Integrating Graduate Coursework to Prepare Alternatively Certified Teachers

In this article, we describe our innovative work as teacher educators to integrate ccursework for alternatively certified teachers. Rather than maintain boundaries among individual courses for new elementary teachers, explicit connections support first-year teachers' professional learning and aid in the immediate application to classroom practice. Ccurse integration included backward planning with shared goals, the combination of key topics and content, and the inccrporation of common assignments and related classroom tasks. The inncvaticn reflects the function of ccllabcraticn in higher education, where teacher educators work together to improve the professional learning and performance cf classroom teachers. i Aspiring teachers have two general paths to join the profession and center the classroom. Traditional paths of teacher preparation take place at the university and require an individual to be enrolled for 2 to 4 years in an undergraduate or graduate degree program. Alternative patbs to teacher certification occur in various contexts (e.g., online, universities) typically afrer an individual has completed a non-education-related bachelor's degree. Juxtaposed with the traditional path and the prototypical imdergraduate teacher candidate, alternative certification programs aim to attract individuals from various ages, careers, and areas of expertise. In the United States, alternative certification programs developed to address teacher shortages in urban areas (Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001) but bave expanded to create a large pipeline of teachers in regions across the nation. Whereas only 6,000 alternatively certified (AC) teachers were employed in U.S. classrooms in 1998, 60,000 were employed in 2005, increasing at a rate of 20% each year (Feistritzer, 2007). The debate on tbe best approach to teacher preparation is currently on center stage in educational policy. Many stakeholders in education espouse strong positions regarding alternative certification. Proponents argue that alternative paths provide a supply of high-caliber teachers from diverse ranges of experience to meet the demand and raise student academic achievement in low-income schools (Decker, Mayer, & Glazerman, 2004; Raymond, Fletcher, & Luque, 2001). Opponents assert that AC teachers have less impact on student achievement than do traditionally 496 Teacher Education and Practice, Vol 26, No. 3 / Summer 2013 Integrating Graduate Coursework 497 cerdfied teachers (Darling-Hammond, Chung, & Frelow, 2002; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner, 2002). Before becoming a teacher, some alternate programs, such as Teach for America (TFA), provide only a brief preparadon period (e.g., 5-week training) with Hmited chnical experiences and opportunides to learn content and pedagogy (Berry, Montgomery, & Snyder, 2008). Because teachers simultaneously learn to teach while teaching children (Humphrey, Wechsler, & Hough, 2008), opponents purport decreased teacher effecdveness. In the strategic posidon to bridge the two sides, teacher educadon programs can parmer with alternate path organizadons to address the teacher preparation gap (Gaiber, 2009) that exists between tradidonally cerdfied and AC teachers. This árdele oudines one innovadve approach to preparing AC teachers, through integrated university coursework undertaken with first-year elementary teachers. We served as both instructors and classroom supervisors in a university teacher educadon program geared toward AC teachers. Recognizing that AC teacher development is affected by the interacdon of the program and the school context (Humphrey et al., 2008), we aimed to make explicit connecdons between teachers' university coursework and classroom pracdce. As we taught coursework for the same cohorts of teachers, the purposeful integradon of coursework on literacy and English language learners (FLLs) maximized the learning of first-year teachers. We define course integration as the purposeful connections among content, assignments, and classroom practice, with the goal of allowing teachers to immediately improve their pracdce with diverse students. We begin by describing the graduate program at Arizona State University (ASU) and related literature on AC teacher preparadon. We then share our acdon research methods and findings related to our ongoing work to integrate coursework and classroom pracdce. Graduate Teacher Preparation for AC Teachers Historically providing tradidonal paths to cerdficadon, ASU responded to teacher shortages by developing the Inducdon, Masters, and Cerdficadon (InMac) program to prepare and support AC teachers. TFA Phoenix and the Arizona Teaching Fellows sought out a partnership with ASU to provide teachers with necessary coursework to maintain credendaling with the Arizona Department of Fducadon. TFA is a nadonal organizadon that recruits college graduates to fill teaching posidons in low-socioeconomic areas (TFA, 2011). The Teaching Fellows program recruits high-performing individuals from other career paths to teach in low-income schools. Unlike TFA, which requires only a 2-year teaching commitment, teachers in this program typically wish to change careers to work in educadon for the long term (New Teacher Project, 2011). Through the partnership with TFA Phoenix and Arizona Teaching Fellows, tradidonal and alternadve paths merged to share the responsibility to prepare new classroom teachers. 