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Oppositional Pairs: Unresolved Conflictsin Student TeachingRobert A. Wiggins a & Reneé T. Clift ba Oakland University , USAb University of Illinois , USAPublished online: 04 Jan 2012.

To cite this article: Robert A. Wiggins & Reneé T. Clift (1995) Oppositional Pairs: Unresolved Conflictsin Student Teaching, Action in Teacher Education, 17:1, 9-19, DOI: 10.1080/01626620.1995.10463226

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Action in Teacher Education Spring 1995, Vol. XVII, No. 1, pp. 9-19

Oppositional Pairs: Unresolved Conflicts in Student Teaching

Robert A. Wiggins Oakland University

Renee' T. Clvt University of Illinois

Abstract

Reflective practice in teacher education has, as one of its objectives, the intention of increasing the individual's awareness of personal beliefs and images of teaching. However, beliefs and images do not always follow lines of clear and consistent rational thought. It is possible for one individual to simultaneously subscribe to contradictory beliefs that have the potential to create conflict. The authors look at two student teachers whose contradictory beliefs went unrecognized and unresolved and subsequently afsected their professional growth. The findings suggest implications for program administrators, supervisors, cooperating teachers, and the student teachers themselves. The authors caution that simply involving teacher candidates in rejlective inquiry may be insuficient for some students.

In recent research reports on learning to teach, images (Calderhead & Robson, 1991; Clift, Meng & Eggerding, 1994) and beliefs (Bird, Anderson, Sullivan, & Swidler, 1993; Gomez & Stoddard, 1992) have been identified as filters of prospective teachers' interpretations of their field experiences. Recognizing this, many teacher educators have emphasized the importance of developing a reflective orientation toward learning to teach that enables novice practitioners to become aware of the influence of biography on belief, image, and actions (Clift, Houston, & Pugach, 1990; Copeland, Birmingham, de la Cruz, & Lewin, 1993; Zeichner & Liston, 1987). At this point we do not clearly understand if and how reflection enable students to reconstruct prior experiences or if experiences in teacher education reinforce previously held beliefs and images.

Goodman (1988) argued that early experiences cause student teachers to form "intuitive screens, I' or flexible, adaptable filters through which new experiences are passed as they are accommodated to existing beliefs. From his study of twelve student teachers he noted that students relied on their intuitive screens to the point where they often rejected logical new ideas if they were inconsistent with the screen, and accepted most readily those people and experiences that reinforced their existing beliefs.

Based on a longitudinal study of students in teacher education, O'Loughlin (1991) suggested that the term teacher belief creates a problem in that, "it brings to mind images of teachers subscribing consciously to cohesive, comprehensive ideologies about teaching, and being guided, in their practice, by these ideologies" (pp. 6-7). He argued that researchers should investigate discrepancies among beliefs, particularly those which may be contradictory. The present study draws from both Goodman's and O'Loughlin's work by

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investigating contradictions in beliefs about teaching, which we label oppositionul pairs to signify that at least two such beliefs are inherently contradictory. We report an analysis of two student teachers who held such contradictions and speculate on how they affected the students’ views of teaching and student teaching.

Methodology

This study was conducted within the context of a collaborative project in secondary teacher education between a large midwestern university and a local public school district. A team of public school teachers provided placements within two schools (a junior high school and a high school) for a selected group of student teaching candidates. Two additional teachers served as school coordinators for their buildings and functioned as liaisons between the university and the public school. Students were enrolled in both student teaching and instructional methods during the spring semester and members of the public school team assisted university personnel in teaching the methods courses. The second author taught the English methods course and also chaired a series of team meetings among the cooperating teachers and university personnel.

During the spring student teaching semester, we conducted a collaborative action research study that examined the nature of the learning experiences of the student teachers involved in the project. The long term goal of the study was to establish common agendas for instructional improvement among all the stakeholders in the teacher preparation process. Six student teachers (four in English and two in science) and five of the cooperating teachers to whom they were assigned participated in the research project.

Data Collection and Analvsis

Interviews with each of the six student teachers were conducted by the first author at the beginning, middle, and end of student teaching. In addition, audiotape recordings were made of the planning conferences between the cooperating teachers and the student teachers. All of the student teachers kept reflective journals throughout the project.

