Academic Exchange Quarterly Fall
2009 ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 13, Issue
3
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Service-Learning:
Impacts on Teachers’ Pedagogy
Kathleen
B. Wasserman,
Kathleen
Wasserman, Ph.D., is a professor of reading teacher education at the
Abstract
Candidates who
earn their teacher certification during a fifth-year program often do not have
time to take more than one reading course.
This study examined the knowledge candidates acquired by attending a
second reading course during their winter break. Two versions of the course were offered: a
service-learning version and a more traditional version. Quantitative and qualitative data document
that the candidates in the service-learning course learned and implemented
more.
Introduction
The National
Academy of Education recently concluded that successful teachers need to know a
lot about how students learn, curriculum, and instructional strategies
(Darling-Hammond & Bransford, Eds., 2005).
In literacy courses, this translates into knowing how to assess students’
strengths and weaknesses and plan and teach appropriate reading and writing
lessons (Snow,
The link
between teacher preparedness and student achievement has been widely documented
(see Darling-Hammond & Brandsford, 2005; Imig & Imig, 2007; Snow,
This study
explored the effectiveness of adding a two-week intensive elective reading
methods course on candidates’ knowledge about the teaching constructs listed in
Table 1. Additionally, the study
compared two versions of the course. One
cohort participated in a service-learning component; the second cohort took a
more traditional version of the course.
Both courses were designed for post-baccalaureate elementary teacher
candidates, taught at the same university, used the same texts, syllabus, and
classroom activities, and were taught by the same professor. Candidates in the service-learning course
spent two hours of class time each day teaching urban students. Candidates in the more traditional course
presented demonstration lessons. Each
course met for 10 days from
|
Table 1 Key Constructs for Curriculum
and Instruction |
|
|
Construct |
Definition |
|
Curriculum: |
Focuses literacy
instruction on strengthening students’ comprehension and composition by: o
Using a variety of
strategies to develop vocabulary o
Exploring different
types of expository text: inform, persuade and
explain o
Teaching all
components of narrative text: plot, setting,
characters and theme o
Selecting
appropriate curriculum based upon ongoing, formative assessments |
|
Instruction: |
Maximizes student
learning by: o
Actively engaging students in
meaningful learning opportunities and with each other through out the lesson o
Facilitating, guiding, and
scaffolding rather than telling o
Encouraging
students to think critically, be metacognitive form their own ideas rather than having the
teacher do the mental work for them o
Adapting instruction to
meet individual student needs o
Flexibly adapting well
designed lesson plans to meet student needs |
The research questions posed by
this study included the following:
- What impact does a highly
structured service-learning experience have on the development of
knowledge about teaching literacy in teacher candidates when compared with
teacher candidates who take a more traditional version of the same course?
- How is the knowledge
candidates acquire during the course implemented during their
student-teaching experiences? Do
those how participated in the service-learning course teach differently
than those who took the traditional version of the course?
Data
Collection and Methodology
Data for this
study was collected during and following the course. Participants journaled daily about what they
considered to be the significant learnings of the day. The teacher candidates also attended five
follow-up sessions in 2002 with the others who had attended the same
course. At these monthly meetings each
participant wrote a reflection on what they perceived to be “the best lesson
they had taught since our last meeting that included something they had learned
during the course” and submitted the accompanying lesson plan.
Each data
source was analyzed independently in three phases using content analysis
(Patton, 1990). First, individual
responses that correlated with knowledge were highlighted. This phase ended
when repeated readings of the data uncovered no new constructs. Next, randomly selected writings were read
and coded by a teacher familiar with the course; inter-rater reliability was
established at .95 (Merriam, 1998). A series of t-tests, followed
by a Bonferroni
correction, were used to search for statistically significant differences
between the two cohorts.
Qualitative
effects were also noted in all three of the data sets. To better identify what those differences
were, writings from two “typical” randomly selected participants will be
chronicled. The “typicalness” of their journal entries and follow-up
reflections were supported by identifying at least three other participants
from the same course who wrote comments with very similar ideas. Katie (all names are pseudonyms) represents
the service-learning course and Susan represents the traditional course.
Results and Discussion
Journals
Entries Collected During the Courses
Figure 1
Plot of Number of Times Individuals
Mentioned Constructs in Journals
Curriculum Constructs
Participants
Service-learning course* Traditional Course*
mean = 51.65 mean = 40.05
SD
= 12.31 SD = 8.80
Instruction Constructs
Participants
Service-Learning Course* Traditional Course*
mean = 37.22 mean = 16.20
SD
= 14.95 SD = 7.73
n = 12
Figure 1
illustrates the results of the analysis of the journal responses correlated
with the constructs under study and plots the frequency of these responses by
individuals within groups. Differences
between groups for both constructs were found to be significant at p = .0002. Because scores for both of the total curriculum
and instruction scores were determined to be statistically significant a series
of t-tests were used to compare totals for each of the sub constructs listed in
Table 1. Probabilities, means, and
standard deviations are displayed in Table 2.
