Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Education

Major Professor

Thomas Turner

Committee Members

Deborah N. Tegano

Abstract

This study explored the influence of beliefs based on personal history that pre-interns brought to their study of teaching. Specifically the researcher was interested in students' beliefs about the concepts of teaching, learning, and curriculum. This analysis represents an effort to look closely at how pre-interns use the knowledge they bring from their lives to decisions about coursework and the value of ideas they hear in teacher education classes.

Interviews were conducted with thirteen students enrolled in the Holistic Teaching/Learning Unit at The University of Tennessee. The students had identified themselves as interested in teaching in the primary grades, but not interested in or engaged in professional preparation to work with special needs classes.

The researcher documented a.) The students' stories about how they came to choose education as a career and how they thought of themselves as teachers, b.) The students' beliefs about the sources of their knowledge about the teacher role and about children's learning, and c.) The students thinking about how those beliefs fit into their learning during participation in teacher education courses and practicums. Students indicated that they had something special that would make them more successful as teachers than other individuals. This was described as a calling or gift to be a teacher. Additionally, the students believed that this gift was enough to allow them to be successful in teaching. Most of their beliefs developed from their own experiences as students, by acting in a teaching role at some point in their lives, and from building on the expressed views of others about their "natural" abilities.

Recommendations were made about using more reflective teaching methods, specifically debriefing, after students experience content in courses and within field experiences. The researcher concluded that teacher education faculty should make reflection a focus on students implicit beliefs a part of courses. Students would review what they have learned and identify when they learned information about teaching. This should strengthen their understanding of their own developing philosophies and allow them to tie the beliefs to the greater literature on teaching.

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