Data analysis began at the conclusion of the student teaching experience. Four cooperating teachers and the school coordinator from the junior high school agreed to participate in the data analysis. The cooperating teachers reread their own journals, the journals written by their student teachers, and all of the transcripts to determine categories of student teachers’ and cooperating teachers’ discussions throughout the semester. Categories were derived using a constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). One characteristic of this kind of analysis is that ideas and themes become apparent as the data is continuously read and reread. The analysis team members were encouraged to suggest additional categories as the analysis proceeded. It was during this data analysis stage that the existence of oppositional pairs was identified by the first author as an influential factor in the professional growth of at least two of the student teachers. This line of analysis was then pursued apart from the main data analysis.

In using the term oppositional pairs, we refer to opposing beliefs that are held concurrently by an individual with no apparent awareness of the inconsistency. In examining the transcripts of the student teachers’ interviews we noticed that, in some instances, the student teachers made contradictory statements regarding the beliefs that guided their actions.

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The existence of these contradictions was confirmed in the transcripts of the cooperating teachers’ interviews and the student teachers’ journal entries. The impact of the conflicts could be seen in the nature of the planning meetings between the cooperating teachers and the two teacher candidates. It should be noted that the existence of oppositional pairs was not apparent in the data collected on all of the student teachers. For example, data collected from two of the student teachers suggested little conflict. Another student teacher experienced substantial conflict in the form of a philosophical difference between her and her cooperating teacher. This conflict was profound enough for her to reconsider her career as a teacher and for him to reconsider his role as a teacher educator. Although this conflict was not acknowledged publicly and was not satisfactorily resolved, it did not represent a discrepancy in one individual’s beliefs; therefore, we did not consider this an oppositional pair.

Oppositional Pairs in Two Student Teachers

In the cases of two student teachers, we found opposing beliefs that created conflict that went unrecognized and unresolved. Kathy’s oppositional pairs concerned (a) the obligation of the teacher to be an external motivator as opposed to the obligation of the students to have an innate motivation to learn, and (b) the importance of individualizing instruction as opposed to concerns for equality and avoiding favoritism. Jodi’s oppositional pairs concerned (a) the desire to be a friend to her students as opposed to her need to be an evaluator, and (b) the belief that student teaching is a learning experience as opposed to the belief that she should be an expert instructor who only lacked practical experience. Each student is discussed separately in the following sections.

Kathy

Kathy, a prospective science teacher, is a white female in her early twenties. She grew up on a dairy farm in a small midwestern town. In her first interview, she stated that she had always wanted to be a teacher, although her decision to be a teacher was not solidified until high school. She credited the influence of her family and her early teachers as the primary reason for her decision. She spoke of many science activities in elementary school, including projects that integrated science with other subjects. She described science-based field trips, in particular, one to her own family farm. Kathy recalled her early school experience as being something of a cooperative venture in which everyone did what they could to help the entire group succeed.

There was no tracking at all in any of my schooling. Everyone was in one room and if someone was understanding things at a quicker pace than someone else, there was no problem with that quicker person helping the other people. . . . I really didn’t experience any kind of competition as far as grade wise is concerned until I got to the university level. Even then when you broke down into your major subject areas, people inside those areas ended up being cooperative. I guess your high grade depended on someone else’s failure, but you didn’t want your friends being the ones who were sacrificed for your grade, so it still ended up being a cooperative effort.

Teacher as Motivator versus Motivated Students. Kathy’s early experiences with a hands-on approach to science learning influenced her beliefs about how science should be taught. She professed the belief that the content of science should be related to the students’

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life experience as much as possible to make it meaningful. On a number of occasions, she spoke of how important science is to everyday life.

When you're doing laundry, the soap just automatically becomes bubbles, you don't think about what's actually happening there, or why these bubbles are round, or why no water gets inside of them. If you can bring in household things and common day occurrences the kids will catch on and maybe they will develop at least a like and maybe they won't be so fearful of science.

Kathy seemed to feel that science is important for all students and that there are ways to involve those who do not come to class with a prior interest. Her actions in the classroom supported this belief. She described changing seats and changing lab partners to allow stronger students to help weaker students; she made allowances for the students' tendency to talk during class time and showed an understanding of the complicated lives of high school students. Her approach to classroom structure, the ways in which she provided for lab experiences, and her general attitude toward the students pointed to a belief in the teacher as external motivator. She seemed to put the onus of responsibility for learning on the teacher.

