Approaches for Increasing and Improving Pre-service Teacher Competence, Confidence, and Effectiveness in the Teaching and Learning of Geography
Date
2010
Authors
Rutherford, David J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education
Abstract
The lack of efforts to increase and improve pre-service teacher education efforts in geography was identified in 1994 as a serious limitation on endeavors to improve geography education in the schools of the United States (Boehm, Brierly, & Sharma, 1994 ), and this problem was echoed as recently as 2005 (Bednarz, Bockenhauer, & Walk, 2005). To help rectify this persistent problem, the purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate approaches for increasing and improving pre-service teacher competence, confidence, and effectiveness in the teaching and learning of geography. Research methods include ( 1) an exploratory survey of nationwide efforts to improve pre-service teacher education in geography, and (2) an evaluation of a pre-service teacher workshop model for enhancing such education. Results indicate that: (1) the most commonly employed approaches to pre-service teacher outreach entail making short presentations in the methods courses at colleges of education and inviting/incentivizing pre-service teachers to attend Alliance professional development events; (2) although workshop programs dedicated to pre-service teachers are not commonly conducted and confront particular obstacles, they possess demonstrated effectiveness; (3) these and other approaches can have positive impacts on pre-service teachers and university faculty; and ( 4) the summary effect of all these efforts has been to reach only a small and geographically variable percentage of pre-service teachers and programs. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research and ways to improve outreach efforts.
Description
Keywords
geography, pre-service training, teacher education, teacher certification
Citation
Rutherford, D.J. (2010). Approaches for increasing and improving pre-service teacher competence, confidence, and effectiveness in the teaching and learning of geography. Research in Geographic Education, 12(2), pp. 16-33.