It is apparent that those who attended the service-learning course wrote
a statistically significant greater number of responses related to two of the
four curriculum sub-constructs.
c
Table 2
Journals:
Probabilities, Means and Standard Deviations for Constructs
|
Constructs |
p |
|
Service-Learning
Course** |
Traditional Course**
|
|
Curriculum Constructs |
|
|
|
|
|
Vocabulary |
.0003* |
m= sd= |
8.58 3.96 |
4.17 1.74 |
|
Narrative |
.032 |
m= sd= |
8.67 3.34 |
7.58 5.18 |
|
Exposition
|
.002* |
m= sd= |
7.25 2.18 |
4.75 2.67 |
|
Assessment |
.86 |
m= sd= |
2.75 2.26 |
2..3 1.82 |
|
Total Curriculum |
.0002 |
m= sd= |
51.65 12.31 |
40.05 8.80 |
|
Instruction Constructs |
|
|
|
|
|
Active
Engagement |
.0001* |
m= sd= |
13.42 4.87 |
4.5 2.28 |
|
Facilitation |
.08 |
m= sd= |
4.58 4.23 |
2.2 2.55 |
|
Critical
Thinking |
.02 |
m= sd= |
6.17 4.78 |
2.5 1.51 |
|
Adapting
Instruction |
.001* |
m= sd= |
5.3 3.87 |
2 1.76 |
|
Flexibility |
.001* |
m= sd= |
6.75 3.86 |
3 4.0 |
|
Total Instruction |
.0001* |
m= sd= |
37.22 14.95 |
16.2 7.73 |
*Results were significant at the .002
level necessitated by a
Bonferroni correction **n = 12
For example,
the candidates who attended the service-learning course wrote twice as many
comments about vocabulary development as those who attended the traditional
course (means = 8.58, 4.27 respectively).
There were also differences in the way participants wrote about
vocabulary. When reflecting on a
vocabulary lesson Katie wrote:
The vocabulary game went well and the students participated. Just like you said, the students were able to
guess the meaning of a word by the category it was placed in… They have to
think! This is a much better technique
than just copying the definition from the dictionary.
In the quote
above, Katie noted that the game-like instructional strategy engaged her
students. She feels that the students
will retain the new vocabulary words because they had to think about their
meanings. Susan’s reflection below about a similar vocabulary lesson she taught
is somewhat different. She wrote:
I think my [vocabulary] lesson went well. I couldn’t believe what I left out. Things like going over definitions before I
expected them to group them [the words].
I realized that my instructions needed to be more specific. The web and the chart provided different ways
to organize things and makes vocabulary more interesting.
While Katie
likes the new pedagogy she is developing because it requires her students to
think and increases their learning, Susan likes the new strategies because they
will make vocabulary lessons less boring for her students. She does not address the cognitive benefits
for her students.
Statistical
differences were also found for three of the five instructional sub-constructs.
On the topic
of the students’ active engagement, Katie, referred to her students being
actively involved in her lessons a total of fifteen times. Responses like “They had so much to say about
what we were working on—you could just see they were ready to explode” and “I was surprised by how well they worked groups. Every group finished the assignment and
everyone contributed” were scattered throughout her journal entries. On the other hand,
Susan wrote only five responses related to the students’ role such as “I think
it’s important to structure the lesson so that the children are involved.” Some of her responses revealed how difficult
she found it to participate in the lessons demonstrated by her peers and others
sounded more theoretical in nature than actual learnings from her experiences
during the course.
In summation,
participants who practiced with children wrote double the number of comments
about the instructional sub-constructs under study than participants who
attended the other course. Additionally,
their comments were very specific while those written by participants who
attended the more traditional course tended to be somewhat vague. This vagueness was also noticed when
reflections were compared.
Reflections
and Lesson Plans Compiled during Follow-Up
This section
explores how much—and how well—participants implemented what they learned
during the five months immediately following the courses in their assigned
student teaching placements. Responses for each candidate were totaled and
averaged. Then the averages were
averaged and compared using t-tests.
Results for curriculum and instruction were both found to be significant
at the p = .007 and p = .001 respectively.
Candidates who participated in the service-learning course consistently
implemented more than those enrolled in the traditional version of the
course.
Differences
were also noted in how they wrote about what they were implementing in both
tone and content. For example, both
Katie and Susan wrote 250 during the reflection period at the beginning of each
of their March follow-up sessions. Both
reflections, followed by the codes applied, are reported below beginning with
Katie.
It was hard to choose just one to share…during this lesson they [first
graders] were so engaged & worked so hard with their group that they didn’t
have any time to get into trouble. That
was exciting! I started the lesson by
ask [sic] them to show me different ways people can move…Then in their groups I
had them pick the 3 fastest and slowest ways.