In contradiction to this perspective Kathy also believed that students should have an innate motivation to learn. Despite her statements about not prejudging students, Kathy did seem to feel that there are "typical science" students and "typical non-science" students. When she described her image of the typical student she gave a very different picture of who she believed should be responsible for learning.

Well, you've got your typical student who comes in and wants to socialize more than they want to learn. . . . you've got kids who are your typical science students and ones who are your typical non-science student. And the non-science students are the ones who think they should pass for just kind of coming in here and doing the work marginally. . . . putting in their time, they think they should pass

This first oppositional pair did not cause any noticeable change in Kathy's approach when dealing with students. It is conceivable that these two opposing perspectives comfortably co-existed for Kathy because they could be selectively applied to individual students. Kathy was still formulating her beliefs; yet, even teachers who have very firm beliefs about the issue of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation may contradict themselves in dealing with specific students. Kathy's second oppositional pair concerned a broader view of the teaching and learning process, and as a result had more of an effect on her development as a teacher.

Individualization versus Favoritism. Kathy's second oppositional pair was connected to her growing acceptance of tracking in secondary schools (which she saw as a means of individualizing instruction), versus the importance of equal treatment of all students with no favoritism. Kathy recognized that her chemistry classes did not represent a broad cross-section of the students. While she perceived some benefit to this arrangement, when she considered the broader picture she felt it perpetuated the "myth" that science is considered to be too difficult for some students.

It's just the nature of science. People have learned that science is hard and not everyone can do it, and somehow this myth has gotten passed along the line so these

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kids who. . . they just think that science is hard so once they get past the mandated one year of science, they don't want to take it anymore.

But Kathy also professed a belief that anyone should have the right to try anything and that there should be a mix of all levels of students in all classes.

I think anybody should at least have the opportunity to try anything. I know in my own experience in high school, there were high achievers, there were low achievers, there was just a broad mix in my chemistry and my physics class both. It was beneficial to everyone involved. The kids who understood the material could help the ones who didn't and in turn they learned it better if they were teaching the other people.

She made adjustments in her classroom techniques that were consistent with this belief. She attempted to foster cooperative learning and to establish a buddy system. In contrast, after spending eight weeks in a junior high school setting in which students were tracked, Kathy came to endorse tracking as a way of individualizing, at least for younger students. She saw it as a means by which all students could be brought to a level of competence, and not as a sorting and selecting that would eventually tell some students that they could not be successful in science.

At the same time that Kathy came to view tracking as a way of differentiating instruction, she strongly professed the belief that all students should be treated alike. In retrospect, she criticized her high school cooperating teacher for playing favorites. "I saw a lot of that going on and I'm really against favoring one student over another for any reason. You should treat them all the same." Her view of favoritism seemed to go beyond what might be obvious to a casual observer, such as the image of a "teacher's pet." She felt the cooperating teacher was wrong to allow students to take make-up exams or hand in their assignments at their own pace. "In real life it doesn't work that way." This strong feeling that everyone must meet the same standard would seem to be in direct opposition to her acceptance of modified instruction for lower functioning students. She showed that she rationalized the conflict in her beliefs when she spoke about what she had learned from her junior high cooperating teacher.

We got into different ways of reaching the kids, some of the kids. (In) the high school I was fortunate, in some ways just to have the top of the line, because you don't take chemistry unless you're college prep. But in the 6th grade, everybody takes all of the courses, so I got a chance to see how these kids started out back in the earlier grades. We talked about different techniques for reaching the different levels of classes, because they were grouped by reading levels. So we used one technique in the higher reading levels versus another technique in the lower reading levels. And whatever I planned out, or my co-op and I planned out together, we discussed how it would work better with this group, and ways to reach those kids.

She came to view the students' reading level as an important instructional factor and, therefore, did not feel she was giving some of her students a "watered-down" curriculum that would eventually limit their opportunities. She did not feel she was changing her standards for what all students should be expected to achieve.

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Without realizing it, Kathy contradicted her long-held belief that science was for everyone and that cooperative effort was the preferred form of classroom instruction. Although her second oppositional pair reflected more of Kathy’s growth as a student teacher, neither this nor her first oppositional pair represented major stumbling blocks in her development as a novice teacher. Kathy may have shown an ability to deal with these issues because they were concerned with external matters and not with her conception of herself as a teacher, nor with her ability to relate to the other people with whom she worked. On the other hand, Jodi’s oppositional pairs were more personal in nature and had a more serious impact on her ability to function effectively in the classroom.

