This study contributes to a body of research exploring sets of learning experiences for developin... more This study contributes to a body of research exploring sets of learning experiences for developing global competencies among middle childhood social studies teacher candidates. This multi-year study examines data related to teacher candidates' global knowledge, skills, and dispositions using a convergent parallel mixed methods design. Findings demonstrate that participation in a globally focused middle childhood social studies methods course develops global knowledge and dispositions but does not adequately empower candidates with global teaching skills.
Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 2023
Social studies teacher candidates will be expected to teach or integrate economics content in the... more Social studies teacher candidates will be expected to teach or integrate economics content in their classrooms, yet there is a dearth of research on social studies teacher candidates' preparation to teach economics. This convergent mixed methods study developed an understanding of secondary social studies teacher candidates' economic pedagogical content knowledge. Data were analyzed from teacher candidates' (n=22) participation in a card sort activity and think-aloud, semistructured interview, and/or the Test of Economic Literacy at a midsized Midwestern university. The findings indicated that secondary social studies teacher candidates have nascent economic pedagogical content knowledge and need support to foster its development. Findings also revealed that many candidates have anxiety when engaging in economics that stems from an underlying math anxiety. Key implications for social studies teacher preparation are detailed, including explicitly working with candidates to develop their economic literacy and economic reasoning, and better supporting candidates during their required economics coursework.
Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 2016
This manuscript presents findings and implications from a larger case study of one global educato... more This manuscript presents findings and implications from a larger case study of one global educator's attempt to develop globally competent teacher candidates in an elective teacher training course. Global Citizenship Education served as the framing paradigm for the course and human experiences of immigrants and refugees served as the milieu for teacher candidates to learn critical inquiry. Teacher candidates also participated in several cross-cultural experiential learning opportunities designed to facilitate the development of global competencies in teacher candidates. Students' reflective journals were analyzed determine the personal significance of different learning experiences and the extent to which teacher candidates perceptions of immigrants and refugees changed as a result of the course content and activities and demonstrate the potential of critical inquiry and cross-cultural experiential learning as transformative teaching practices.
With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from d... more With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from different countries is a reality. Beginning in 2018, two teacher education programs, one in the United States and one in Brazil, developed a partnership to promote collaborative activities in curriculum and instruction, scholarship and research, and for student and faculty exchange. Critical pedagogy and social justice approaches to global citizenship education in teacher preparation guided the partnership’s collaborative activities toward the development of pre-service teachers’ global competencies and ability to integrate technologies as users and educators. This empirical research article presents an exploratory case study of a transnational, collaborative curricular project that leveraged technology in courses for pre-service teachers in the United States (n=12) and Brazil (n=10). The study explores the extent to which course content and activities facilitated pre-service teachers’ de...
This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a s... more This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a supplement to the democratic experiential history project described by Lempert. The intent of the project is ambitious and worthwhile; however, without emphasis on the critical process of sense-making through discussion, reflection, and collaborative knowledge construction, the project falls short of its potential impact. I offer suggestions and recommendations for practitioners who might consider enacting such a project.
This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a s... more This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a sup-plement to the democratic experiential history project described by Lempert. The intent of the project is ambitious and worthwhile; however, without emphasis on the critical process of sense-making through discussion, reflection, and collaborative knowledge construction, the project falls short of its potential impact. I offer suggestions and recommendations for practitioners who might consider enacting such a project. This article is a response to:
Handbook of Research on Field-Based Teacher Education
One of the challenges of field-based teacher education is the perennial divide between university... more One of the challenges of field-based teacher education is the perennial divide between university courses and field experiences. Collaborative mentoring is proposed as an approach to bridge this divide. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the affordances that a content-specific model of collaborative mentoring provides for achieving greater coherence within teacher education programs and nurturing stronger systems of partnerships between universities and schools. The chapter reports on research examining the benefits and challenges reported by teacher candidates, mentor teachers, and clinical educators who participated in the model.
With the recent emphasis on clinical models of teacher education, research is needed to improve u... more With the recent emphasis on clinical models of teacher education, research is needed to improve understanding of how teacher candidates learn from clinical practice. The purpose of this study is to explore the types of learning spaces generated during mentoring discussions focused on analysis of video-recorded practice. Participants consist of the members of six dyads, each comprising a teacher candidate and clinical educator. Findings describe the focus of interactions, talk moves, and patterns of engagement that facilitated the creation of a dialogic mentoring space. Implications for supporting learning from clinical practice are provided.
