The Benefits of Providing Choice in Pre Service Teacher Education

Traditionally, teacher educators provide structured lectures for their pre service teachers to impart knowledge of what will be encountered in the field once they begin teaching in schools. However, in this paper, two reading professors who are proponents of constructivist teaching, decide to provide choice in their seminars. Allowing choices provided an opportunity for students to encourage motivation, maximize performance, help increase independence and selfmanagement skills and provide a feeling of control with their learning situation. Choices are evident in both informal and formal assignments throughout the semester. Pre service teachers who were able to share new knowledge in their self-selected forms, were able to show more critical thinking in their responses. Choice is at the heart of almost everything we do. Choosing what to wear, what to eat, and what to buy, or what to listen to on the radio is usually part of everyday life. We equate having choices with having control (Weinschenk, 2010). Making choices starts very early in life; a toddler chooses which toy to play with, a child chooses which playground equipment he wants to play on. In elementary schools we encourage student choice. Allowing students [K-12] some control over their learning and assignments encourages motivation, maximize performance, helps develop independence and self-management skills (Burden & Byrd, 2016; Gottfried, 1985, 1990). Patall, Cooper and Wynn (2010) also studied the positive effects of allowing choice in selecting high school assignments. However, this ability to choose tends to disappear in college. A college student has some choice over which course to take and with whom to take as an instructor. However, a college student generally does not have a choice of assignments. Weimer in her book (2002) revels that most college professors are very teacher centered. Weimer explains that professors make the assignments, construct the way to grade the assignments, and determine how the assignment achieves the learning objective. There is no thought to student motivation, commitment, creativity, or options. Lasley, Fulton & Schweitzer (2011) have also talked about giving choice. 1 Morton and Stryker: Providing Choice in Pre Service Teacher Education Published by New Prairie Press, 2019 They advocate choice in assignments which they say is not a common practice in university level courses. They contend that the reason many college level professors hesitate to provide choice in assignments is because: Providing students with a choice of homework assignments may offer some qualitative increase in student enjoyment of the course by allowing them to feel like they have some control of their destiny. However, the cost of providing that flexibility is that students may not receive the same level of learning experience. As a result, their overall performance, and grade can be affected. (Lasley, Fulton, & Schweitzer, 2011, p. 11) The lack of quantitative research indicates that having a choice over assignments is seldom seen, however it is our goal to determine if allowing choice is beneficial. The option of allowing choice in the undergraduate course is an example of a constructivist paradigm (Milbrandt, Felts, Richards, and Abghari, 2004). The use of constructivist paradigm in undergraduate courses has been found to be effective (Korthagen & Kessels, 1999; Oldfather, Bonds, & Bray, 1994), so Tami and Aggie were curious to determine if allowing choice of assignments provides a benefit to the teacher education curriculum. Both authors are instructors teaching education classes at a midsize university in central Texas. They posed the question: Would giving a choice in assignments, or the method of approaching an assignment, encourage motivation, maximize performance, help increase independence and selfmanagement skills and provide a feeling of control with their learning situation? They decided to engage in an action research study to help them answer these inquiries (Mertler, 2009).