Jodi

Jodi, a white female in her early twenties, came from a small midwestern industrial city. She was preparing to teach English and had previously been a graduate assistant in the English Department. She attended two elementary schools, each of which was large and progressive. Open classrooms, team teaching, and individualized student schedules were characteristics of the schools that Jodi found memorable. Despite Jodi’s personal history, her own classes were ability grouped. Beyond this, Jodi recalled little about her elementary school years, except to mention her fifth grade teacher who lead an after school writers’ club. This teacher prompted his students to work to their fullest potential--a quality Jodi wanted to emulate.

Jodi reported a high degree of tracking throughout her school career that caused considerable competition among the students. There was also a division along academic lines that was only crossed in extracurricular activities. At one time she tried to break out of this competitive pattern by signing up for a course in the regular track. Although it allowed her to intermingle with a different group of students, she expressed some disdain for what they were capable of doing, and for a teacher who fostered cooperative efforts in the class.

I don’t know why I got this attitude that I was smarter than she was, and everything she was telling me was ridiculous and I didn’t need to hear it. And then she tried to have us peer edit and I just knew I didn’t want any of these people editing my paper. I didn’t trust any of their judgment, I didn’t think they were smart enough to tell me.

This attitude stayed with her despite the fact that she professed to treat everyone equally. The college courses she found most meaningful used a workshop format that was, in effect, a form of peer editing. However, she saw that as having only limited application to high school.

The writing courses I had were all mostly workshop and that really helped. . . I think you can do that in high school on a limit. . . you know, with a certain group of kids and a certain type of classroom, maybe not all the time.

Friend versus Evaluator. Jodi’s first oppositional pair was not an unusual one for a student teacher. She had a conflict between her desire to be a friend to the students and her need to grade and evaluate their work. This was a conflict she should have been able to resolve easily; however, such was not the case. Jodi recognized that her two cooperating teachers had very different approaches to classroom management: one she described as very laid back with a relaxed open feeling in the classroom, and the other as a strict, firm teacher

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who wanted her students in their seats working and had a "teach from bell-to-bell" policy. Early on, Jodi expressed her own view as to what the teacherlstudent relationship should be.

I always say that I want to be more loosely organized and laid back and in my own personal life I'm probably too laid back. But in my theory, I'd like it to be more relaxed. I'd like them to be comfortable, without being disruptive. I want them to be So interested in what I'm saying that they won't want to miss any of it.

Jodi was aware from the beginning that she was going to have difficulty establishing the right kind of professional relationship with her students. In her first interview, she contrasted her experience as a university graduate assistant with what she expected to face as a high school teacher.

You have many more liberties as a college instructor. . . they call you by your first name, and you can laugh and joke, and they can swear so I'm afraid that my first experience with teaching has been too open and permissive maybe.

Jodi's professional interactions with the students became even more of a problem than she anticipated. Her cooperating teacher reported two very significant instances where Jodi shared personal anecdotes with her students and engaged in interactions that resulted in her losing their respect. At one point, the cooperating teacher had considered suggesting to Jodi that she wear her hair differently to make her appear more mature, but decided it was not her place to do so. However, these difficulties did not become a conflict until Jodi was faced with the problem of grading and evaluating her students. Jodi was adamantly opposed to using red pen on student papers or being critical of student work. Both of her cooperating teachers addressed this with her and it came up repeatedly in interviews with Jodi, and with her cooperating teacher.

One cooperating teacher insisted that Jodi conform to her procedures for grading students. But the cooperating teacher who participated in the research study gave Jodi free reign and encouraged her to try other methods. She reported Jodi was an "excellent grader and evaluator" and, when they critiqued students' oral presentations, they were almost always in agreement. She was confused by the fact that Jodi neglected to seek an alternative and, instead, returned papers ungraded.

Jodi was unable to resolve the conflict. She recognized her problem, but was reluctant to seek any help. Although she repeatedly professed a desire to learn how to evaluate students, it seemed to conflict with her desire not to be in a superordinate position to her students. Rather than transform her own thinking as a result of the influences of her two cooperating teachers, she rejected both of them outright. She was unable to find any middle ground. She felt that there was a right way, and that someone should have told her what it was. Jodi had the opportunity to learn grading and evaluation techniques from her cooperating teachers, but her solution to the problem was that she should have been given a course in how to grade and evaluate students.