Writing is a powerful and transformative act. There is great potential for social studies educato... more Writing is a powerful and transformative act. There is great potential for social studies educators to improve the quality of instruction and writing opportunities offered to young people. Presented in this paper are the discoveries of a two-year reflective inquiry between a social studies teacher educator and a writing specialist who endeavored to support and develop competence among social studies practitioners who struggled to teach writing. Yearlong high school and middle school professional development programs with practicing teachers and university-level academic courses with teacher candidates serve as the contexts that inspired this inquiry. Resulting from this work, the authors share: 1) evidence-based principles to change writing beliefs and empower social studies teachers to teach writing more effectively; and, 2) a tool created for and used with practitioners to design narrative, expository, argumentative, and inquiry writing opportunities for inclusive social studies c...
An emerging imperative for teacher preparation programs is the development of globally competent ... more An emerging imperative for teacher preparation programs is the development of globally competent teacher candidates. Employing a convergent parallel mixed methods design, the researchers analyzed data from Asia Society’s Global Competencies (2008) survey, critical reflection journals, course assignments, and field notes of 124 undergraduate teacher candidates enrolled in two teacher preparation courses during three academic years. Findings demonstrate candidates’ perceptions of learning experiences and the extent to which the experiences contributed to the development of global competencies. For educators, the study provides examples of cross-cultural experiential learning that contribute to the development of globally competent teacher candidates.
This manuscript presents findings and implications from multiple case study of how teacher candid... more This manuscript presents findings and implications from multiple case study of how teacher candidates in secondary and middle childhood programs learn specialized knowledge, skills, and expertise from disciplinary experts in content courses and enact practices of disciplinary literacy in field placements. An expert-novice framework was employed to explore the pedagogical content knowledge of experts (professors of economics and history) and novices (middle childhood and secondary social studies teacher candidates) who taught history and economics during their clinical internships. Data were analyzed from participants’ think-aloud and cart sort activities, semi-structured interviews, classroom artifacts, and classroom observations. The findings provide key insights in the preparation of teacher candidates in social studies.
Sensoy and DiAngelo (2014) argue for alternative behavioral guidelines than those currently being... more Sensoy and DiAngelo (2014) argue for alternative behavioral guidelines than those currently being used in many social justice courses. Their alternative is to silence or constrain privileged voices so that marginalized voices have ample space to be heard and taken seriously. This raises the concern that silencing any group of persons runs too great a risk of alienating them to the point where their mistrust of the “other” is exacerbated rather than assuaged. This response suggests that, instead of silencing or even constraining privileged voices in the classroom, we may want to move toward developing in students the attitude that all claims and assertions, especially those that society often accepts as true without question, must undergo critical scrutiny. If we can teach students that a wellinformed belief is one that is continually subject to critical analysis, and we can guide them in developing and understanding that our social positionality leads us to favor certain views and p...
This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator’s attempt to d... more This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator’s attempt to develop globally competent teacher candidates in an elective general education course for teacher candidates. The course, entitled Issues in Global Education , was offered to 23 undergraduate teacher candidates in the spring of 2016. One goal of this manuscript is to make the tacit and elusive elements of global education more explicit for practitioners. Discussed within are two frameworks, Global Citizenship Education (UNESCO, 2015) and a Globally Competent Teaching Continuum (2014), which informed the design and enactment of opportunities for teacher candidates to participate in critical inquiry and cross-cultural experiential learning. A second goal is to demonstrate the extent to which teacher candidates learned and developed global competencies as a consequence of participation in the course. Data were collected from teacher candidates’ reflective journals at five different interval...
With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from d... more With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from different countries is a reality. Beginning in 2018, two teacher education programs, one in the United States and one in Brazil, developed a partnership to promote collaborative activities in curriculum and instruction, scholarship and research, and for student and faculty exchange. Critical pedagogy and social justice approaches to global citizenship education in teacher preparation guided the partnership's collaborative activities toward the development of pre-service teachers' global competencies and ability to integrate technologies as users and educators. This empirical research article presents an exploratory case study of a transnational, collaborative curricular project that leveraged technology in courses for pre-service teachers in the United States (n=12) and Brazil (n=10). The study explores the extent to which course content and activities facilitated pre-service teachers' development of global competencies and ability to employ emerging technologies for learning and offers implications for practice.
