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Raising the Visibility of Asia in Teacher Preparation. Professor Tim Keirn Departments of History and Liberal Studies California State University Long Beach timkeirn@csulb.edu Professor Kim Trimble Department of Teacher Education California State University Dominguez Hills
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Raising the Visibility of Asia in Teacher Preparation Professor Tim Keirn Departments of History and Liberal Studies California State University Long Beach timkeirn@csulb.edu Professor Kim Trimble Department of Teacher Education California State University Dominguez Hills ktrimble @csudh.edu
Origins and Objectives of the Pilot Project at CSULB • Widen and deepen elementary and secondary student knowledge about Asia • An alternative model to in-service professional development with K-12 teachers • Professional development with teacher educators and through them pre-service teachers • Cost-benefit analysis
Origins and Objectives of the Pilot Project at CSULB (cont.) • K-12 teacher preparation programs fail to integrate pre-service ‘content’ and ‘pedagogic’ knowledge • Deficiencies in pre-service understanding and recognition of Asia are not addressed in teacher education programs • Teacher educators (like the students they teach) often have little academic preparation in Asian studies
Origins and Objectives of the Pilot Project at CSULB (cont.) • Bridging the content and pedagogic divide with a focus upon Asia • CSULB is well situated for this work • Integrated Teacher Education Program for elementary education • Secondary credentials programs are housed in the disciplines as opposed to the College of Education • Large CSU system facilitates collaboration not only across departments but institutions as well • The Single SubjectHistory/Social Science Program
The Pilot Project • Adapting the ‘Freeman Model’ of K-12 professional development to the needs of teacher educators • The structure of the pilot • 6 day intensive summer seminar with scholarly presentations and pre-meeting readings • Study trips to Asia • Design and develop curriculum and instructional materials (for the teacher education classroom) for the web
The Pilot Project (cont.) • Two cohorts (California and national) • The first cohort • 20 teacher educators from nine universities • Asia and history education with particular focus upon the (new) world history • Themes based on needs assessment of K-12 standards • Pedagogic focus upon recent scholarship in history learning and cognition • K-12 students must not only be ‘taught Asia’ but more importantly ‘learn and retain Asia’
The Pilot Project (cont.) • The template for the curricular projects • addresses a specified Asian historical problem or development • has a concrete conceptual and pedagogic objective that facilitates specific historical skills and habits of mind • common format that includes: • introduction and extensive historical context • scholarly bibliography and guide to relevant primary materials • schedule of instructor and pre-service teacher inputs • all materials in pdf • summative assessment to evaluate pre-service performance
The Pilot Project (cont.) • Each project is piloted during the spring semester • contains samples and an evaluation of pre-service student work • reflection and discussion of the revisions implemented based on the evaluation of student work • after evaluation and revision, published to the website in June
The Pilot Project (cont.) • The breadth and scope of the 20 curricular projects • introductory history education courses • capstone courses in subject matter preparation programs • history teaching methodology courses • graduate courses in curriculum and instruction • The second cohort will be national in representation with a language arts track
Aims of the Project • To meet the general goals of Freeman projects as they pertain to K-12 educators, but to do so more efficiently by focusing efforts at the ‘source’ (i.e. teacher preparation) • To raise the visibility of Asia in teacher education in meaningful ways • Not only facilitating pre-service recognition and understanding of Asia, but aligning this knowledge with the formation of historical skills and habits of mind, and the pedagogic means to implement it in grade-appropriate settings
Aims of the Project (cont.) • To create sustained and lifelong professional interest in Asia amongst teacher educators • To disseminate the achievements of the project via • the project website • the ‘train the trainers’ format of the project • through supported collaboration across institutions • through national conference presentations • through the creation of a permanent center for Asia in Teacher Preparation
Challenges of Preparing Teachers • Content vs. disciplinary Knowledge • Orientalist vs. globalist view of Asia • Context of state curricular standards
Content vs. Disciplinary Knowledge • Learning about Asia • Stand-alone Asian courses • Isolated Asian units in existing courses • Asia as a vehicle for deepening understanding of key social studies concepts, skills, interrelationships • ex. migration, trade, cultural diffusion, political change
Orientalist vs. Globalist View of Asia • “Exotic” Asia • Samurai, geishas, & footbinding • Focus on the historical • Medieval China & Japan • Contextualize in European & American colonialism • Marco Polo, Admiral Perry, the Raj
Role of State Standards • Omnipresent ? • In 48 of 50 States • Omnipotent ? • Determine Textbook Content • Mandate What is Tested • Control In-School Curriculum • Next Steps ?