Novice Learner versus Expert Instructor. Jodi found it difficult to learn from her cooperating teachers because at the same time that she professed the belief that student teaching should be a learning experience, she also believed that she should be an expert by this point in her career. In her view, her job as a student teacher was to prove that she had

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the expertise to move on to being a teacher. She did not view learning as a transformation or a growth process. What she felt she needed to learn from student teaching were the details and specifics about the people and the place. She was not prepared to make any conceptual changes and felt she would not have been living up to the expectations of the program if she had had to ask for help. She expressed both sides of this conflict in an exchange from her first interview. When asked about where she would go to get help, she responded that she would confer with the friends with whom she had been a teaching assistant, and would spend time in the English Library accessing information from the CD ROM Database. Even when it was suggested to her, she did not see her cooperating teachers as a legitimate source for her professional growth.

I’m going to ask them anything. No question at this point is too stupid. I’m going to ask them where the bathroom is again, when can I have coffee, when can’t I. . . As far as lessons, I’m almost afraid to ask them because part of this should be for me to make up my own, and I just don’t want them to think I’m trying to just sponge off their stuff and use them that way. So if I have a problem, or say I really don’t know what to for this section - what did you do last semester? or What have you ever done? I’m sure that I will be asking them those questions. But I do want to try to get as much of my own materials as possible.

Jodi rarely sought help from her cooperating teachers. She asked very few questions and interacted rarely. She found criticism difficult to take and made herself unavailable to meet with the cooperating teachers. She perceived the lack of communication as being a result of her cooperating teacher’s busy schedule. In contrast, her cooperating teachers saw it as avoidance on Jodi’s part.

In addition, the conversations between Jodi and her cooperating teachers show a pattern of gradual decrease in Jodi’s contributions. In the earliest conversations, talk was divided almost equally between Jodi and her teacher. They most often discussed content material to be taught in an upcoming class. In conversations made at the mid-point, there was more constructive criticism - as might be expected. Here, the cooperating teacher talked the most with Jodi adding only occasional explanations or excuses. By the end of the student teaching experience, Jodi was almost unresponsive. In a twenty-one page transcript, Jodi spoke seventeen times; but, only twice was her comment more than two sentences long. She had eight single-sentence comments and seven one-word responses.

At the end of her student teaching experience, Jodi considered the possibility that she could have asked for help from a number of sources, in particular her supervisor, but even that was said with very little enthusiasm or conviction. She recognized that at the beginning of her student teaching experience she had equated asking questions with some measure of personal failure.

I always got the feeling that if I would call her or I would talk to her, she would be very supportive and helpful, but I don’t know, I was reluctant to do it. I always felt like, especially with the first ten weeks, that it was a personal failure if I wasn’t meeting the demands of this horrible dragon person, and I really didn’t know what questions to ask.

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Jodi had expected to come into student teaching as a fully prepared expert, to show what she knew as a beginner, and to be directed to the sources of information for the next phase of her training as a teacher. She knew how to teach as a graduate assistant, she knew how to teach a mini-lesson in a lab setting, and she expected to magically "know" how to teach in a public school setting.

I thought it was going to be hard and challenging and very rewarding. I don't know, I thought that after working very hard it would all pay off, because the students would respond, and so on. And I thought that it would be just very. . . just a big boom! at the end. . . Some kind of Epiphany.

Discussion

The data presented here support O'Loughlin's (1991) view that belief structures of prospective teachers are not formed in neat predictable patterns. Successful completion of the student teaching experience is not necessarily an indication that the candidate has come to terms with her personal philosophy. An alternative measure of the success of the student teaching experience would be to look for the formation of what Goodman (1988) refers to as a practical philosophy of teaching, that is, one that "emerges from an individual's personal experience and is used as a guide for one's actions." While Kathy may have developed an adequate practical philosophy that could serve to guide her actions, it was not totally consistent with her beliefs. There was no indication that Jodi formed a practical philosophy of teaching of any kind.

