Social foundations approach to educational psychology: Basis for educating the critical reflective educator

Educational Foundations, Spring 2001 by Tutwiler, Sandra Winn

Field Experiences as a Process of Immersion

Field experiences are essential components of teacher education programs, and are viewed as most effective when attached to knowledge-based courses in university classrooms. According to foundation standards, field experiences compliment foundations content by providing preservice teachers opportunities to observe and interpret educational practice and policy. While enrolled in my educational psychology course, preservice teachers were encouraged to enroll concurrently in the social foundations course that required thirty hours of field experience. All field experiences associated with this teacher education program took place in urban schools with highly diverse student populations. In this way, perservice teachers enrolled in the program had an immersion experience in urban schools throughout the average two year period required to complete program requirements.

The cultural heterogeneity of urban schools makes them particularly valuable placements for preservice teachers to develop sensibilities that allow them to address diversity in school settings, however it may appear. Despite her belief in the need to prepare teachers specifically for urban settings, Weiner (1993) concurs with Cuban(1970) that skills and knowledge acquired in a teaching model for urban schools can be effective for suburban schools, although the reverse is not true. She suggests that teachers who respect student differences and realize the need to teach students as individuals have little difficulty transferring these skills to non-urban settings. The conceptualization of effective teaching emerging from teacher education curriculum standards (e.g., INTASC), accreditation standards (e.g., NCATE 2000 Proposed Standards) and teacher reform imperatives (What Matters Most: Teaching and America's Future), collectively suggest that knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to teach in urban settings closely mirror those required of effective teachers in any teaching context (e.g., focus on multiple ways that students learn, attention to the impact of families and communities on students' learning, focus on prior knowledge students bring to the classroom, creating inclusive classrooms, etc.).

The field experience component served two highly related purposes in support of teaching educational psychology from a social foundations approach. First, preservice teachers were able to build upon observational, interpretive and critical analysis skills initiated in social foundations courses. Using writing exercises described earlier, preservice teachers were directed to make meaning of and interpret their observations through various theoretical lenses. For example, they would be asked to provide an example of motivational strategies used in their field experience classroom. They were then asked to place the strategies within a theoretical framework, and lastly, they were asked to observe the effectiveness of motivational strategies used in the classroom.