Honors Students Reflecting on a Clinical Experience in Alternative Education
Track
Research Project / Learning Theories and Pedagogy
Abstract
Being successful in the 21st century requires at minimum a high school diploma, if not a college degree (Hayes, 2012; The Urban Institute, 2003), however, this is simply not the reality for all learners. Pre-service secondary teachers need to have direct experience working with at-risk youth prior to beginning their career. One approach to this is to complete meaningful clinical experiences, which are an integral part of the transition from student to teacher (Bennett, 2012; Zeichner, 2010), in alternative educational settings. This presentation will discuss the learning outcomes of Honors pre-service secondary teachers who completed their clinical experience in an alternative educational setting as part of an introduction to secondary education course. Over the course of the 10-week experience, the participants completed two orientations and completed a weekly clinical journal in which they reflected on their observations and interactions at the Agency site. The researcher used constant comparative analysis to analyze the reflections of the participants and identify areas of growth and challenge over time. Findings of the study include experiencing education from a different point of view, the challenges of teaching all learners, and identifying one’s own assumptions about learners and reconstructing them in order to be effective teachers.
Session Format
Presentation Session
Location
Room 212
Recommended Citation
Mikulec, Erin, "Honors Students Reflecting on a Clinical Experience in Alternative Education" (2016). SoTL Commons Conference. 94.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2016/94
Honors Students Reflecting on a Clinical Experience in Alternative Education
Room 212
Being successful in the 21st century requires at minimum a high school diploma, if not a college degree (Hayes, 2012; The Urban Institute, 2003), however, this is simply not the reality for all learners. Pre-service secondary teachers need to have direct experience working with at-risk youth prior to beginning their career. One approach to this is to complete meaningful clinical experiences, which are an integral part of the transition from student to teacher (Bennett, 2012; Zeichner, 2010), in alternative educational settings. This presentation will discuss the learning outcomes of Honors pre-service secondary teachers who completed their clinical experience in an alternative educational setting as part of an introduction to secondary education course. Over the course of the 10-week experience, the participants completed two orientations and completed a weekly clinical journal in which they reflected on their observations and interactions at the Agency site. The researcher used constant comparative analysis to analyze the reflections of the participants and identify areas of growth and challenge over time. Findings of the study include experiencing education from a different point of view, the challenges of teaching all learners, and identifying one’s own assumptions about learners and reconstructing them in order to be effective teachers.