We agree with Goodman that any examination of students' attitudes or behavior is insufficient to explain the complexity of becoming a teacher. We would add that although students may engage in reflective thought through journals and through discussions with others, such opportunities for reflection may not always be sufficient to make sense of the world of teaching. This is true not only because individual students give different meanings to the same philosophy, as Goodman suggests, but because reflection without some type of intentional probing may not reveal the student teacher's inner conflicts. As a result, these conflicts may go unresolved.

The inability to resolve oppositional pairs may or may not have long term consequences, depending on the student and the situation. As we saw with these two student teachers, just because they engaged in oppositional thinking, did not necessarily mean such contradictory thought presented a formidable barrier (i.e., in Kathy's case). Student teachers who do not seem to experience oppositional pairs require further consideration. Is their lack of conflict an advantage or a disadvantage in their growth and development? Does it indicate that they have already come to terms with their beliefs about teaching, or that they are more complacent and less inclined to be inquisitive, reflective learners? Or, does it merely indicate that our data were not sufficiently detailed on some students?

Both in terms of our theoretical formation and in terms of the practical application of these theories, we need to know more about the ways in which oppositional pairs function within the entire process of teacher learning. When assessing and reshaping our teacher training programs, we need to be cautious about reflective inquiry. Such introspection does not automatically result in meaningful understanding of student beliefs. Even when the teacher candidates in this study engaged in reflection through the use of response journals and

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semi-structured interviews, there were still misconceptions about teaching in general and student teaching in particular. Correlating practices to beliefs is a complex endeavor in which conflicts and mismatches can go unrealized and have a significant impact on the success of a novice teacher.

Program administrators need to consider how the teacher education program affects the development of personal beliefs about teaching. In what way are early field experiences a help or a hindrance as the prospective teacher is beginning to develop the ability to examine, question, and modify beliefs? What improvements can be made to student teaching programs so that they will (a) promote reflective practice and (b) attend to the reconcilation of personal beliefs as a critical part of the reflective process?

Student teaching supervisors need to be alert for instances of philosophical conflict and to determine what they can do to assist student teachers in resolving these conflicts. It is likely that cooperating teachers, because of their daily close contact with the teacher candidates, have the greatest potential to become aware of any hidden conflicts. However, they may not even be cognizant of the student teachers’ overt beliefs if they are primarily concerned with the mechanics of day-to-day classroom life.

Finally, student teachers need a more realistic expectation of what they are apt to experience as they grow as professionals. Conflict in personal beliefs need not be seen as a barrier to successful student teaching. Conflict can be utilized as an impetus to further professional growth. However, more knowledge surrounding student teachers’ beliefs, professional learning, and teaching practice is essential.

References

Bird, T., Anderson, L. M., Sullivan, B. A., & Swidler, S. A. (1993). Pedagogical balancing acts: Attempts to influence prospective teachers’ beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education, 9, 253-267.

Calderhead, J., & Robson, M. (1991). Images of teaching: Student teachers’ early conceptions of classroom practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 7( l), 1-8.

Clift, R. T., Houston, W. R. & Pugach, M. C. (1990). Encouraging refectivepractice in education: An analysis of issues and program. New York: Teachers College Press.

Clift, R. T., Meng, L., & Eggerding, S. (1994). Mixed messages in learning to teach English. Teaching and Teacher Education, 10, 265-279.

Copeland, W. D., Birmingham, C., de la Cruz, E., & Lewin, B. (1993). The reflective practitioner in teaching: Toward a research agenda. Teaching and Teacher Education, 9, 347-360.

Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine.

Gomez, M. L., & Stoddard, T. L. (1992). Personal perspectives and learning to teach writing. In R. T. Clift & C. M. Evertson (Eds.) Focal points: Qualitative inquiries into teaching and teacher education (pp. 39-63). Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Teacher Education.

Goodman, J . (1988). Constructing a practical philosophy of teaching: A study of preservice teachers professional perspectives. Teaching and Teacher Education, 4(2), 121-137.

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O’Loughlin, M. (1991, April). Undergraduate and graduate student teachers ’ developing understandings of teaching and learning: Report of a one-year journal. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago.

Educational Review, 57( 1) , 23-48. Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (1987). Teaching student teachers to reflect. Harvard

Robert A. Wiggins is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Elementary Education in the Department of Cumculum, Instruction and Leadership at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

Rend T. Clift is Associate Professor in Curriculum and Instruction and Executive Director of The Council on Teacher Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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