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Last year we began what we call Fabulous Friday, in which we attempt to integrate the day in the way a teacher would have an integrated day in a classroom, helping the student teachers understand that all the subject areas are related and that we’re trying to teach the whole child rather than discrete subjects. That’s the goal of the program as I see it. —Joe Rafter, New York University preservice faculty member In the previous chapter we identified integration, inquiry, and community as central themes of social constructivism. Here we will focus on the first theme, exploring in detail how to integrate a preservice program along social constructivist lines. Similar discussion of the other themes will follow in subsequent chapters. Among the integrative strategies we will consider here are: developing a shared philosophy, forming a collaborative faculty team, integrating campus courses, and connecting the campus program with the practicum. Integration in a preservice program has many benefits from a social constructivist point of view. Student teachers learn to connect theory and practice ; they see links between various dimensions of life and learning: the cognitive and the social, the academic and the personal, the professional and the everyday; and they develop a broad approach to teaching rather than acquiring disconnected pieces of knowledge and skill. Darling-Hammond and Macdonald (2000) in their study of the Bank Street preservice program report that a graduate of the program appreciated “the consistency of her experience in courses, advisement, and field experiences.”The thorough grounding in childcentered pedagogy she received in this way now enables her to effectively evaluate individual students’ learning, accommodate their differing needs, and support their growth (pp. 9–10). THREE EXAMPLES OF INTEGRATED PROGRAMS In describing the kind of integration we wish to advocate and strategies for achieving it, we will draw examples from three innovative preservice programs 27 CHAPTER 2 Creating an Integrated Preservice Program that we regard as social constructivist and that pay particular attention to integration . We will begin with a brief overview of the programs, providing more detail in later sections. It should be noted that these programs have many features in addition to the ones reviewed here: in particular, like all social constructivist programs, they place a heavy emphasis on inquiry and community as well as integration. Because these programs actually exist, they show that integration in preservice education is feasible. However, a high level of integration is often difficult to achieve and may not be possible in all circumstances. At the end of the chapter we will describe some of the challenges to integration encountered even by these strong programs. Bank Street’s Elementary Master’s Program The elementary preservice master’s program at Bank Street College of Education in New York City takes up to 4 years to complete, including part-time study, but the main field-experience year is done full-time, and integration of the program is most evident during this year. Usually about 40 student teachers are enrolled in the field-experience year, whether in early childhood education , childhood education, or a combination of the two. During this year students take a number of core courses and are in schools 3 days a week, in 3 or 4 successive placements. According to Nancy Gropper, director of the program, a key factor in achieving integration is the advisory program. Each faculty member advises 5 to 7 student teachers, meeting weekly with them in a group session or “conference group” and individually on other occasions both on campus and in their practicum schools. While practice teaching is the central topic of the conference group meetings, advisors work hard to help the students understand the Bank Street general philosophy and apply it in their teaching. A second means of integrating the program is by appointing faculty who share the program philosophy: Gil Schmerler, who taught for some years in the elementary preservice program, stressed the role of the hiring process in ensuring consistency of outlook among faculty. Finally, considerable attention is given to relating the various courses to one another and ensuring consistency among different sections of the same course. NYU’s Undergraduate Program in Childhood Education New York University’s B.S. in childhood education is a 4-year, full-time undergraduate program with about 40 candidates in each of the third and fourth years. In her interview, Judith McVarish referred to it as an “integrated cohort program.” The program in its present form was established in fall 2000, so...

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