valuable method as curricular component because they: (1) provided an opportunity to present hard to 'capture' ideas; (2) supported the Bandura (1997) template for the sources of self-efficacy; (3) served as a 'textbook' for and by practitioners. Finally, the narratives stimulated teacher efficacy 'talk' and possibly the student teachers unpacked some of their beliefs and perceptions about the role of the special educator. 1 Vinni M. Hall Teacher Efficacy Narratives as Curricular Component Objectives/Rationale This study proposed a curriculum design for special education teacher preparation that sought to develop beliefs and stimulate thinking around a construct of teacher efficacy. Belief systems and teachers' lay theories, etc. are a foundation of teacher practice. They have an influence on their professional role and either explicitly or implicitly guide teacher behaviors. The connection between what a teacher does and what students learn and are able to do emerges as a manifestation of the teachers' belief systems. Special educators face unique teacher efficacy issues because student performance and success do not necessarily parallel their own experiences as students. Moreover, historical discrimination against students with disabilities, frequent violations of children's special education rights, unresponsive and inflexible bureaucracies, the inability of some families to function as their children's advocate and bleak post-school adjustment outcomes for special education graduates point to the need for the special educator to have strong beliefs that 'I can make difference' and 'I know how to'. Any teacher preparation program must enable its teacher candidates to be active agents of their practice and not 'received knowers' (Belenkey, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule, 1986). Teachers not only dispense knowledge but they also must construct knowledge. Chin (1997) says: As I reflect upon the core beliefs that I have about what I stand for as a teacher educator, it becomes clear that I advocate the importance of articulating, critiquing, and 4 2 understanding one's beliefs about teaching and learning. Those beliefs serve as the foundation that informs practices as a teacher designs curriculum for students. Finally, the importance of establishing frameworks for understanding so that one can monitor the effectiveness of one's own teaching leads to an iterative process of professional development and improvement of one's teaching (p.129). Teacher education programs cannot be responsible for the beliefs that teacher candidates bring with them, but there is an expectation programs will bring about change (learning) through reasoning. Special education preservice teachers are not without self-constructions of how to organize, how to decide what is good teaching and who is teachable based on years of experiences as students. However, having a clear notion of `self as an efficacious teacher for students with disabilities is unlikely. Teacher efficacy may be vaguely defined for teachers of `regular' students but such a definition is unlikely for children with academic, behavior or physical differences. Teaching special education students is a complex task involving the development of strong relationships between teacher and student, making moral judgements about what is appropriate to teach and, not least, how to deal with new specific situations (discipline, parental communication, learning styles). There are few opportunities in teacher preparation programs for teacher candidates to consider how, why, when and what they believe or know about educating students with disabilities. Theoretical Framework Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory, from which the construct of self-efficacy is derived, suggests that people will pursue activities and situations in which they feel competent and 3 avoid situations in which they feel they may not be able to perform successfully. Bandura (1986) makes the distinction between judgement of personal competence to engage in a behavior and "judgements of the likely consequences that behavior will produce" (Bandura, 1986, p.391). The consequences are the outcomes of a performance not the performance itself. Teachers' beliefs in their efficacy affect their general orientation toward the educational process as well as their specific instructional activities. Those who have a low sense of instructional efficacy favor a custodial orientation that takes a pessimistic view of students' motivation, emphasizes control of classroom behavior through strict regulations, and relies on extrinsic inducements and negative sanctions to get students to study (Woolkfolk & Hoy, 1990). Melby (1995) finds that teachers with a low sense of efficacy are mired in classroom problems. They distrust their ability to manage their classrooms; are stressed and angered by students' improvability; take a custodial view of their job; resort to restrictive and punitive modes of discipline; focus more on the subject matter than on students' development; and, if they had to do it all over again, would not choose the teaching profession ( Bandura, 1997, p.241). According to Bandura (1986), the sources of self-efficacy are: (1) enactive mastery: a selfjudgement that a purposive performance was highly successful; (2) vicarious experiences: a selfjudgement that others' actions (either modeled or compared) are personally possible; (3) verbal persuasion: a self-judgment that words from 'important' persons or books can motivate and reinforce the sense of personal success; and (4) physical arousal: a self-judgement of how one feels (one's gut reaction) that validates the strength of the effective self. Guskey and Passaro (1994) modified Gibson and Dembo's (1984) Teacher Efficacy Scale 4 to create a construct that separates internal ("I can"; "teachers can") and external ("I can't", "teachers can't") dimensions of teacher efficacy. The internal and external distinction identified in this study more accurately represents teachers' perceptions of the strength of different and independent factors. The internal factor appears to represent perceptions of personal influence, power, and impact in teaching and learning situations.The external factor, on the other hand, relates to perceptions of the influence, power and impact of elements that lie outside the classroom, hence, may be beyond direct control of individual teachers. (p. 639). The internal and external dimensions of the teachers' sense of efficacy are very important for special education teachers thus, teacher decisions while working with students who are eligible for special education services may include dealing with possible contentious complications such as: off-task behavior; time lost between activities; poor self-image because the student may not see himself as 'normal' and frequent interventions for behavior problems. Advocacy seems to be tangential to special education. Advocacy must be a disposition to be responsible and possess an attitude of steadfast watchfulness to ensure the receptivity and responsiveness of the educational system (Herbert & Mould, 1992). The special education teacher must understand that a parent and/or student may need a spokesperson; view teaching as a `call'(Hansen, 1995); believe they can make a difference in the life of a student with disabilities and among other ideas; have the skills required to motivate others to advocate for that same student (Stoecklin, 1994). The special educator must serve the child, a task which may or may not be compatible with the school district or local school administration. 5 Study Design (1) Using veteran teachers' stories in the preservice experience exploited the notion that preservice teachers have to think about what they think and/or what the narrator may be doing in a particular 'authentic' physical and social context. Narratives from veteran special educators containing decision dilemmas and revolving around a specific efficacy objective attempted to develop and clarify the preservice educators' belief and perception systems toward greater teacher efficacy. Instead of a definitiveness of answers and fixes, the focus would be on possibilities, methods of reasoning, alternative conjectures, and supporting evidence and arguments. It could legitimate and invest authority in a stance of deliberative uncertainty in and about practice. (Ball and Cohen, 1999, p. 17). (2) Discussion of the narratives as a group process was designed to prod the preservice teacher deal with others in the community with their attitudes and interests and distribute a kind of collective 'intelligence' to understand their role as a special educator. The questions examined were: 1. What are the dimensions of efficacy as experienced by special education veteran teachers?