This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator's attempt to d... more This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator's attempt to develop globally competent teacher candidates in an elective general education course for teacher candidates. The course, Issues in Global Education, was offered to 23 undergraduate teacher candidates in the spring of 2016. One goal of this manuscript is to make the tacit and elusive elements of global education more explicit for practitioners. Discussed within are two frameworks, Global Citizenship Education (UNESCO, 2015) and a Globally Competent Teaching Continuum (2014), which informed the design and enactment of opportunities for teacher candidates to participate in critical inquiry and cross-cultural experiential learning. A second goal is to demonstrate the extent to which teacher candidates learned and developed global competencies as a consequence of participation in the course. Data were collected from teacher candidates' reflective journals at five different intervals during the 15-week course and analyzed thematically. Findings from this inquiry demonstrate the efficacy of global citizenship education practices and the power of collaboration, as resources from the campus and community were leveraged to create a transformative educational experience for all involved. At a time when our classrooms and communities are more diverse and globally connected, this research contributes to a growing body of literature for preparing globally competent teacher candidates and offers several implications for global education practitioners.
This study contributes to a body of research exploring sets of learning experiences for developin... more This study contributes to a body of research exploring sets of learning experiences for developing global competencies among middle childhood social studies teacher candidates. This multi-year study examines data related to teacher candidates' global knowledge, skills, and dispositions using a convergent parallel mixed methods design. Findings demonstrate that participation in a globally focused middle childhood social studies methods course develops global knowledge and dispositions but does not adequately empower candidates with global teaching skills.
Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 2023
Social studies teacher candidates will be expected to teach or integrate economics content in the... more Social studies teacher candidates will be expected to teach or integrate economics content in their classrooms, yet there is a dearth of research on social studies teacher candidates' preparation to teach economics. This convergent mixed methods study developed an understanding of secondary social studies teacher candidates' economic pedagogical content knowledge. Data were analyzed from teacher candidates' (n=22) participation in a card sort activity and think-aloud, semistructured interview, and/or the Test of Economic Literacy at a midsized Midwestern university. The findings indicated that secondary social studies teacher candidates have nascent economic pedagogical content knowledge and need support to foster its development. Findings also revealed that many candidates have anxiety when engaging in economics that stems from an underlying math anxiety. Key implications for social studies teacher preparation are detailed, including explicitly working with candidates to develop their economic literacy and economic reasoning, and better supporting candidates during their required economics coursework.
Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 2016
This manuscript presents findings and implications from a larger case study of one global educato... more This manuscript presents findings and implications from a larger case study of one global educator's attempt to develop globally competent teacher candidates in an elective teacher training course. Global Citizenship Education served as the framing paradigm for the course and human experiences of immigrants and refugees served as the milieu for teacher candidates to learn critical inquiry. Teacher candidates also participated in several cross-cultural experiential learning opportunities designed to facilitate the development of global competencies in teacher candidates. Students' reflective journals were analyzed determine the personal significance of different learning experiences and the extent to which teacher candidates perceptions of immigrants and refugees changed as a result of the course content and activities and demonstrate the potential of critical inquiry and cross-cultural experiential learning as transformative teaching practices.
With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from d... more With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from different countries is a reality. Beginning in 2018, two teacher education programs, one in the United States and one in Brazil, developed a partnership to promote collaborative activities in curriculum and instruction, scholarship and research, and for student and faculty exchange. Critical pedagogy and social justice approaches to global citizenship education in teacher preparation guided the partnership’s collaborative activities toward the development of pre-service teachers’ global competencies and ability to integrate technologies as users and educators. This empirical research article presents an exploratory case study of a transnational, collaborative curricular project that leveraged technology in courses for pre-service teachers in the United States (n=12) and Brazil (n=10). The study explores the extent to which course content and activities facilitated pre-service teachers’ de...
This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a s... more This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a supplement to the democratic experiential history project described by Lempert. The intent of the project is ambitious and worthwhile; however, without emphasis on the critical process of sense-making through discussion, reflection, and collaborative knowledge construction, the project falls short of its potential impact. I offer suggestions and recommendations for practitioners who might consider enacting such a project.
This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a s... more This response offers cross-disciplinary pedagogical insights and conceptual considerations as a sup-plement to the democratic experiential history project described by Lempert. The intent of the project is ambitious and worthwhile; however, without emphasis on the critical process of sense-making through discussion, reflection, and collaborative knowledge construction, the project falls short of its potential impact. I offer suggestions and recommendations for practitioners who might consider enacting such a project. This article is a response to:
Handbook of Research on Field-Based Teacher Education
One of the challenges of field-based teacher education is the perennial divide between university... more One of the challenges of field-based teacher education is the perennial divide between university courses and field experiences. Collaborative mentoring is proposed as an approach to bridge this divide. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the affordances that a content-specific model of collaborative mentoring provides for achieving greater coherence within teacher education programs and nurturing stronger systems of partnerships between universities and schools. The chapter reports on research examining the benefits and challenges reported by teacher candidates, mentor teachers, and clinical educators who participated in the model.
