Academic/Image
Title: “The Cycle of Learning, In, From, and for Practice”
Summary: Image depicts the ideal learning process for a teacher as defined by a research project (LTP)carried out by UCLA, University of Michigan, and University of Washington. Learning in, from and for teaching practice (LTP) is experimenting with the idea that students best learn how to become teachers not by studying textbooks and taking tests, but by acting as teacher, observing teachers and practicing. This cyclical model shows the comprehension steps that transfer a teacher-classroom experience into an educational practice for the teacher-in-training.
Topic: Accrediting all schools of education
Category: Academic/Image
What is it? An image of the LTP’s new learning cycle
Publication Information: University of Michigan, 2007
Author: None Listed
Location: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/ltp/home
Accessed: Mar.15, 2009
Support:
- Student teachers, image depicts students getting hands-on experience in a teaching environment
- Learning in, from and for teaching practice (LTP), the research project that works toward developing innovative teacher education as a “civic responsibility”
- UCLA, University of Michigan and University of Washington, faculty and doctoral students from these schools are partners in the creation and implemention of the LTP research project
- Megan Franke, Elham Kazemi, and Magdalene Lampert , teacher educators who have been experimenting with the LTP’s concept of teacher learning.
- Pam Grossman, professor of education at Stanford University; has published her research and findings on new methods of teacher education
Although the image only shows a few steps that represent the LTP research project, three universities are behind that project and its model, as well as teacher educators who are experimenting with putting the model into practice, and Pam Grossman, whose research has helped to shape the concept of LTP.
Audience and Agenda: Currently, this research project has not published or targeted to a widespread audience to be implemented in classrooms. The principles of the project are being tested by three teacher educators who have worked with several hundred teacher leaders, and studied a teacher-educator program in Italy that applies a similar method of training. The project has been presented at the 2008 annual AERA conference. AERA’s mission is to explore “scholary inquiry” as it relates to education.
Usefulness: LTP provides that the best way to create a teacher is to put them in the environment and mindset they will experience in the teaching profession. The model of teacher education proposed in the LTP project is one that steps outside of the strict standards that NCATE defines as teacher education. In light of failing schools and inadequate teachers, the need to develop new ways to conceptualize our schools of education is imperative. Despite repeated complaints to NCATE that their standards for teacher programs are outdated, input-based, and restrictive, NCATE’s president, Arthur Wise, maintains that this is the only way to approach accreditation, and the profession of teaching in general. The fact of the matter is that measuring this new way of teaching, LTP in particular, would be very difficult. To measure teacher success in the classroom environment is not objective. As new programs looking to reshape teacher education emerge, accreditation will start to seem moot and ineffective in measuring the quality of learning.
Works Cited:
- “History” page for LTP project: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/ltp/project_history
- Profile of Stanford University Professor Pam Grossman: http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/faculty/displayRecord.php?suid=pamg
- The “About” page for American Educational Research Association (AERA): http://www.aera.net/AboutAERA/Default.aspx?menu_id=90&id=177
