The Methods Course in Teacher Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Catalog description

This course will focus on the 'methods course' in teacher education. A common feature of teacher education programs in almost any setting, methods courses are those courses teacher candidates take that address how to teach. Of course, 'how to teach' is nowhere near as simple as that would sound, and even less simple is how to teach how to teach, in a way that will actually influence how candidates will teach. Students in this course will read research on methods courses, analyze many examples at Penn State and elsewhere, and inquire together about methods course design. Students will explore: · WHY have methods courses at all? Are there things to learn about how to teach that can't be learned through field experience alone? · WHAT shall the content of methods be? Are there such things as 'general methods' or must methods courses always be content-area-specific? What shall students read and come to know in a methods course? · WHO shall teach methods courses, and who shall take them? What happens when practitioners teach methods, as opposed to university faculty? Or when we co-teach? · WHEN shall methods courses occur in the timespan of a teacher preparation program? Must they be concurrent with field experience, or should they precede it? What prerequisite knowledge or experiences matter for the success of a methods course? · WHERE shall methods courses be taught? On site in a school? At the university? Somewhere else? What about online? · HOW shall methods be taught? What course activities actually help teacher candidates learn to teach? What are appropriate uses of readings? Peer teaching? Classroom inquiry? By the end of the course, students will have articulated research-based answers to these questions. In addition, students will be able to apply the available research to existing methods courses in their own current and/or future context(s).