With the recent emphasis on clinical models of teacher education, research is needed to improve u... more With the recent emphasis on clinical models of teacher education, research is needed to improve understanding of how teacher candidates learn from clinical practice. The purpose of this study is to explore the types of learning spaces generated during mentoring discussions focused on analysis of video-recorded practice. Participants consist of the members of six dyads, each comprising a teacher candidate and clinical educator. Findings describe the focus of interactions, talk moves, and patterns of engagement that facilitated the creation of a dialogic mentoring space. Implications for supporting learning from clinical practice are provided.
Writing is a powerful and transformative act. There is great potential for social studies educato... more Writing is a powerful and transformative act. There is great potential for social studies educators to improve the quality of instruction and writing opportunities offered to young people. Presented in this paper are the discoveries of a two-year reflective inquiry between a social studies teacher educator and a writing specialist who endeavored to support and develop competence among social studies practitioners who struggled to teach writing. Yearlong high school and middle school professional development programs with practicing teachers and university-level academic courses with teacher candidates serve as the contexts that inspired this inquiry. Resulting from this work, the authors share: 1) evidence-based principles to change writing beliefs and empower social studies teachers to teach writing more effectively; and, 2) a tool created for and used with practitioners to design narrative, expository, argumentative, and inquiry writing opportunities for inclusive social studies c...
An emerging imperative for teacher preparation programs is the development of globally competent ... more An emerging imperative for teacher preparation programs is the development of globally competent teacher candidates. Employing a convergent parallel mixed methods design, the researchers analyzed data from Asia Society’s Global Competencies (2008) survey, critical reflection journals, course assignments, and field notes of 124 undergraduate teacher candidates enrolled in two teacher preparation courses during three academic years. Findings demonstrate candidates’ perceptions of learning experiences and the extent to which the experiences contributed to the development of global competencies. For educators, the study provides examples of cross-cultural experiential learning that contribute to the development of globally competent teacher candidates.
This manuscript presents findings and implications from multiple case study of how teacher candid... more This manuscript presents findings and implications from multiple case study of how teacher candidates in secondary and middle childhood programs learn specialized knowledge, skills, and expertise from disciplinary experts in content courses and enact practices of disciplinary literacy in field placements. An expert-novice framework was employed to explore the pedagogical content knowledge of experts (professors of economics and history) and novices (middle childhood and secondary social studies teacher candidates) who taught history and economics during their clinical internships. Data were analyzed from participants’ think-aloud and cart sort activities, semi-structured interviews, classroom artifacts, and classroom observations. The findings provide key insights in the preparation of teacher candidates in social studies.
Sensoy and DiAngelo (2014) argue for alternative behavioral guidelines than those currently being... more Sensoy and DiAngelo (2014) argue for alternative behavioral guidelines than those currently being used in many social justice courses. Their alternative is to silence or constrain privileged voices so that marginalized voices have ample space to be heard and taken seriously. This raises the concern that silencing any group of persons runs too great a risk of alienating them to the point where their mistrust of the “other” is exacerbated rather than assuaged. This response suggests that, instead of silencing or even constraining privileged voices in the classroom, we may want to move toward developing in students the attitude that all claims and assertions, especially those that society often accepts as true without question, must undergo critical scrutiny. If we can teach students that a wellinformed belief is one that is continually subject to critical analysis, and we can guide them in developing and understanding that our social positionality leads us to favor certain views and p...
This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator’s attempt to d... more This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator’s attempt to develop globally competent teacher candidates in an elective general education course for teacher candidates. The course, entitled Issues in Global Education , was offered to 23 undergraduate teacher candidates in the spring of 2016. One goal of this manuscript is to make the tacit and elusive elements of global education more explicit for practitioners. Discussed within are two frameworks, Global Citizenship Education (UNESCO, 2015) and a Globally Competent Teaching Continuum (2014), which informed the design and enactment of opportunities for teacher candidates to participate in critical inquiry and cross-cultural experiential learning. A second goal is to demonstrate the extent to which teacher candidates learned and developed global competencies as a consequence of participation in the course. Data were collected from teacher candidates’ reflective journals at five different interval...
