Papers by Stephanie Behm Cross
The New Educator
This conceptual paper and program description explores a teacher residency’s ecologies of support... more This conceptual paper and program description explores a teacher residency’s ecologies of support aimed at helping teachers navigate our precarious times. We explore the conceptual inquiry: How can a teacher residency support teacher retention by mobilizing ecologies of support to insulate against issues of exploitation, moral injury, and pushout? In this paper, we share dream guides from the literature and program structures from our teacher residency model which focuses on Black educators as they make up the largest percentage of teachers within our residency. This is significant as schools, districts, and teacher education programs have difficulty recruiting and keeping Black educators (Farinde-Wu et al., 2020). As schools become increasingly diverse, so too should our teaching force, but this is a tall task with teacher retention at an all-time low (Love, 2019). This paper offers dream guides, paths to possible futures of more just teacher education and outcomes for teachers, students, and communities. Premised on the knowledge that our program retains Black teachers at 96%, which far exceeds local comparisons or national averages, we theorize these retention results are influenced by our residency model’s focus on centering Black genius and joy, prioritizing shared learning, critical mentorship and teacher leadership.
Supplemental material, 737306 for Reframing for Social Justice: The Influence of Critical Friends... more Supplemental material, 737306 for Reframing for Social Justice: The Influence of Critical Friendship Groups on Preservice Teachers' Reflective Practice by Nadia Behizadeh, Clarice Thomas and Stephanie Behm Cross in Journal of Teacher Education
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2016
This paper describes two researchers engagement with two teachers as they taught a middle grades ... more This paper describes two researchers engagement with two teachers as they taught a middle grades mathematics course, Current Events Math, in a large urban school district. The researchers share bits of data and their ethical entanglements as they entered into the site to find the truth about what works in middle grades mathematics classrooms only to realize that truth cannot be found through research. They then grappled with the question of the purpose of research and their roles as researchers in the school and the academy.
Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, 2017
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2018
This article explores the intersection of selves and policies for teacher educators in an era of ... more This article explores the intersection of selves and policies for teacher educators in an era of teacher education reform. Borne out of a promise to one another to write about our experiences navigating increasingly complex market-driven, neoliberal attacks on our work and world, we collected data across several years that documented our attempt to break our silence (Lorde, 1977) and explore how we, as teacher educators, make sense of neoliberal reforms and policies in teacher preparation. We draw specifically on Dunn’s theory of the Hydra of Teacher Education (2016), alongside literature on reforms and policies in teacher preparation and teacher educators’ forms of resistance to frame our work, and utilize arts-based poetic inquiry methodology (Prendergast, 2009; Rath, 2001) to explore the real, everyday implications of educational policy in our lives and in our careers. The poems we created as a “performative act” (Prendergast, 2009, p. xxiii) revealed that our experiences seemed ...
Action in Teacher Education, 2005
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2018
Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) provided a commentary on the manuscr... more Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) provided a commentary on the manuscripts in the first part of this special issue, which highlighted the benefits of edTPA and the necessity for such assessment programs to improve teacher education and strengthen teaching practices. In turn, the authors responded to the SCALE commentary. The authors’ responses raise concerns about equity, fairness, and unintended consequences of teacher performance assessments. These responses highlight the need for continued dialogue on ways to improve teacher education and strengthen the teaching profession.
Peabody Journal of Education, 2021
Urban teacher residencies and university-district partnerships are growing in popularity in the U... more Urban teacher residencies and university-district partnerships are growing in popularity in the United States and are vital for the clinical practice of preservice teachers. Because urban residencies and university-district partnerships are situated in historically marginalized communities, they strive to prepare teachers with a mind and skill set oriented toward social justice. The Georgia State CREATE Residency strives to prepare critically conscious and skilled educators for Atlanta. Here, we analyze how stakeholders representing the university, residency administrative team, and K–12 partner school and district leaders collaborated to learn from and design a responsive teacher residency. By comparing findings to AACTE’s recently published 10 essential proclamations of high-quality clinical practice, we argue that administrative learning spaces must exist to surface cultural and historical understanding of where residencies and partnerships are located in order to work toward tra...
Recommended Citation Cross, S. B., & Cannon, S. O. (2015). “You don’t ask Paul Simon to do a duet... more Recommended Citation Cross, S. B., & Cannon, S. O. (2015). “You don’t ask Paul Simon to do a duet with Nickelback”: Examining mathematics teacher collaboration. In T. G. Bartell, K. N. Bieda, R. T. Putnam, K. Bradfield, & H. Dominguez (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 1102–1105). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.
Teacher Education Quarterly, 2014
The Double Entry Journals were probably of the most benefit to me. I hate writing journals but th... more The Double Entry Journals were probably of the most benefit to me. I hate writing journals but these were not your typical journals and I was able to organize my thoughts with what I was seeing [in the field] and reading. This was the best journaling technique I've ever used.--Julie Students are slowly gathering their books and handing in their final course evaluations for our 3-credit hour mathematics methods course for pre-service middle level mathematics teachers. We are reading Julie's and other students ' final course evaluations and are happy to see positive comments related to our Theory-into-Practice (TIP) project. We designed this project to address our students' expressed frustrations at the perceived disconnect between theory and practice. The project combined course readings, journaling, collaboratively created observation protocols, and classroom observation into a semester-long iterative assignment. Our students' work on this project, and the result...