498 AMY J. HEINEKE AND DEBORAH PREACH AC teachers face numerous challenges. Because most enter the classroom with an undergraduate degree in a field outside educadon, they typically have no formal teacher preparadon or classroom experience. With minimal preparadon during the summer preceding their first year of teaching, these teachers enter the classroom less prepared than their peers who went through a 2or 4-year teacher preparadon program (Heihg & Jez, 2010). With less prior knowledge relatecl to teaching, they tend to struggle in the applicadon of knowledge learned in trainings and coursework, which uldmately affects their effecdveness in the classroom Joyce & Showers, 1982). Similar to other first-year teachers, AC teachers ofren feel unprepared to fulfill their many teaching responsibilides (e.g., lesson planning, grading papers) and become overwhelmed with stress, bumout, and isoladon (Schlechte, Yssel, & Merbler, 2005). In addidon to these challenges of being a new teacher, AC teachers need to complete coursework for cerdficadon while fulfilling requirements from schools, districts, and programs. To meet the imique professional learning needs of AC teachers, ASU leaders charged faculty members to design innovadve coursework and supervision. Alternadve programs have been cridcized for not considering the unique situadons and demanding schedules of first-year teachers when planning coursework (Rochkind, Ott, Immerwahr, Doble, & Johnson, 2007). Research in graduate and alternadve teacher preparadon at the university level has demonstrated the need for courses that are interconnected (Shosh & Zales, 2007) and apphcable to classroom pracdce (Humphrey et al., 2008). The program at ASU aimed to udlize the latest educadonal research to create a rigorous program that was embedded in classrooms and responsive to teachers. Paramount to the InMac program model, full-dme faculty clinical instructors with pracdcal experience and theoredcal experdse in high-need classroom setdngs provide teachers with individualized support in university coursework and in classrooms. Weaving theory and pracdce, the program model attempts to support teachers in connecdng their professional coursework to their classroom instmcdon (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Levine, 2006). Method: Action Research to Enhance Integration As refiecdve pracddoners committed to conducdng acdon research (Elliott, 1991), we consistendy collected and analyzed data to evaluate and inform our pracdce to maximize teacher learning. In our second and third years of course integradon, we invited teachers' voluntary participadon in our acdon research related to course integradon. Approximately 150 graduate students and AC teachers gave informed consent for data collecdon and analysis in six ASU course secdons in Phoenix, Arizona. We maintained documentadon and anecdotal data of teachers' oral and written discourse in class discussions Integrating Graduate Coursework 499 and assignments and teachers' actions with their students in the elementary classroom. Teachers provided formative and summative feedback through reflections, exit tickets, and surveys specific to course integration and the formal course evaluations given by the university. In this section, we outline each data source and describe how we utilized the data in our ongoing action research cycle. We collected qualitative data during class sessions to conceptualize the degree and depth of understanding of course objectives and topics. Eollowing each class session, we independently reviewed our anecdotal notes, examined assignments and artifacts (e.g., student-designed posters from small group discussions, reflective guides following hterature discussions), and reflected through written memos. When we met to plan subsequent courses, we analyzed our notes to gauge the progress of teacher learning in accordance with the larger shared goal of preparing teachers to support students' language and literacy development. We highlighted gains and gaps in teacher learning to recognize where we needed to focus our future instruction and supervision. To collect additional formative and summative data to further our practice, we gave targeted surveys that focused on course integration at the close of each weekly session and at the end of the semester. Aiming for transparency with the young educators, we shared the goals and purposes of course integration and asked the teachers to complete these short surveys in electronic format on a Google form. Referred to as an exit ticket to check for understanding at t