They had to really think hard and the groups were really passionate
about their choices. Their arguments
were amazing. Then I read a big book…We
made a matrix and compared humans with 5 other animals. Then I made groups of 3 and each group picked
an animal to write about. I showed them
how to use a venn diagram to compare and they wrote:
I can _________.
The ___(animal) can _____________.
We both can
______________.
I put the pages together to make a book for our class library and they
are reading it over and over.
(Coded as: Curriculum—vocabulary, big book, matrix, venn diagram,
expository, writing; Instruction—critical thinking, active engagement, group
work, discussion.)
I only taught one lesson this month that used strategies I learned from
your course…Our textbook is boring so I thought I would bring in a story to
spice things up. I found the book Pink
and Say...I wanted to try using a Frayer Model and I though the notion of
friendship would work. I had my students
[fifth graders] work in groups of four to complete one graphic organizer. I was surprised that it was so hard for
them. I had to help each group quite a
bit. Next I read the story to them. Then, in their same cooperative groups they
completed a venn diagram comparing and contrasting the ways Pink and Say were
similar and different. This part of the
lesson was easier since they were already familiar with this form of graphic
organizer…The first half was a struggle—I needed to scaffold more than I
did. The students were confused.
(Coded as: curriculum—vocabulary, Frayer Model, narrative, venn diagram;
Instruction—group work, read aloud, facilitator, active participation,
Although the
codes were quite similar, Katie had a hard time choosing what lesson to present
while Susan admitted to only teaching this one lesson because “needed to have
something to show.” Susan also discusses
her frustration with the lesson while Katie’s tone is positive. Perhaps more significantly, the comments
written by those who practiced with children were much more positive,
self-affirming, detailed, specific, and showed a greater understanding of the
course constructs than those who attended the other course.
Conclusions
Darling
Hammond and Bransford (2005) developed what they refer to as a “Vision of
Instructional Practice” (p. 11) for effective teaching. Their research-based vision calls for
universities to prepare teacher candidates who posses the knowledge, skills,
and dispositions to meet the instructional and social needs of all
children. More specifically, their
vision calls for teacher candidates who:
- Understand how children
develop and learn with in social contexts;
- Possess deep subject mater
knowledge about curriculum content and goals; and,
- Know how to use appropriate
instructional strategies to teach individual children based on assessment
data.
This vision
served as the basis for the courses described in this study. Both versions of the course were designed to
teach candidates about research-based literacy curriculum and instruction. All aspects
of the courses were held constant with the exception of the type of practice
the candidates experienced.
It was hypothesized that the teacher
candidates who practiced what they were learning with at risk elementary school
students during a service-learning experience would develop more knowledge
about the course constructs presented in Table 1, and therefore, demonstrate
greater implantation of pedagogies learned during the course than those who
demonstrated lessons for their classmates.
This hypothesis was proven to be true for this particular population of
teacher candidates.
The candidates
who participated in the service-learning course were also able to focus the
social contexts of urban education. They
reported that their authentic practice lead to a greater master of course
content. In their journals, participants wrote very strongly about how
the opportunity to practice—or lack thereof—impacted their acquisition of
knowledge during the course. Katie found
that being able to practice had a significant impact on her learning. On the fourth day of the Course, after
teaching her third lesson, she wrote:
Being able to learn something and then go back to teach what I learned
has been one of the greatest things of this course. Many other times I have learned material and
I have never had the opportunity to go back and actually apply it and it seems
that I have forgotten some of those things I did not apply. I feel that what I have learned in this week
I will remember and implement it in my teaching because I actually understand
it. This reading course is giving me the
opportunity to really practice and apply what I learned and I feel that this is
why I learned.
In contrast,
Susan felt that teaching demonstration lessons to her classmates—the norm in
many teacher education courses—rather than real students, impeded her
acquisition of knowledge. After teaching
her third lesson, she wrote in her journal about how frustrating she found the
experience of teaching lessons in an artificial setting:
[I feel] Totally, Totally, Crappy!
Excuse my language, but I don’t feel very enthusiastic or motivated
especially, after my disastrous lesson.
I was all over the place and was not so much in my role as a teacher,
but as an experimenter who was unsure of what the heck I was doing. …I didn’t feel like we were in a classroom
but rather a laboratory setting…overall I’m feeling like I’m learning a lot,
but I don’t know if my learning will translate itself into the teaching with my
students…that is really frustrating.
It must be clearly stated that just
adding a service-learning component to a university course is not the answer to
increasing student teachers abilities to successfully teach literacy to all of
their students. In this small study it
was the combination of how materials were taught to the teacher candidates coupled
with structured practice that led to the mastery of course constructs. The
hands-on nature of the learning experiences provided and the tight link between
what was modeled and what was then practiced at the urban school resulted in
increased knowledge about reading curriculum and instruction.
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