Over 30 years ago, Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann (1985) wrote about “pitfalls of experience” in teac... more Over 30 years ago, Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann (1985) wrote about “pitfalls of experience” in teacher education. In the current study, I share vignettes of three student teachers engaged in an urban teacher preparation program to highlight how these pitfalls are still operating—and are arguably even more problematic— as we prepare teachers to work with minoritized youth. I add additional detail to the familiarity pitfall and also suggest the existence of a new standardization pitfall. I end with cautions for teacher educators and a call for reimagined student teaching experiences as we consider these and other pitfalls in the preparation of teachers for urban settings.
It has been a year since Sarah (1) and Brian traveled to Malmo, Sweden, as part of a fellowship t... more It has been a year since Sarah (1) and Brian traveled to Malmo, Sweden, as part of a fellowship through their U.S. teacher preparation program. Their experience was unique and life changing, not only because it occurred in another country but because they completed their student teaching in a paired format. They planned and implemented all of their lessons together, worked with the same mentor teacher, and jointly posed and solved problems in the classroom. Their experience of paired student teaching abroad is the subject of this study. Research has shown the positive benefits of completing student teaching abroad (Bradfield-Kreider, 1999; Casale-Briannola, 2005; Cushner & Mahon, 2002; Germain, 1998; Mahon & Stachowski, 1990; Marx & Moss, 2011; Zeichner & Melnick, 1996), including increased cultural sensitivity and competence (Fung King Lee, 2011; Mahon & Cushner, 2002; Phillion & Malewski, 2011), confidence (Cruickshank & Westbrook, 2013; Vall & Tennison, 1992), and global awarenes...
Journal of Teacher Education
Studies on student teaching continue to suggest that preservice teachers’ feelings of dissonance ... more Studies on student teaching continue to suggest that preservice teachers’ feelings of dissonance are related to disparate views of teaching and learning between universities and schools. Drawing on interview, artifact, and observation data, the authors utilize Cognitive Dissonance and Critical Whiteness Studies to make different sense of the experiences of one White student teacher (Brett). Results indicate that Brett experienced dissonance related to fractured relationships, misaligned teaching strategies, and disengagement as he taught youth of color. Importantly, the use of Critical Whiteness Studies helped to additionally reveal the way Whiteness affected Brett’s movements toward consonance—mainly through rationalization and problematic notions of perseverance. The authors suggest that Whiteness itself is a dissonant state, and argue that conversations focused on dissonance from misaligned university theory and K-12 schooling practices is dangerously incomplete. Implications for...
The Teacher Educator
ABSTRACT Drawing on a teacher concerns framework, alongside notions of critical consciousness, th... more ABSTRACT Drawing on a teacher concerns framework, alongside notions of critical consciousness, this article examines the extent to which teacher candidates' (TCs') concerns are related in any way to the critical scholarship they have engaged with throughout their teacher education coursework. Utilizing teacher candidates' written dilemmas of practice during student teaching as the primary data source, the authors utilize consensual qualitative research for data analysis and share results within and across concern categories as related to notions of critical consciousness and dysconsciousness (King, 1991). Results indicate that TCs' posted self concerns lacked a critical inward journey; that TCs were more likely to be critically conscious regarding their own positionality in schools, yet overwhelmingly dysconscious when talking about students and families; and that large percentages of dysconscious task concerns seem related to TCs' lack of critically conscious posts about self. The authors suggest the importance of more focused mentorship and assignments aimed at asking questions designed to promote critically conscious ways of being in classrooms, and similarly suggest the importance of considering notions of critical consciousness in concerns-based studies moving forward. The authors end with a note of caution on the movement toward “core practices” in teacher preparation and instead suggest the importance of programming that focuses on uncovering and eradicating dysconsciousness among TCs working with historically marginalized youth.
Journal of Teacher Education
A primary goal of teacher preparation programs should be to develop the reflective and critical p... more A primary goal of teacher preparation programs should be to develop the reflective and critical problem-solving capacities of preservice teachers, especially social justice–oriented programs that prepare teachers to work in urban schools with historically underserved youth. Through an analysis of participants’ biweekly posts to discussion boards, this qualitative case study examines common dilemmas for a group of 11 racially diverse undergraduate preservice middle school teachers and descriptions of their process during Critical Friendship Group protocols. Results reveal that most dilemmas revolved around relationships with others, curriculum and instruction, and perceived deficiencies of students. However, through the process of engaging in reflective conversations supported by classroom activities, some participants reenvisioned the initial dilemma, such as reframing deficiency views as pedagogical or relationship issues. In addition, all participants articulated benefits of the C...
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Papers by Stephanie Behm Cross