Learning Together What We Do Not Know: The Pedagogy of Multicultural Foundations

Teacher Education Quarterly, Summer 2005 by Whittaker, Andrea, McDonald, Morva, Markowitz, Nancy

I'm struggling with how to get the students to address the culture of power-I might bring in something... on curriculum and instructional planning that draws on students' backgrounds and interests and makes explicit how their home knowledge can be used as a bridge to school knowledge. This might help to make the abstract ideas more concrete. (Instructor multicultural foundations course)

I came into this class thinking... of everyone as the same... treat everyone equal... About halfway through [the course] I start to think about race and [other] issues. Should I think about it in my class? Mid-way through I'm really lost and not sure what to do as a teacher. [Now,] I'm heading toward knowing that race is an issue. (Prospective teacher enrolled in multicultural foundations course)

Comments from the teacher educator and prospective teacher acknowledge the complexity of incorporating issues of equity in teaching and learning to teach. The teacher educator considers the pedagogical decisions that enable prospective teachers to connect concepts with their classroom practices, while the prospective teacher reflects on how her experience related to race intersects with the lived experiences of her students. Their participation in a course on multicultural foundations prompted them to think deeply about a number of issues such as the socio-political contexts of schooling; race and ethnicity; the culture of power; and equitable teaching practices. How does this course provide such opportunities for learning? What is the pedagogy? How does the teacher educator engage in constructing and evaluating that pedagogy? As K-12 students in the United States become more diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and language and the pool of prospective teachers remains primarily white, female, and middle class, answers to these questions become increasingly important to teacher educators and teacher education programs committed to preparing teachers to teach in urban schools with students from diverse backgrounds (Banks, 1995; LadsonBillings, 1999; Zeichner, 1996).

Teacher education programs employ various strategies aimed at providing teachers with the knowledge, habits of mind, and practices necessary to work with increasingly racially and ethnically diverse students. Often, these efforts have centered on the addition of a multicultural foundations course (Banks, 1995; Tom, 1996). Research on multicultural foundations courses focuses on the content and the impact of such courses on teachers 'beliefs and attitudes but provides few insights into the pedagogy of multicultural foundations. This paper examines the pedagogy of one multicultural foundations course, focusing on the instructor's self-assessment of her teaching and the resulting innovative changes in course curriculum.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework is derived from the instructional triangle of students, teacher, and subject matter (Hawkins, 1974). When applied to a teacher education course, the instructional triangle refers to the dynamic interactions between the instructor, prospective teachers, and content. Pedagogy occurs in the interaction between these and refers to the instructional process often initiated by the instructor. Pedagogy includes strategies such as whole and small group instruction, the representations, explanations, and illustrations of the content, as well as course tasks and assignments (Grossman, 1990; Shulman, 1987). The instructor's and prospective teachers' prior experiences and the course content play an important role in the form and utility of the pedagogical process (Engestr�m, 1996; Grossman, Smagorinsky & Valencia, 1999). Each component of the instructional triangle is explained.

Prospective Teachers

Research and theory suggest that prospective teachers' experiences along a number of dimensions frame their participation and learning in teacher education. The authors highlight three types of experience as important to informing the pedagogy of a multicultural foundations course. First, teachers' taken-for-granted notions of teaching and learning based on student experiences provide a frame of reference for how they understand their formal preparation (Kennedy, 1999; Lortie, 1975). Second, prospective teachers' inter-cultural experiences and awareness of broader socio-political conditions informs how they learn about issues of race, class, and culture (Briztman, 1986). Third, the relationships among prospective teachers and the similarities and differences in their conceptions of teaching and students converge in the classroom context. Similar to students in K-12 classrooms, prospective teachers individually and as a group become the context for the pedagogy of any specific course (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993).

Instructor

Pedagogy reflects the knowledge, dispositions, and practices the instructor brings to herteaching. An instructor's teaching and learning experiences, her intercultural experiences, and awareness of broader socio-political contexts shape her conceptualization of and practices within a multicultural foundations course. In addition, her university status (e.g., tenured, tenure track, or adjunct) may inform the content she highlights, the strategies she uses to engage prospective teachers, and the time she has to prepare and adapt the course to the needs of those enrolled. The instructor's content and pedagogical content knowledge also act to inform the course pedagogy and the opportunities afforded to teachers as they learn to teach diverse students. Research substantiates that teachers' content knowledge and their capacity to adapt that content in pedagogically powerful ways is critical to providing students with high quality learning opportunities (e.g., Grossman, 1990). Finally, the instructor's disposition toward inquiry, assessment, and change play an important role in how she adapts the pedagogy to the continuously shifting terrain between herself, the content, and the prospective teachers. Cochran-Smith (2001) suggests that, "inquiry as stance is a process that involves learning to raise new questions, and, at the same time, unlearning long-held assumptions, and beliefs that are often difficult to unroot" (p. 3). This stance supports the instructor to question and reassess her pedagogy, teachers' learning, and the course content.