With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from d... more With globalization and the increase of technology, collaborative work between institutions from different countries is a reality. Beginning in 2018, two teacher education programs, one in the United States and one in Brazil, developed a partnership to promote collaborative activities in curriculum and instruction, scholarship and research, and for student and faculty exchange. Critical pedagogy and social justice approaches to global citizenship education in teacher preparation guided the partnership's collaborative activities toward the development of pre-service teachers' global competencies and ability to integrate technologies as users and educators. This empirical research article presents an exploratory case study of a transnational, collaborative curricular project that leveraged technology in courses for pre-service teachers in the United States (n=12) and Brazil (n=10). The study explores the extent to which course content and activities facilitated pre-service teachers' development of global competencies and ability to employ emerging technologies for learning and offers implications for practice.
This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator's attempt to d... more This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator's attempt to develop globally competent teacher candidates in an elective general education course for teacher candidates. The course, Issues in Global Education, was offered to 23 undergraduate teacher candidates in the spring of 2016. One goal of this manuscript is to make the tacit and elusive elements of global education more explicit for practitioners. Discussed within are two frameworks, Global Citizenship Education (UNESCO, 2015) and a Globally Competent Teaching Continuum (2014), which informed the design and enactment of opportunities for teacher candidates to participate in critical inquiry and cross-cultural experiential learning. A second goal is to demonstrate the extent to which teacher candidates learned and developed global competencies as a consequence of participation in the course. Data were collected from teacher candidates' reflective journals at five different intervals during the 15-week course and analyzed thematically. Findings from this inquiry demonstrate the efficacy of global citizenship education practices and the power of collaboration, as resources from the campus and community were leveraged to create a transformative educational experience for all involved. At a time when our classrooms and communities are more diverse and globally connected, this research contributes to a growing body of literature for preparing globally competent teacher candidates and offers several implications for global education practitioners.
Social studies is a discipline unique to K-12 education and tasked with the preparation of democr... more Social studies is a discipline unique to K-12 education and tasked with the preparation of democratic citizens. Social studies educators work with concepts, theories, and ideas from multiple disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, which makes discourse through shared language complex. Specialization in content areas that comprise the social studies can further complicate shared understanding of essential terms.
Service-Learning to Advance Access and Success: Bridging Institutional and Community Capacity, 2019
This chapter presents a multiple case study of an innovative approach to teacher education, one t... more This chapter presents a multiple case study of an innovative approach to teacher education, one that supports teacher candidates’ development as citizens and as emerging professionals through engagement in third space partnerships for service-learning. Conceptually, third space represents an epistemological shift in teacher education practices from knowledge development through academic and campus-centered approaches to an epistemology that privileges diverse and democratic sources of knowledge and expertise from the community in the preparation of future teachers. Third space partnerships for service-learning were designed to address inequality in Appalachian Ohio and prepare teacher candidates for the roles of democratic citizenship. Described in this chapter are the design principles of third space partnerships and the core pedagogical perspectives that undergird the development of course-based and co-curricular service-learning experiences. Participants in the study include teacher candidates (n=52) from four separate cases: two social studies education methods courses offered in the fall semesters of 2015 (n=15) and 2016 (n=18) and two co-curricular service-learning opportunities offered in the spring semesters of 2016 (n=10) and 2017 (n=9). Qualitative data, in the form of teacher candidates’ reflective journals and semi-structured interviews, were collected and analyzed thematically. Findings demonstrate the potential of third space partnerships for service learning as transformative experiences in the development of teacher candidates. The chapter closes with a critical appraisal of the author’s experiences designing third space service-learning partnerships and offers suggestions for practitioners who are interested in this approach.
Innovation and Implementation in Rural Places: School-University-Community Collaboration in Education, 2018
This chapter presents an empirical study of third space partnerships that I have designed and ena... more This chapter presents an empirical study of third space partnerships that I have designed and enacted as a teacher education faculty member at medium-sized university in rural Appalachia Ohio. Third space represents a shift in epistemology to privilege an equal and more dialectical relationship among academic, practitioner, and community-based knowledge in support of teacher candidate learning. The partnerships are designed promote civic engagement among teacher candidates through service learning projects with community partners. These partnerships privilege community members’ funds of knowledge (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005), or the knowledge, skills, and expertise community members develop from lived experiences, in the development of prospective of teachers. The chapter is organized as follows: 1) background on the development of our third space partnerships in teacher education; 2) conceptual framework for learning in third space; 3) a description of the third space partnerships for teacher education in rural communities; 4) principles of design for establishing third space partnerships; and 5) the opportunities and challenges of third space partnerships and implications for sustainability.
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Papers by Michael Kopish