Teacher educators interested in empowering future teachers to teach for social justice are being invited to apply to the Transformative Teacher-Educator Program (TTEP).
“I developed the fellowship to provide a space and opportunity for teacher educators to come together to really think about how we need to change teacher education to better empower future teachers to teach for social justice,” said Kira Baker-Doyle, the Rosemary and Walter Blankley associate professor of education at Arcadia University, TTEP director and author of “Transformative Teachers: Teacher Leadership and Learning in a Connected World” and “The Networked Teacher: How New Teachers Build Social Networks for Professional Support.”
“Today, pre-service teachers are taught how to teach, and what to teach, yet they are rarely taught how to connect, organize, and build the social supports they need to teach innovatively and seek equity for their students,” she said. “So, the program aims to build that strand into teacher education on the whole.”
While there are many pathways to change teacher preparation, Baker-Doyle added, “TTEF chooses to focus on supporting teacher educators to foster change. There are three main reasons for this focus. First, although many teacher educators do work in the field, they rarely have the opportunity to collectively examine their practice and think about how to join together to work toward change. Second, as scholars, they can use their research to tell the stories of change and evaluate the outcomes of their work. Third, there is a high potential ripple effect for this program, affecting not only pre-service teachers, but also the students they may serve in the future.”
The year-long fellowship begins with a 7-day summer institute and continues through the year with monthly virtual check-ins. The program concludes with the publication of an edited volume of research completed through the program. Fellows will be offered opportunities to collaborate with others on related research as well.
The institute, taking place at Arcadia University in Philadelphia from July 7 through July 14 will feature workshops on such topics as game design in education, annotating the web for social justice, makerspaces as learning environments, teaching in the open, sustaining pre-service teachers of color through the pipeline, “hacking” the curriculum, connected learning in teacher education and storytelling as advocacy.
For more information about the summer institute and to apply for the fellowship, visit transformativeteachered.com.
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